editorial ania b. lian asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 e1 asiacall online journal volume 9, 2014 editorial volume 9 of the asiacall online journal (acoj) marks a turning point in the life of the journal after a period of inactivity resulting from a re-structure of the asiacall organisation. we look forward to renewing our mission of providing high quality research and other publications. we now have a new website (http://asiacall.info/acoj) and a new set of editorial policies to ensure publications of the highest quality. we also have instituted an advisory board for the journal consisting of distinguished academics all with significant editorial experience. they will help guide the journal forward into the future. appointed members of the advisory board are:  associate professor dr. saadiyah darus, universiti kebangsaan malaysia  professor dr. kuo, feng-lan, national changhua university of education, taiwan  professor dr. wuri soedjatmiko, universitas katolik widya mandala, indonesia  professor emeritus dr. roland d. sussex, oam, university of queensland, australia  associate professor dr. chatchai trakulrungsi, rangsit university, thailand also on the advisory board are two ex-officio members:  chair: professor dr. andrew lian, suranaree university of technology, thailand; ho chi minh city open university, vietnam; university of canberra, australia (as president of asiacall)  dr. ania b. lian, charles darwin university, australia (as chief editor) of course, we continue to have our editorial board which we look forward to enlarging. as of the date of writing of this editorial, the asiacall online journal volume 9, 2014 contains three research articles. this number will increase with time. our policy is to welcome articles and other contributions at any time of the year. we will seek to publish them in the order that they are approved within eight weeks of submission subject, of course, to our editorial/reviewing policy. please note that the asiacall online journal does not charge a publication fee. let me issue a very warm invitation to researchers and call enthusiasts everywhere to submit articles and other relevant contributions. i look forward to working with you in furthering the mission of all those with an interest in call and, of course, the interests of asiacallers in particular. dr. ania lian chief editor of the asiacall online journal vice-president of asiacall (research & innovation) asiacall online journal received: 03/01/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 05/02/2021 vol. 12, no. 3, 2021 accepted: 05/03/2021 pp. 22-27 online: 07/03/2021 the integration of 21st century skill and virtual learning with covid-19 hiroyuki obari1,* 1 aoyama gakuin university *email: obari119@gmail.com abstract trilling and fadel emphasized the importance of 21st-century skills early in 2000. 3rs and 7cs were particularly important, but now 8cs should be added ‘coexistence with ai.’ 8cs should be emphasized in our pedagogy whatever subject we teach for 21st-century education. an empirical investigation was carried out from may 2020 to december 2020, targeting undergraduates in tokyo. from the first semester of 2020, all courses were taught online with a zoom. about 30% of students enrolled in all classes were satisfied with virtual online learning; however, 30% of students were unsatisfied with virtual online learning. the second semester we carried out the experiment to promote the virtual exchange program with the national university of singapore (nus) for eight weeks. how the students learned under covid-19 will be explained more in detail. keywords: 21st-century skills, flipped learning, peereval, zoom, virtual language exchange. 1. introduction trilling and fadel (2009) emphasized the importance of 21st-century skills early in 2000. 3rs and 7cs were particularly important (figure 1), but now 8cs should be added ‘coexistence with ai.’ 8cs should be emphasized in our pedagogy whatever subject we teach for 21st-century education. according to the prediction of kurzweil, ai is exponentially now advancing to approach singularity in 2045（kurzweil, 2005） . in the article of the future employment, about 48 percent of the present type of job will be replaced by ai-related jobs （frey & osborne, 2013）. harari (harari, 2018), in his book, commented, "humankind is likely to be divided into two main camps-those in favor of giving ai significantly authority, and those opposed to it.” harari predicted the people would be divided into two camps, one who could use ai and the other will be used by ai. therefore, in addition to the 21st centuryskills (trilling & fadel, 2009), 8cs will be playing an essential role in the pedagogy of english education. based on this concept, this article was written to promote global education even during the covid-19. these days, due to covid-19, students have been engaged in virtual learning through the integration of the videoconferencing software program zoom for all classes since 2020 april. the first case study was carried out from may to august 2020 under covid-19 using virtual learning with zoom, facebook, line, messenger, course power, moodle, and other online materials. the students engaged in virtual learning were discussed by showing their advantages and disadvantages from student feedback on a questionnaire. the second case study was carried out from october 2020 to november 2020 for about eight weeks, emphasizing exchange programs with the national university of singapore (nus). my 19 seminar students and 19 nus students of the japanese class started the join seminar early in october and finished up on november 10th, every tuesday from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm, we had an online virtual seminar with a zoom and a final presentation. figure 1: 21st century skills: 3rs and 7cs mailto:obari119@gmail.com acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3 ; 2021 23 2. the first case study with covid-19 all universities in japan decided to teach all classes using virtual learning environments with zoom, teams, webex, and other learning tools, from may to august 2020. the author of this study taught 10 classes at three universities, mainly with zoom and facebook. this section will describe how the students struggled with virtual learning and show both its advantages and disadvantages from student feedback on a questionnaire. 2.1 training procedure (1) all students at three universities had their english lessons using real-time virtual learning with zoom and facebook. the learning materials were uploaded on facebook in advance. (2) students engaged in real-time learning with zoom, listened to the author's mini-lectures and participated in breakout sessions with more active discussions about the contents. (3) students prepared powerpoint slides about their assigned work and delivered several presentations in front of all the students. however, at times they joined breakout sessions in a group of 4 students and gave their presentations with peer assessment using peereval software on smartphones. (4) flipped learning was conducted all through the semester, actively engaged in presentations and discussions about the contents assigned in advance. (5) students took the online atr call brix test several times. (6) students learned presentation skills by downloading the successful presentation video contents by oxford university press. each unit consisted of 8 units containing 3-minute video contents. (7) professor weakley from the us was invited as a guest lecturer several times and engaged in the virtual teaching worldviews, global leadership, and cross-cultural iq. he also actively took part in the breakout sessions and interacted with many students. sometimes his students joined the virtual classroom from the u.s.a. and enjoyed discussing the cross-cultural differences between japanese values and christian-oriented values. these sessions were most important for students to learn the worldviews. (8) several lectures from oxford university professors about scientific realism and worldviews were given, and the students prepared powerpoint slides with more presentations and discussions using zoom breakout sessions. 2.2 presentation assessment with peereval (1) students delivered 5-10-minute english presentations about the assigned tasks with powerpoint slides. (2) all students had their presentations evaluated by their peers using the peereval software on a smartphone, with six items being assessed about presentation skills. after each presentation, immediate feedback was provided with comments about how to improve his or her presentation skills (figures 2). (3) students were highly engaged in learning the contents of the cross-cultural issues and worldview studies, including the advancement of ai. figure 2: assessment with a smartphone acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3 ; 2021 24 2.3 feedback on the student questionnaire (1) did you enjoy the zoom lesson? (n=257) 40% enjoyed the zoom lesson. 38% were neutral. 22% did not like the zoom lesson. (2) was the lesson with zoom effective? (n=54) a. 74% agreed. b. 24% neutral. c. 2% disagreed. (3) what kind of lesson do you like best? (n=54) a. face to face lesson: 48% b. hybrid lesson: 35% c. lesson with zoom: 9% d. video-on-demand: 8% people like face-to-face lessons best, and the second best is hybrid lessons. the virtual lesson only with zoom is not so popular among students. (4) did the visiting professor’s lectures change your worldviews and help you to improve your english proficiency? (n=54) a. 91 % of students agreed. b. 9% did not agree. (5) was the assessment software ‘peereval’ effective in checking your presentation performance? (n=54) a. 69% agreed. b. 26% neutral. c. 5% disagreed. (6) was the virtual presentation effective in learning english? (n=51) a. 96% agreed. b. 2% neutral. c. 2% disagreed. 2.3 discussions virtual online zoom lessons were carried out for the first term in all classes. according to the questionnaire (1) and (2), only 40% enjoyed the zoom lesson, and 74% of students felt the lesson effective in learning english. the questionnaire (3) indicated that students generally like face-to-face lessons (48%), hybrid lessons (35%), and zoom lessons (9%). however, visiting the professor's zoom lecture helped students to change their worldviews and improve english proficiency. in the presentation, the assessment software was used, and students felt it useful to check their presentation performance (69%), and 96% agreed that even virtual presentation was effective in learning english. 3. the second case study with covid-19 -online virtual seminar the second case study was carried out from october 2020 to november 2020 for about eight weeks, emphasizing virtual exchange programs with the national university of singapore (nus). my seminar students and 19 nus students of japanese class started the online virtual joint seminar early in october and finished up on november 10th, every tuesday night from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm, we had an online virtual seminar with a zoom and a final presentation on november 10th, 2020. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3 ; 2021 25 3.1 joint seminar between agu and nus joint seminars between agu obari seminar and nus japanese class had been going on for about ten years due to the cooperation with nus japanese language teachers. we usually spent about ten days visiting apec, nec, microsoft, and other famous sightseeing spots with nus students' help. we hold a joint seminar for several days as a language exchange program. my seminar students prepared the presentations about japanese culture and other interesting topics in english and gave a presentation as a group of 4 students. in contrast, nus students of japanese classes gave a presentation about various topics related to issues in singapore in japanese with discussion and q and a. this program's uniqueness was to visit very famous and historical places with a guide of nus students as a group of 6 or 7 students, mixed agu and nus students. this way, both agu and nus students developed a good friendship stimulating each other. we often attended the sunday service at the st. andrew church near our hotel to understand the cultural and religious worldviews by listening to singapore english. 3.2 virtual online joint seminar this year due to the covid-19, we decided to go ahead to have an online virtual exchange between my 19 agu seminar students and 19 nus students of japanese class under professor izumi walker's guidance, vice-director of foreign language centre at nus. we divided 38 students into five groups where we did some joint research with zoom for seven weeks and held a joint presentation seminar on november 10th, 2020 (figure 3). the first part of the group presentation was the summary of the joint research with powerpoint slides, mainly nus students presented, on the other hand, the second part of the group presentation was given only by japanese students in english. this way, nus students could study advanced japanese, and agu japanese students could improve their english presentation skills. both groups could take advantage of language and cultural exchange through this join seminar and made some positive comments from their reflections of 8 weeks seminar (figure 4). figure 3: agu and nus regular joint seminar with the zoom figure 4: online virtual join seminar between nus and agu on november 10, 2020 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3 ; 2021 26 3.3 discussions through this virtual online exchange between agu and nus, both students had been highly engaged in the discussion and presentations for eight weeks (figure 5). they enjoyed the last day joint presentation on november 10th, 2020. even though we are now facing covid-19, we could still have positive and lovely intercultural experiences. one important thing about the join seminar is to have a weekly meeting to have the last joint presentation conference. this way, the international exchange could be more effective than just holding a one-day exchange. last october, we had one-day joint conference only after exchanging the self-introduction and student-based exchange using line between nus and another japanese private university. compared with one-shot virtual meeting altogether between nus and japanese private universities, 90 minutes meeting for eight weeks could make both nus and agu feel more intimate and active learning engagement even in the virtual learning environments. figure 5: agu and nus joint presentation with the zoom 4. conclusions in case study 1, under the influence of covid-19, 60% of the students may not have liked the zoom lesson, but 74% of the students felt it was effective and they could still improve their presentation skills. most of the students liked taking part in face-to-face lessons, although hybrid lessons might be preferred. at times it might be easier for us to invite visiting scholars during virtual lessons, just as in case study 2, as the foreign lecturer greatly influenced the students in improving their english proficiency and becoming more open-minded. to some extent, future lessons could be easily integrated with ai and virtual online lessons. in case study 2, with the covid-19, we could still have a virtual joint seminar between agu and nus stimulating each side. it would make it a lot easier to have a sort of exchange program with the zoom than in person. in the future advanced virtual exchange technologies could make more contributions as if we were meeting each other in person due to the development of mixed reality or augmented reality using google glasses or whatever. this is an ongoing research project using virtual online teaching 100% of the time. the results of the two case studies suggest that integrating blended learning along with 21st-century skills, including hybrid learning with zoom virtual classroom teaching, may be an effective way to improve the english proficiency of native japanese undergraduates. references carl benedikt frey & michael a. osborne (2013). the future of employment: how susceptible are jobs to computerization? retrieved:/users/michaelosborne/documents/research/future_of_employment_paper/old/.texpadtmp/future _of_employment_18.dvi (ox.ac.uk) trilling, b., & fadel, c. (2009). 21st century skills: learning for life in our times. san francisco, ca: john wiley & sons. ray kurzweil. (2005). the singularity is near: when humans transcend biology. abridged japanese edition arranged with ray kurzweil c/o loretta barrett books inc., new york yuval noah harari (2018). 21 lessons for the 21st century, london: jonathan cape. https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/the_future_of_employment.pdf https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/the_future_of_employment.pdf acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3 ; 2021 27 acknowledgments soken grant supported this work (2018~2021), jsps kakenhi, grant in aid for scientific research (c), 20192022. grant number: 19k00798, soken project 2018~2021. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, serge gabarre and cécile gabarre 39 using flash games to stimulate cooperative communication serge gabarre serge@fbmk.upm.edu.my universiti putra malaysia, malaysia cécile gabarre cecile@fbmk.upm.edu.my universiti putra malaysia, malaysia abstract the benefits of using games in the language class are numerous (godwin-jones, 2005). playing computer games have become a popular form of relaxation for many learners (yang, 2001). can this phenomenon be utilized to support foreign language teaching at the tertiary level? in this research, a group of 15 malaysian students were asked to solve a puzzle in a flash game. their task was simple: exit from a virtual room without a door. the computer/language lab used for this task was the sanako lab 300. each learner had access to a single computer as well as a microphone and a headphone. the class had been divided into three groups of four students each and one group of three. in order to create an information gap task, four different audio instructions were available to each group. each member of a group was required to communicate with the other three groups in order to complete the task. keywords: second language acquisition through computer gaming data were collected through questionnaire, focused and group interviews. similar to previous research on motivation (prensky, 2003), the findings revealed that the learners were so engaged in the game that they did not realize they were applying foreign language skills which they had learned to complete the task. although in some instances, communications took place in l1, the vast majority of interactions were carried out in l2. games, therefore, have more appeal than non-recreational applications and can eliminate part of the apprehensions related to technological anxieties. nonetheless, some of the drawbacks noted by the teachers were similar to other complaints which often occur in e-learning projects (lennon & maurer, 2003). the drawbacks include complex infrastructure involved as well as the amount of time needed to prepare teaching materials. this paper explores several opportunities that may simplify the preparation of materials. bringing the students back to the university during the semester break... although the events related in this case study stem from circumstances which do not normally occur in a classroom situation, we believe that they may be reproduced in a useful context. the context of this case study is quite atypical as it does not reflect common learning conditions. our hierarchy informed us that the newly installed sanako lab 3000 would be officially opened by the university’s vice-chancellor, and at the same time asked us if we could organise a demonstration with our students. we were more than delighted to oblige, but were faced with a major difficulty. the date chosen for the ceremony fell during the semester break. from past experience, we knew that obtaining participation from our students during their holidays might prove difficult (gabarre, 2007). how could we motivate them to return to the university during the break? “why is motivation such a big problem? because all learning requires effort, and like crime, people rarely do it without a motive” (prensky m. , 2002, p. 5). current literature suggesting that gaming can stimulate motivation (barab, thomas, dodge, carteaux, & tuzun, 2005; godwin-jones, 2005; yang, 2001) prompted us to use such an approach. like gee, we believe that games can bring “deep pleasure” (2005, p. 211) to the learning process. second year students were contacted, informed of the situation and invited to participate in the official opening. they were aware that there would be an activity related to learning french as a foreign language and that a computer game file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/serge@fbmk.upm.edu.my file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/cecile@fbmk.upm.edu.my asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, serge gabarre and cécile gabarre 40 would be involved. from a group of 19 learners, 15 accepted the invitation and took part in the activity. the remaining 4 were either unreachable or were unable to return to the campus on the specified date. ...to find a hidden door... we decided to design an activity that would first of all be entertaining for the learners and at the same time would showcase the it and audio features of the sanako lab 3000. this lab is equipped with 28 internet capable computers. one of the most interesting features is that the stations can be grouped together for various activities through a peer discussion function as each computer is equipped with individual headsets and microphones. as researched previously (rieber l. p., 2002), we believed that by hinting rather than giving complete instructions, learners would learn more from this activity. by creating an information gap, they would also need to communicate among themselves in order to solve a puzzle. the game selected for this activity comes from the french web site www.jeuxvideo-flash.com. it is a small flash game called “la pièce”, which translates into “the room”. in this game, the player needs to find the exit to a room which has no visible door. by navigating between the four walls, visible clues are obtained that change the overall aspect of the room. objects are collected, which when pieced together with items in the scenery reveal more possibilities. eventually, a door appears that allows for exit and thus ends the game. the game itself is quite simple, and can last less than five minutes when one has all the required information. on the other hand, if one needs to proceed by trial and error, the game is quite challenging and could last around one hour. it is this challenge that we intended to use as a form of motivation (gee, 2003). the students were divided into three groups of four participants and one group of three. verbal instruction on how to complete the game was given to each “player” through incorporated audio files. this is where the information gap was created as all participants were only given partial instructions. since there are four different audio instructions, we can label each learner from n1 to n4 according to the message they had access to in the sequence. each learner was required to first listen to the message available on his station, understand it and then explain it to the other three members of his group. through collaborative communication, the group was thus expected to complete the task. apart from visual observations, the listen-in feature of the lab was used to monitor the groups’ conversations during the activity. due to the unavailability of recording software, screen activity and voice were not recorded as in other research (wideman, owston, brown, kushniruk, ho, & pitts, 2007) but only manually noted from observations. following the in-class collaborative task, qualitative data pertaining to the learners’ perceptions was collected through focused interviews. ...through forced and spontaneous collaboration... each group was allocated one table with four computers arranged in a cross shape. all communication was supposed to occur within the peer discussion of the group; that is to say, through the microphones and the headphones. the vast majority of learners did not take the necessary time to read the general instructions that were given on the web page (figure 1), and straight away, in a true gamers spirit, started clicking into the game itself (figure 2). asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, serge gabarre and cécile gabarre 41 figure 1 figure 2 it is only after giving the class a verbal announcement through the lab’s “teacher to all” feature that they read the instructions (figure 3), listened to their individual audio message and glanced over the visual clues (figure 4). in each group, the learners who were given the first of the four audio messages, the n1’s, were at a clear advantage, whereas the others had instructions which at that time could not be exploited. it is therefore not surprising that the n1 learners were able to get a lead in the game. as requested they needed to give the instructions to the other members of the group. this was done in several ways. some listened to the message and tried to repeat it verbatim to the others. others chose a faster approach and paraphrased what they believed to have understood. a minority stood up, walked around to their friends’ stations and pointed on the screen to the actions that needed to be done. the “rules” of the game was repeated to those who were on the move. for most groups, the first phase of the game was completed relatively rapidly compared to the following ones. this can be explained by the fact that the n2, n3 and n4 learners had already tried their hands on the task, while the n1’s were deciphering the first message. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, serge gabarre and cécile gabarre 42 figure 3 figure 4 the second phase, where the n2 had the advantage, revealed once more a mixture of learners who opted for the paraphrasing technique while others simply repeated the message they heard. this stage proved slightly trickier than the first one with some group struggling to reach the third part of the game. as all learners had listened to their individual message, n3 and n4 learners where able to hint at things that were to come at a later time in the puzzle, thus giving invaluable clues. it is with joy and cheers that the first group announced that one of its members had finished the game. subsequently, collaborative communication within the group enabled all of its members to virtually exit the room. while most groups had managed to finish the game, some less organised ones where still struggling to complete it. those from the groups that had already finished spontaneously helped the others to reach the end of the game. in these cases, communication took place outside of the peer group, without using the equipment of the language lab. it was believed that since the instructions were given in a sequential order the role of group leader would have also followed the n1, n2, n3 and n4 sequence. interestingly, this was however not the case. one, and in some cases two leaders, always appeared in each group. what characterises them from the other members? their number in the sequence seems irrelevant. on the other hand, it appears that it is their competency with communication skills and their it fluency that gave them their advantage. in the first phases of the game l1 and l2 were both used, but after a brief general reminder, communications in l2 became the norm. it was later revealed in the interviews, that some learners became too frustrated from being stuck in the game, and thus from time to time reverted to using their l1. in these cases, the game took precedence over the language activity. ...proved to be quite successful... this activity was undeniably a success, but why did it work so well? why is it that the large majority of learners chose to return to the university during their semester break? from previous experiences, it appeared extremely difficult for students to be involved in online learning activities during their holidays (gabarre, 2007). most of the time, they explained their non-participation with justifications of prior engagements such as work, travelling, or visiting friends and displayed various inhibitions. why were the results different in this case? one of the reasons resides in the different contexts. in our previous asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, serge gabarre and cécile gabarre 43 experiment, when we asked the students to participate in the online modules during the semester break we were not yet their lecturers. at that time, the learning contract had not yet been established between the class and ourselves. it was therefore more difficult to seek their participation. after one year of teaching, the situation was relatively different. when their lecturers requested the presence of the students in class, close to 80% of the learners returned even though some of them live a few hundred kilometres away. it appears that the different learning situation was the main reason that enabled the students return. this reason alone however does not justify the success and the enthusiasm of this activity. once the learners started looking for the exit to the room, they were no longer just applying their communication skills. they were immersed in a situation that was different from their usual learning environment. this as stated by conrad & donaldson (2004) is one of the necessary criteria for the success of online activities. “winning” the game became their utmost goal, and speaking french became secondary. why did this goal take precedence over the rest? after all, there was no prize for finding the door other than the satisfaction of completing the game. one could have just as easily have closed the program and the result would have been the same. rather it appears that “games provide an immensely compelling and rewarding experience” to the players from the “generation.com”, from which our learners are issued (garris, ahlers, & driskell, 2002, p. 442). being immersed in virtual worlds and playing games brings a feeling of contentment. furthermore, gredler states that “educational games and simulations are experiential exercises that transport learners to another world. there they apply their knowledge, skills, and strategies in the execution of their assigned roles” (2004, p. 571). often students are not motivated by learning, and would rather spend their times on computer games which keeps them “interested, competitive, cooperative, results-oriented, actively seeking information and solutions” (prensky m. , 2003, p. 1). it is therefore necessary to try to keep the positive aspects of gaming and put them in the learning process. this is the main challenge of bringing games in the classroom. it has been done successfully with complex language learning games (johnson, vilhjalmsson, & marsella, 2005), yet our case was different as it implicated using a game which was not originally designed for language learning. previous research suggests that complex games are more beneficial in engaging the learning process (prensky m. , 2005). in our case, the time constraint of just one cession of less than 30 minutes did not give us the opportunity to experiment with a more complex game. ...and useful for the learners. by taking part in this short game, the learners improved their verbal skills. the use of the sanoko language lab enabled us to partially isolate the learners from one another. by doing so, we were able to reduce the reliance on non-verbal communication to transmit information. indeed, it is often quite possible to give or understand instructions pertaining to spatial movements by relying solely on nonverbal signs. with the lab, just like with a phone conversation, the exchanges needed to focus on verbal communication to convey the required message. due to the nature of the game, a great part of the lexicon used was related to moving through space and interacting with objects. for most of the learners, this implicated applying information that had already been learned in class with new one which originated from the game. from interviews that were carried out one semester after the activity took place, it appeared evident that long term memory had been stimulated through the gaming simulation. the learning process is enhanced by experiences which are subsequently stored in long-term memory before being used for solving problems in new situations (gee, 2008). some learners still remembered the various steps needed to exit the room and moreover were able to give precise instructions in l2. one drawback in this activity which is not unlike what has been suggested by reese & wells (2007) is the fact that the less talkative students are often dwarfed by the more open and confident ones. although it is not uncommon to have different levels of communication skills in a language classroom, it can sometimes be used to an advantage. in our case study, the group leaders who, as mentioned above, were more fluent in french required information that was only held by the quiet students. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, serge gabarre and cécile gabarre 44 because of this information gap, the better students were required to query the quieter ones in order to advance in the game. this exchange was not only beneficial to all students but also participated in the community building effort. after all, collaborative learning can only be achieved from a learning community (palloff & pratt, 2005). playing the game through an online media with the computer lab enhanced the ties that existed in the face to face community. as is often the case with successful experiments in using games in a learning situation, students expressed their satisfaction from playing it (schwabe & göth, 2005). as required from the objectives set in this experiment, the learning activity was entertaining for the students and also demonstrated the different features of the sanako lab 3000. creating such an activity: the technical side... incorporating a flash game in a learning activity is not as complicated as one may think. the first step is to find an activity that appears suitable for the language classroom. some of the criteria that were important to us in the selection of the activity included: a task that could be carried out in about 20 minutes, where the new lexica would not be overwhelming and where an information gap could be created to induce collaborative communication. after browsing through popular search engines we found the www.jeuxvideo-flash.com web site. it is at this address that we found “la pièce” to be a suitable candidate. we then had several options regarding using this flash game. the easiest possibility would have been to send the learners directly on the web site. there was however a major inconvenient with this solution. how could we be completely sure that the internet network connection would be working at the proposed time and date of the official opening? another uncontrollable factor rested in the possibility of the web site changing its content. in order to reduce technical uncertainties, we decided to offer the game in an off-line format. so how is it technically feasible to host a flash game on a local computer? very simply by first visiting the web site where the game is available and then by looking for the relevant flash file in the internet temporary folder. this folder stores all items that were downloaded by the browser while viewing the web pages. when using microsoft internet explorer 6 under windows xp, this folder is generally located in a location such as c:\documents and settings\default\local settings\temporary internet files 1 . compiled flash files carry the swf extension. it is therefore quite feasible to locate the required file by searching through the location mentioned above. sorting the files by date and time of access can help narrow the search. the flash file can then be opened by a vast majority of browser on any local computer. as we wanted to create an information gap, complementary instructions were created. after listing the various steps required in solving the puzzle, we divided them in four sections, since we intended to have four learners in each group. each section was read and recorded. the four audio files created were converted to the mp3 format. minor editing was carried out with the audacity software. our final task was to assemble the flash file with the audio files. we decided to use dreamweaver for its ease of use yet any html editor could have been used. the final page included general written instructions on the activity, the flash game in a centred and predominant position, a link to the audio file and pictorial clues for the new vocabulary. different background colours were used for each of the four versions in order to better differentiate them. ...and possible adaptations some lecturers who attended the official opening ceremony of the language lab mentioned that they believed that they would not be able to offer activities like the one related in this article. “it is too complex to put in place”, and “it requires too much time” were heard. these statements do have some 1 this location is generally identified under the internet options in the tools menu. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, serge gabarre and cécile gabarre 45 elements of truth as the whole process from the planning to the final product required about six hours of work for a sequence that lasted just under thirty minutes. these negative comments are not too distant from those that may be encountered in other e-learning projects (lennon & maurer, 2003). it is however quite possible to shorten this time. using the on-line version of the game could be done without demanding any html coding. the task mentioned in this article involved oral comprehension, but elaborating an activity for written comprehension would not require dealing with audio files. working with text files alone would undoubtedly be less time consuming. a simpler version of this activity could therefore be put in place in less than an hour. in our case, the learners were required to speak to each other by using the audio features of the lab, yet in a more basic computer lab lacking such functions, communication could also be achieved through on-line chats. using this synchronous tool would allow the possibility to work on written production. these are only some examples as this pedagogical scenario can be adapted in several ways to suit the various setup of each classroom. above all, this type of activity should be used in normal teaching situations and not be cantoned to showcase events as it proved quite popular with both the learners and the teachers. the benefits gained from including a gaming activity in the teaching plan are well worth the investment in time and preparation. references barab, s., thomas, m., dodge, t., carteaux, r., & tuzun, h. (2005). making learning fun: quest atlantis, a game without guns. educational technology research and development , 53 (1), 86107. conrad, r.-m., & donaldson, j. a. (2004). engaging the online learner. san francisco: jossey-bass. gabarre, s. (2007). can online modules reduces anxiety in chinese learners? asiacall. indore, india. garris, r., ahlers, r., & driskell, j. e. (2002). games, motivation, and learning: a research and practice model. simulation gaming , 33 (4), 441-467. gee, j. p. (2008). learning and games. in k. salen (ed.), the ecology of games: connecting youth, games, and learning (pp. 21-40). cambridge, ma: the mit press. gee, j. p. (2005). pleasure, learning, video games, and life: the projective stance. e–learning , 2 (3), 211-223. gee, j. p. (2003). what video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. acm computers in entertainment , 1 (1), 1-4. godwin-jones, r. (2005). emerging technologies messaging, gaming, peer-to-peer sharing: language learning strategies & tools for the millennial generation. language learning & technology , 9 (1), 17-22. gredler, m. e. (2004). games and simulations and their relationships to learning. in d. h. jonassen (ed.), handbook of research on educational communications and technology (pp. 571-581). mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum. johnson, w. l., vilhjalmsson, h., & marsella, s. (2005). serious games for language learning: how much game, how much ai? aied 2005. amsterdam: ios. lennon, j., & maurer, h. (2003). why it is difficult to introduce e-learning into schools and some new solutions. journal of universal computer science , 9 (10), 1244-1257. palloff, r. m., & pratt, k. (2005). collaborating online learning together in community. san francisco: jossey-bass. prensky, m. (2003). digital game-based learning. acm computers in entertainment , 1 (1), 1-4. prensky, m. (2005). in educational games, complexity matters, mini-games are trivial but “complex” games are not, an important way for teachers, parents and others to look at educational computer and video games. educational technology , 45 (4), 1-15. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, serge gabarre and cécile gabarre 46 prensky, m. (2002). the motivation of gameplay the real twenty-first century learning revolution. on the horizon , 10 (1), 5-11. reese, c., & wells, t. (2007). teaching academic discussion skills with a card game. simulation gaming , 38 (4), 546-555. rieber, l. p. (2002). supporting discovery-based learning within simulations. international workshop on dynamic visualizations and learning (pp. 1-10). tübingen: knowledge media research center. schwabe, g., & göth, c. (2005). mobile learning with a mobile game: design and motivational effects. journal of computer assisted learning , 21, 204-216. wideman, h. h., owston, r. d., brown, c., kushniruk, a., ho, f., & pitts, k. c. (2007). unpacking the potential of educational gaming: a new tool for gaming research. simulation gaming , 38 (1), 10-30. yang, c.-k. (2001). sociopsychiatric characteristics of adolescents who use computers to excess. acta psychiatrica scandinavica (104), 217-222. creating the conditions for depth, reinforcement and engagement through content asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, harald a. kraus 30 generating depth and engagement: the development of a projectbased curriculum harald a. kraus harald.krs@dpu.ac.th dhurakij pundit university, thailand abstract in 2006, the english department at a thai private university implemented a projectbased curriculum in which selected projects were ‘shared’ across all of the courses in the first year of the curriculum. this report summarizes the curriculum design and implementation process and offers an example of one project – a student blog – by way of demonstrating how the projects were conducted. keywords: curriculum, project-based teaching, blogging introduction this paper is in two parts. in the first part i will present details on a new english major curriculum that was implemented and that continues to be developed at dhurakij pundit university (dpu), bangkok. the primary reason is to demonstrate how we have designed and experimented with a content and project-based curriculum that is, as far as i know, quite unique in thailand. more specifically, this discussion will refer to the curriculum as it currently stands, in its second year, after some revisions were made. in the second part i will provide one example of the projects students conducted in the second ‘version’ of the new curriculum – the production of a blog – to show how the principles and aims of the curriculum were put into practice. new curriculum implementation in thailand it is not uncommon for freshman students to enter university with less than even basic english skills. this applies equally to students enrolling in english major programs, where probably a majority of students are false beginners. if evidence is needed, here is an example of some students’ writing from a basic diagnostic writing test, which was held in one of the first writing classes of the first semester of the first year (bear in mind that these students have received a good number of years, up to twelve,of english instruction). all features of writing have been preserved. q1. what is a sentence? 1. the word mix the word. it is sentence., or name, is, moon…ex. this is my friends, 2. there are any words are mix in sentence 3. subject gramma verb tent 4. a sentence have subject, verb, object. some sentences have past ten and other. have words. it is communication with everybody. q2. write a sentence using each of the following groups of words: a. eat, go, lunch, midday 1. i going to resturant at midday for have lunch. 2. my family go to eatting the lunch in midday. b. learn, job, english, good 1. i learn english good job. 2. i am like good learn english but don’t like a job. 3. i’m lean english mailto:harald.krs@dpu.ac.th asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, harald a. kraus 31 4. i learn english not good and i can’t job. the point of this is not to belittle the students, nor to show that their writing is so bad, which in some cases it isn’t, but simply that this is the level at which many university english departments have to begin their instruction. the expectation that these students will, in four years, become proficient and confident language speakers is pervasive and seems perfectly reasonable. but, given the realities, it is also perverse. conditions ranging from outdated teaching approaches and low level english proficiency of teachers, few resources in schools, completely undeveloped study skills among students, lack of genuine interest and curiosity (english is often a ‘default’ subject for indecisive freshmen), to continued traditional teaching practices and unevaluated curricula at universities all combine to result in an unacceptable number of students who, after hundreds if not thousands of hours studying english, can barely muster the confidence to compose a coherent, grammatically or pragmatically appropriate utterance. opportunity for change curricula in thailand can be adjusted in any given year, but this adjustment is limited to shuffling the order of offered courses, although content of individual courses is also of course open to change. however, the opportunity to redesign an entire curriculum arises after every 4 year program cycle, and in 2006 we decided to make a major overhaul, primarily because the proficiency levels of students were low even at end the of their studies. weaknesses in previous curriculum and lesson delivery: 1. there was no coherence across courses: teachers designed their courses without awareness of what other instructors were teaching to the same students. 2. english was affectively and socially ‘removed’: english was a subject like any other, treated as having finite and stable content, rules and meanings; it was thus an abstraction, not seen as a means to communicate. 3. classes continued to be teacher-centric and teacher talk dominated class time. 4. teachers were settled in their routines and in some ways reluctant to explore other means and methods. 5. due to previous frustrations involved in teaching, teacher fatigue had set in, and instructors began to lack ‘faith’ in students’ potential to learn english to a competent level. 6. courses in early years of the curriculum did not challenge students intellectually, and did not develop their questioning or analytical skills. pedagogical and theoretical premises it is vitally important that educators can clearly enunciate the theoretical premises which inform their instruction. theoretical premises, conscious or implicit, guide the teacher’s methodology, objectives, content preparation and classroom management. additionally, an explicit recognition of one’s theoretical principles allows for the opportunity to verify or refute a curriculum’s or teacher’s approaches. thus, in the case of this curriculum the following theoretical principles were outlined following extensive work-shopping and meetings: a. theoretical premises 1. ell is enhanced when content can be explored in depth, allowing for multiple points of entry, rather than if content is introduced piecemeal and in 'samples' 2. english needs to be 'self-realized': it needs to be made personally relevant in context (not the practice thereof); such self-realization is established when the stakes of learning go beyond the class 3. ell involves the generation of histories (kraus, 2003), culture and an ecology of use (van lier, 2004) 4. ell is improved when it is driven by (student driven) problem identification and solving 5. ell is enhanced with a holistic, approach integrating language and content (blanton, 1992) asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, harald a. kraus 32 6. communication is embodied and felt, not only ‘studied’ 7. ell is enhanced when the processes of learning and use are highlighted 8. ell involves changes in perception (not only the memorization of rules and vocabulary) b. content design principles. it is also important to have a clear idea of what a curriculum or study program hopes to achieve. while individual courses are designed with ‘behavioral objectives’, that is, objectives which state what students should be able to do by the end of each class and course, the design of a curriculum equally requires a similar set of general guiding principles. in other words, how do the theoretical premises outlined above inform the pedagogical approach, the design of content, materials and ultimately the projects themselves? in our case we emphasized the following concepts and principles regarding our approach: 1. to view language holistically: to treat english as an open system, not a discrete set of units; to integrate language and content 2. to be alert to the affective factors involved in language learning and mindful of the principles of experiential learning (kohonen, 1992): to ensure that activities and behaviors encourage confidence and desire to learn 3. to highlight communicative and pragmatic views of language: to encourage the use of english in and out of the class; to include cross-cultural notions of politeness, and meaningmaking 4. to attend to linguistic development: while not central to our approach we should not neglect the importance of accuracy and this is fostered through feedback and reflexivity 5. to develop professionalism: to insist on pride in quality work and emphasize that a sense of professionalism begins at university by bearing these principles in mind during the design phase of the curriculum we could ask ourselves whether what we were preparing was indeed in keeping with what we aimed to achieve. project-based teaching outline project-based teaching is an approach to integrating language and content by asking students to conduct a variety of tasks, such as generating topics, researching and presenting findings, in the process of completing a larger project. proponents of project-based teaching argue that language is contextualized, authentic, and complies with principles of learner independence (beckett & slater, 2005, fried-booth, 2002, moss & van duzer, 1998). it is characterized by the following features; it: builds on previous work; integrates speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills; incorporates collaborative team work, problem solving, negotiating and other interpersonal skills; requires learners to engage in independent work; challenges learners to use english in new and different contexts outside the class; involves learners in choosing the focus of the project and in the planning process; engages learners in acquiring new information that is important to them; leads to clear outcomes and incorporates self-evaluation, peer evaluation, and teacher evaluation. (moss & van duzer, 1998, p. 6) of primary importance then, is that students are engaged in the production of something, rather than the mere repetition of supposedly stable meanings found in exercises and normal tasks. project work is by no means a new approach and, as hedge (1993) notes, is linked to experiential learning theories dating back to dewey among others. moreover, it is not always met with the asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, harald a. kraus 33 complete approval of students, as it can be complex, culturally alien and conflict with students’ beliefs regarding language learning (beckett & slater, 2005). however, the approach we adopted was somewhat different in that students were to focus on the same project across all of their courses: they would plan, read about, write and discuss their projects in courses related to each skill. the aim of this was in a way to ‘slow down’ the english learning process by allowing students to concentrate on the same content and project for an extended period of time. design and procedure the curriculum’s principles, projects and content for all courses were designed during workshops prior to the commencement of semester, with instructors who were assigned to teach the first year intake. additionally, meetings were scheduled for every week during the semester, although in reality we did not meet this often. most communication was conducted with teachers individually. an online proficiency test was organized for all students in 1 st and 2 nd year in order to identify relative proficiency levels. at the end of the year, the same test was conducted to compare student proficiency levels. the courses all of the courses focused on various aspects of the same projects, all the while focusing on allowing the development of content familiarity and fluency. the courses are outlined in table 1. table 1 courses offered in first year semester 1 semester 2 1. english learning skills and strategies 2. reading skills and strategies 1 3. writing skills 1 4. oral interaction 1 5. english use 1 1. reading skills and strategies 2 2. writing skills 2 3. oral interaction 2 4. english use 2 5. pronunciation this is an unusually high load (30 credits of their major) for students in their first year. in order to enable such an intense curriculum we also had to redistribute the general education courses throughout the curriculum. selection of projects the three main concerns in the selection of projects were: 1. whether projects were logistically feasible; 2. whether the projects were manageable for students in terms of difficulty, and; 3. whether they were interesting for students (and in some way relevant) as we could not consult with students regarding which projects they would find interesting we had to second guess the third consideration. nonetheless, the projects do meet and address the theoretical principles outlined, and there are good reasons to believe – especially in hindsight – that both the degree of difficulty and interest value have been well matched to our students. the projects are outlined in table 2. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, harald a. kraus 34 table 2 projects in each semester semester 1 semester 2 1. web page (blog) 2. travel brochure 3. narrative 4. movie review 1. news report 2. advertisement 3. drama 4. social issue example: blog in the first version of the curriculum we had included an online ‘magazine’ that students were to create as their final project for the semester. our reasoning for this project was that students would find enjoyment in creating a web page, in small groups, and be able individually to write on a topic – in line with the group’s chosen theme – that they liked. in other words, this was not considered an inherently ‘magical’ new pedagogical approach simply because students were working online: the basic premise was its enjoyment value. surprisingly however, our survey revealed that this was one of the less enjoyed projects. the reasons for this, based on student feedback, were that it was the final project of the semester and the pressure to complete the task, as well as coordinate within their groups, undermined the potential for enjoyment. as such, in the revision of the curriculum we made two changes, namely to make the online work individual and to place it at the beginning of the semester. an obvious solution was to make this project a blog. not only would students develop some computer skills (it was illuminating to see how many students were unfamiliar with computers and online environments as we have come to assume that these students are the ‘internet generation’) and get their ‘online’ fix, but the blog allowed for a consideration on how we introduce and present ourselves in public and online. additionally, the blogs allowed for ‘public’ consumption of students output, thus raising the stakes in their presentation. in our case we chose hi5.com as the blog provider as it is one of the most popular in thailand. the key to this project, as it was with all others, was to determine content and coordinate its delivery over the four week period of the project. this was done through meetings with instructors of all the courses. the following page outlines the session plans across the courses. in the case of the blog, content could not be as rigidly designed as in other projects. however, it should be noted that the content did not follow typical patterns of courses in terms of difficulty or ‘learning order’: introduction of grammar, for example, was less ‘systematized’ or linear than in course books. instead, students learned grammatical and genre-based content that was relevant to and emerged from the project itself. (incidentally we started the project in week 2, as the first week is generally more chaotic, with considerable student movement and absenteeism.) for each project a different course was the principle focal point for coordination. in the case of the blog, the english learning skills and strategies (ells) course was in charge of taking students to the computer labs to upload and edit their pages, while writing skills 1 controlled the students’ input, as it was in that course that students composed their personal profiles or ‘autobiographies’. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, harald a. kraus 35 however, all of the courses addressed blog writing in some way: the reading course used online blogs for reading/content analysis; the conversation course used blogging both as a springboard for conversing about introductions and presenting oneself, as well as a topic of discussion in terms of blogging as a social phenomenon. finally the english use 1 course used blogs as points for analyzing commonly used grammar and vocabulary. an example of students’ final upload is given in figure 1 below. student writing sample figure 1 all of this required coordination. obviously, not every session could directly address blog writing as each course had its general objectives. additionally, the objectives of the curriculum were born in mind and therefore various curricular objectives overrode project objectives. thus, in table 3 below, the shaded boxes refer to either the use of the computer labs (sallc), highlight the curricular objective of encouraging critical thinking (e.g. discussions) or examine reflexive components of a given course. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, harald a. kraus 36 table 3 integration of project 1 across courses week 2 3 4 5 class 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 eng use 1 parts of speech sentence structure subject-verb agreement e.g. i am i have tense e.g. i went i used to tense nouns and pronouns nouns and pronouns punctuation ells create hi5 web page create and design hi5 web page vocabulary development regarding internet use being an active learner time management: creating a schedule using sallc and internet sources to find info. learning styles and preferences learning styles and preferences write the writing process the sentence: personal profile the simple sentence: personal profile the compound sentence: personal profile basic punctuation basic punctuation blog writing (personal profile) blog writing (personal profile) sallc read dictionary skills dictionary skills introduction to web log reading different parts of web blog scanning analysis of blogs analysis of blogs reading biographies travel brochures: cities oral introducing self and others talking about families; asking, introducing talking about interests; wh questions small talk; initiating conversations role play small talk, initiating conversation talking about internet: discussing pros and cons talking about internet some problems and issues in general perhaps the biggest issue concerning the implementation of the project-based curriculum was timing and scheduling. first, as is common to larger undertakings such as this, time was a factor in preparing the curriculum, in particular its materials, and for the first version we had to create the curriculum while it was being implemented. however, for the second version this was less of a problem. other time-related matters included the fact that it was been difficult to arrange meetings as regularly as we would have liked (due to other commitments and interruptions), and teachers therefore tended to branch off on their own without consulting other team members. holidays also created havoc with the alignment of content so that where one course was following the session plans another subject might have fallen behind. another important matter was that there was little time to familiarize new staff to the project. whereas the original team became ‘communally immersed’ in the new program and subsequently were cosupportive, new faculty members required training (and, let’s be honest, ‘convincing’) which was not possible to provide as often necessary. they were consequently not been as comfortable with the approach – at least at the outset. however, once teachers became more fully involved their enthusiasm grew. indeed, we now have a number of research projects stemming from the new curriculum. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, harald a. kraus 37 finally, quite a few students dropped out. in the first year ,we started with about 160 students and now have approximately 120 still in the department. there are similar figures with the second intake of students (in their second semester at the time of writing). in a way this is not too much of a concern as this is not an unusual drop-out rate. also, some reasons that students have given for leaving the program are that there is too much work, or too much english! while for upper administration this may be a concern in terms of revenue, it has in a sense been a blessing in disguise as the intensity of the program has acted as an informal screening – something that is not done for students entering the university. issues with blog with the blog itself we eventually had to take quite a lax approach regarding monitoring and assessment. for one, it was soon evident that we had ‘lost control’ of the students’ activities: where it started as an academically oriented exercise, students, not unexpectedly, quickly turned it into a social forum (which is of course a primary purpose of blogging) in which they used thai. additionally, as a social networking site hi5 of course encourages users to invite ‘friends’ (or rather, complete strangers) to join one’s network, so that there was a seemingly exponential growth of friends who in turn typically flooded a person’s site with ‘comments’ (mostly banalities!). there was also an issue of security. although we gave students a list of ‘do’s and don’ts’ regarding hi5 use, for example regarding the inclusion of personal details or possibly risqué photographs, this was not possible to monitor continuously. this applied to other aspects of a website, such as students’ additions of applications, widgets and so on. in sum, after students had been assessed for their website and profile, we did not continue to monitor the use of blog for learning purposes. however, that was our failing, and could be rectified with more vigilance on our part. results most of the results we have to date come from the first group of students (again, the second group has only recently completed their first semester at the time of writing). in order to get feedback regarding the students’ reception of the curriculum we conducted a survey after the first year. some important data we collected included that a total of 84% of students indicated that they either enjoyed their studies ‘very much’ (30%) or ‘a lot’ (54%), that 71% of students indicated that the project-based approach was difficult but they learnt english (92% of students responded that they felt they learned a substantial amount), and that more than 85% of the students felt either ‘a lot’ or ‘more’ confident that before. we also conducted (locally designed) online proficiency tests at the beginning and end of the year for both our experimental group and the second year students. the second year students had already completed two general english courses as part of the old curriculum but were effectively in their first year of ‘serious’ english studies. as a result, their initial mean score was higher at 69.28% compared to the first year students’ mean of 55.23%. post course results were significantly different however, with second year students attaining a mean of 71.82% (an increase of 2.54%) whereas the first year students achieved a mean 65.87% an increase of 10.64%. these are admittedly superficial results, but interesting nonetheless. there were more subjective observations which were equally pleasing. teachers who were involved at the outset reported that our first group had some of the most confident students we have had. they tended to visit teachers in their offices more frequently, asked more questions, and were comfortable in engaging foreign teachers in small talk on campus – a significant difference from other students who continue to shy away from using english when not compulsory! teachers also unanimously felt that the students are generally more motivated and diligent than students in other year groups. the (randomly chosen) student sample of the blog, given above, also demonstrates an improved facility with the language, and we are genuinely proud to have students go from being unable to conceive of writing texts, to composing up to 200 word texts within the space of their first 5 weeks at university. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, harald a. kraus 38 finally, a more formal survey of the teachers revealed a high degree of positive feelings regarding the implementation of the new curriculum. while the main critique was that the delivery of content was not as coordinated as they would have liked, the overall response was that the project was worthwhile, successful and pedagogically effective. conclusion the implementation of the new curriculum was challenging, occasionally stressful, and by no means seamlessly smooth. its overriding objective was to introduce students – and teachers – to a ‘new’ approach to learning and teaching english by integrating and coordinating course content and aims. if nothing else, the introduction of the new curriculum was and continues to be rewarding from both teaching and administrative viewpoints. it has been satisfying to see that it is logistically possible and that the teachers involved were cooperative and interested in the project. in addition, the general indications are that it is also effective, interesting, challenging and motivating from a learning perspective. students despite complaints to the effect that there was too much work seemed to appreciate the new approach. as such, the future development and improvement seems highly warranted. acknowledgements the author of this report wishes to thank the teachers who made the implementation of the projectbased curriculum, and subsequently this report, possible: sakolkarn insai, pornicha weerakanto, pimporn chairungruang, phongphan sakarung, yongyut khamkhong, daisy imperial, david common and russell waters. references beckett, g. h., & slater, t. (2005). the project framework: a tool for language, content, and skills integration. esl journal , 59 (2), 108-116. blanton, l. (1992). a holistic approach to college esl: intergating language and content. esl journal , 285-293. fried-booth, d. (2002). project work (new edition). oxford: oxford university press. hedge, t. (1993). key concepts in elt. elt journal , 47 (3), 275-277. kohonen, v. (1992). experiential language learning: second language learning as cooperative learner education. in d. nunan, collaborative language learning and teaching (pp. 14-39). cambridge: cambridge university press. kraus, h. (2003). creating histories and spaces of meaningful use: toward a framework of foreign language teaching with an emphasis on culture, epistemology and ethical pedagogy. unpublished doctoral dissertation. university of canberra. moss, d., & van duzer, c. (1998). project-based learning for adult english language learners. eric digest. (eric document reproduction service no. ed427556). retrieved from eric database. van lier, l. (2004). the ecology and semiotics of language learning: a sociocultural perspective. norwell, ma.: kluwer. asiacall online journal received: 16/01/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 05/03/2021 vol. 12, no. 3, 2021 accepted: 07/03/2021 pp. 47-57 online: 08/03/2021 47 developing bottom-up listening skills in a google classroom-based efl module nguyen thi hong nhat hanoi pedagogical university 2, ha noi, vietnam corresponding author’s email: nguyenthihongnhat@hpu2.edu.vn abstract the influence of a mini efl listening module of bottom-up activities on learners' listening ability and students' views on using google classroom is used as a tool for language learning and teaching. the students were 100 first-year efl students at hanoi. the teaching practice of efl listening has not well addressed bottom-up listening skills (seigel & seigel, 2015). moreover, autonomous listening is not very well focused in current pedagogy (field, 2008). this study was conducted to investigate pedagogical university 2. the module was developed on the google classroom platform, which incorporates listening activities on different bottom-up skills. the students completed the assigned bottom-up listening activities on the platform every week over a period of 10 weeks. the data were collected from an online survey (n=100) and a dictation pre-test, and a dictation post-test (n=100). this conference paper reported the results drawn from the survey data with 100 students. the results showed that the module improved students' bottom-up listening skills and positively affected their autonomy. the study suggests that efl teachers should be more aware of the importance of bottom-up activities and allocate adequate time for them in listening courses, especially for low-level learners. furthermore, the study indicates that google classroom, as a sample tool of technologies, can be employed with sound pedagogy to benefit students. keywords: efl bottom-up listening, the use of technology, learner autonomy, google classroom, vietnam. 1. introduction listening has a crucial role in foreign language learning and communication (vandergrift, 2015). it is the most frequently used language skill by language learners (brinton, snow, & celce-murcia, 2014) and consequently has an essential role in providing linguistic input and interaction opportunities for learners to acquire the language (field, 2008). thus, the development of l2 listening skills has a strong impact on the development of other skills (rost, 2015). however, listening has been "the least well taught" (white, 2006, p. 111). listening has been the most neglected skill in the language classroom, and learners are not often taught how to listen effectively (e.g., berne, 2004; mendelsohn, 2006). listening is often considered by language learners as the most difficult skill to learn, especially for those in the contexts where english is a foreign language (e.g., graham, 2003; hasan, 2000). in vietnam, efl learners often consider listening as one of the most difficult skills, and they often ask for guidance in learning this subject (vu & shan, 2016). among different listening skills, bottom-up listening skills play a key role in helping students understand the listening input at the sound, syllable, word, chunk, syntax, and intonation levels. however, activities to enhance students’ bottom-up listening skills have not received adequate attention in efl listening instruction, especially for low-level students (seigel & seigel, 2015). textbooks often have not reflected a systematic approach to develop listening skills (hill & tomlinson, 2013). they usually include limited types of texts and tasks and seem to include outdated materials. the reasons mentioned so far suggest that more attention needs to be given to the teaching of listening skills, specifically bottom-up listening skills. this study was conducted to investigate the influence of a mini efl listening module of bottom-up activities on learners’ listening ability and learner autonomy. the students acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 48 were 100 first-year efl students at a public university in vietnam. the module was developed on the google classroom platform, which incorporates listening activities on different bottom-up skills. the students completed the assigned bottom-up listening activities on the platform every week over a period of 10 weeks. the data were collected from an online survey (n=100) and a dictation pre-test, and a dictation post-test (n=100). 2. literature review 2.1. english listening skills 2.1.1. top-down and bottom-up processing in efl listening top-down and bottom-up listening are two important approaches that l2 learners need to employ to understand listening input comprehensively. in a top-down listening approach, learners use background knowledge about the topic of listening to understand its meaning. bottom-up skills or decoding skills are the skills that students need to use to decode the listening input at the smallest units of information, such as detecting, identifying, and distinguishing the sound, syllable, word, chunk, syntax, and intonation levels from which the meaning of the listening input is understood (field, 2008). the bottom-up listening skills are important for beginning learners because of their limited language repertoire, which does not automatically process what they are listening to and understand the input message (field, 2008; siegel & siegel, 2015). therefore, learners need to rely on language elements such as sounds, grammar, vocabulary ... and then process those information units into a meaningful message. depending on the purpose of listening (listening for the gist or listening for details) or the learner's ability (intermediate, advanced, or beginner), the learner can choose one or combine two approaches to the listening process. the combination of the two listening approaches will help them improve their english listening skills effectively. 2.1.2. the teaching of efl listening skills in recent years, the literature on listening instruction indicates a greater focus on the process approach (ellis, 2003; field, 2003, 2008, 2012; j.c. richards, 2006, 2008; rost, 2015). this approach compensates for the limitation of the comprehension approach, which has paid little attention to difficulties that learners may experience while they are listening to certain segments of listening texts (field, 2008). it focuses on the subskills listeners need to acquire to understand listening texts. there have been some attempts to provide comprehensive taxonomies of such subskills, such as those of j.c. richards (1983) and field (2008). the recent one by field (2008) classified subskills according to decoding processes and meaning-building processes, which listeners draw upon to arrive at a full understanding of texts. according to field, in order to improve language learners' ability to decode linguistic input, teachers can introduce subskills tasks focusing on single different aspects of listening such as lexical segmentation, the recognition of recurrent chunks, intonation patterns, turn-taking signals, linkers, and patterns of logical argument. this approach to listening instruction is supported by the fact that language listeners' major reason for breakdowns of understanding is lexical segmentation (field, 2003; j.c. richards, 1983, rost, 2015) and their ability to cope with linguistic decoding plays an important role in the listening performance (lynch, 2009). examples of subskills related to decoding processes at the word level can be recognizing variant forms of words, using awareness of word frequency, and distinguishing known and unknown words (field, 2008, p. 336). it is also emphasized in this approach that learners should be equipped with subskills for meaning-building processes. these skills help listeners draw on their outside knowledge and the message from the text to make sense of the meaning of what is said (field, 2008; richards, 1983). examples of subskills related to meaning-building processes at the word level can be narrowing word sense to fit the context, dealing with word ambiguity, and inferring the meaning of unknown words (field, 2008, p. 338). acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 49 in response to the call for more attention to the instruction on bottom-up listening skills, some researchers have conducted study to investigate the effects of bottom-up listening activities on students’ listening abilities (aljasser, 2008; field, 2008; goh, 2000; siegel & siegel, 2015; vandergrift & goh, 2012). data from goh’s study suggested that lower-level students became more confident at phoneme, word recognition, and segmentation problems. field (2008) found that students having bottom-up listening skills instruction could decode listening input more accurately and automatically. in another study, vandergrift and goh (2012) pointed out that listening activities focusing on bottom-up skills raised students' awareness of the spoken language's pronunciation. siegel and siegel (2015) showed that explicit instruction of bottom-up skills positively affected most of the students when they had higher scores on the dictation and listening proficiency tests. despite the importance of bottom-up skills instruction, there remains a lack of evidence on the practical classroom context. this indicates a need for further investigation of how direct instruction on bottom-up listening skills can help students' listening competence in l2 classrooms. 2.3. the use of technology for language teaching and learning technology has been considered an essential tool in language teaching and learning. a growing body of research has shown that teachers and students have a positive view of the use of technologies in language teaching and learning (e.g., chapelle, 2001; levy, 1997). many studies have provided evidence showing positive effects of technology use in language skills, including listening, speaking, reading, and writing. the effects include increasing levels of learner autonomy, motivation and self-confidence, development of communicative competence, and improvement of linguistic proficiency (dina & ciornei, 2013; kim, 2013; yunus, nordin, salehi, embi & salehi, 2013). google classroom has been around since 2014 and has become one of the most well-known learning management systems (albashtawi & bataineh, 2020). this free and user-friendly application integrates with other google services such as google drive, google docs, google sheets, google slides. it has many functions that help educational institutions simplify teaching and learning. students can join a class when provided with a login code or automatically added by the class's teachers. teachers can assign homework, share materials, track learning progress, grade students’ work, or provide comments (sukmawati & nensia, 2019). to date, some studies have investigated the effectiveness of the use of google classroom for learning and learning (e.g., albashtawi & al bataineh, 2020; duong, hoang, & mai, 2019; markham & peter, 2003; islam, 2008; sukmawati & nensia, 2019). advantages of google classroom include helping students develop and organize their work to learn english effectively; increasing students’ motivation of online learning; providing instant notifications of assignments and deadlines; easily uploading and downloading materials; being available on different electronic devices; improving efl students’ reading and writing performance and facilitating learner autonomy. taken together, the evidence reviewed here suggests a crucial role for the instruction on bottom-up listening skills and for the integration of technology into language teaching and learning, i.e., google classroom in this case. the next section presents the methodology used for this study. 3. methods the study aims to examine vietnamese efl students’ views on the influence of a mini efl listening module of bottom-up activities on efl learners’ listening study and their views on the use of google classroom as a tool for the listening module. the listening module was a part of listening speaking course 1, which used the skillful foundation textbook. as a part of the course, the listening module was conducted in a period of ten weeks. it incorporated acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 50 listening activities on different bottom-up skills, which are listening for "s/es" ending sounds, connected-speech, "ed" ending sounds, elision, contraction, weak/stressed forms. in each lesson of the module, the teacher gave the students background knowledge about each skill and asked them to practice it by doing some mini-exercises. the activity, on average, was completed within 15 minutes. by the end of each lesson, the students were assigned some bottom-up listening activities as homework on the google classroom platform. to fulfill the purpose of the study, the study was conducted to answer the following research questions: 1. what is the impact of the listening module on efl students’ listening study? 2. what are the students’ views on the use of google classroom as a tool for the listening module? this study employed both quantitative and qualitative research methods to gain a comprehensive understanding of the research problem. it collected data through an online survey and a pre-test and post-test with efl first-year students at hanoi pedagogical university 2. in this paper, the results drawn from the online survey data are reported. the online survey questionnaire included two parts that asked the participants about their views on the influence of the listening module on their study of listening skills and the use of the google classroom as a tool for the listening module. the survey was sent to the participants at the end of the listening module, and it took the students about fifteen minutes to complete. there were 100 students responding to the survey, and the quantitative data from closed questions and qualitative data from open-ended questions were descriptively calculated and thematically analyzed, respectively. 4. results/findings and discussion 4.1. research question 1: students’ views on the impact of the listening module on efl students’ listening study the students expressed their appreciation for the module as it developed their bottom-up listening skills. the two benefits that the students mentioned the most are improving basic listening skills and increasing motivation to learn. here are some examples of the students’ comments: it helps my listening skills better and better. now i can hear the words that i was not able to hear before. and it provides me useful information about how english is naturally spoken. listening practice from the basic steps helps me to hear clearly and clearly. it provides the foundation for me to level up my listening skills. i am now more familiar with phonetics and can recognize exactly what english words are spoken. my listening skills are better day by day. the module makes me feel excited and has motivation when i learn english listening skills. it helps improve my listening skills, and i have the motivation to study harder. about the bottom-up skills that the students reported improving the most, listening for "s/es" ending sounds and listening for connected-speech ranked the first and the second in the list at 98 and 78, respectively (see figure 1). acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 51 figure 1. bottom-up listening skills that the students reported improving the students also became more aware of "ed" ending sounds, elision, and contraction when 65, 58, and 50 of them reported gaining better ability to listen for these sounds. the figures are illustrated with the students' comments as the followings: before, when i heard, i could not detect the s/es ending sounds and how to recognize connected speech. however, after taking this module, i can notice them and know how to practice them every day. i can realize the ending sounds that i often missed before. i never heard "elision" before. i think i've understood it, and i always try my best to practice elision. so did connectspeech. it helps me improve my english, including my listening skills and speaking skills. i understand different sounds, and after practicing, i can hear those sounds in the conversation confidently. having seen the positive effects of the practice of bottom-up listening skills, all of the respondents stated that they would apply what they learned from the module to future practice of listening skills . for example, two students said: i will spend about 30 minutes a day practicing basic listening skills to improve my listening ability. i will apply the basic listening skills i have learned into my listening practice. for example, i will listen to videos from basic to advanced listening to recognize connected sounds or elisions. the results support evidence from previous observations (e.g., field, 2008; goh, 2000; siegel & siegel, 2015) that explicit instruction of bottom-up listening skills helped to develop learners’ listening ability. another recurrent theme in answers to the survey was that the module had effects on learner autonomy. the respondents reported that their autonomy in learning changed in different ways (see table 1). table 1 students’ perspectives on the effects of the listening modules on learner autonomy n students’ perspectives on the effects of the listening modules on learner autonomy number of respondents 1. i can find learning materials independently 95 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 "s/es" ending sounds connected-speech "ed" ending sounds elision contraction weak/stressed form others acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 52 2. i feel more active and motivated to learn listening skills 89 3. i can access learning materials anytime, anywhere 78 4. i am aware of the objectives of listening tasks posted on google classroom 75 5. i feel more curious when searching web-based online listening resources 74 6. i can select and implement appropriate learning strategies 57 7. i am able to formulate my own learning objectives 54 8. i can monitor my own learning 37 9. i can monitor and evaluate my own use of learning strategies 34 among many benefits, the students emphasized that being able to find materials independently (95%), feeling motivated to learn listening skills (89%), and accessing listening materials anytime, anywhere (78%) are the three most influences of the module to their autonomy. for examples, they commented that: this module helps me find materials that are reliable and suitable for my level. i can study anytime, anywhere with my phone or laptop. online lessons are more interesting than lessons on books. thanks to online lessons, i am able to practice anytime and anywhere. besides, the students found the module useful. seventy-five respondents commented that they became more aware of listening tasks' objectives, and seventy-four of them felt more curious when searching web-based online listening resources. there are interesting exercises that the instructor uploads to google classroom, and from them, i self-study further information on the internet. in the past, i did listening exercises without caring about how they help my listening ability. but thanks to the module, i understand the reasons why i should take specific listening exercises. these findings suggest that the listening module increased the time on task for students. they may be explained by the fact that the listening module was designed to facilitate learner autonomy. every week, the students were provided with theoretical knowledge of the linguistic features of spoken english. in class, they practiced listening exercises to train their ears to specific features. for example, they were listening for contractions, elision, connected speech. after the lesson, the students were required to do their homework by doing more exercises and find out further natural spoken listening input, which had the linguistic features they learned in the class. the activities that the students were required in autonomous learning include data storing, voice recording, shadowing, dictating, designing listening exercises. by doing those assignments, they spent more time looking for suitable listening input and listening to them. furthermore, thanks to the features of google classroom, the students could access materials every time and everywhere. this finding agrees with other studies (nguyen, 2015a, 2015b), which indicated that convenience and authentic learning materials as the advantages of using technologies for language learning. another benefit that the students perceived having gained from the module is that they were able to select and implement appropriate learning strategies and formulate learning objectives. this view was echoed by fiftyseven informants, for example: the module is designed with specific topics so i can plan my studies easily. during self-study, i can realize the problems and find the right way to study. i am able to set learning goals and complete assignments. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 53 i can find more online exercises to work on my weaknesses in my spare time. while preliminary, this finding suggests that the listening module helps raise students' awareness about the specific bottom-up listening skills they need to work on. accordingly, they can set learning goals to improve their weaknesses. this study confirms that learner autonomy is associated with learners’ ability to handle and program their learning (holec, 1981; benson, 2001). indeed, the participants in this study became more independent learners who started initial steps to take control over their learning. 4.2. research question 2: students’ views on the use of google classroom as a tool for the listening module the respondents found google classroom a user-friendly tool for their study (see table 2). ninety-six of them mentioned that google classroom was easy to use, and eight-nine respondents found it convenient because it is available on a smartphone mode as well. table 2 students’ perspectives on the use of google classroom as a tool for the listening module n students’ perspectives on the use of google classroom as a tool for the listening module number of respondents 1. google classroom is easy to use 96 2. google classroom application is available on my smartphone 89 3. i can upload materials easily 79 4. i am timely notified of any assignments and announcements 76 5. i can keep records of my work 75 6. i can log in to google classroom anytime, anywhere. 60 7. i can track the progress of assignments 57 8. i can have feedback on the assignment 45 for example, one student said, "google classroom is very useful. with a smartphone, i can do many things on it with convenience.” other features of google classroom that many students reported useful for their study include allowing materials to be uploaded easily (n=79), notifying assignments and announcements (n=76), keeping records of students’ work (n=75). examples of the students’ comments as the following: i love when google classroom reminds me of homework and deadlines. because there is a lot of homework from different courses to do in one week, it is easy to forget. thanks to this, i have done all my work on time. it is very easy to use, and it works well to combine classroom learning and self-study. instant notifications and forum exchanges make study easy. this study supports evidence from previous observations (e.g., albashtawi & al bataineh, 2020; duong, hoang, & mai, 2019) that information technology, more specifically google classroom, can enable language learners to flexibly and conveniently learn and acquire knowledge. in addition to the supporting features for language learning, the students mentioned two features of google classroom that they had challenges during their study. the first feature mentioned by fifty students is related to the unavailability of google classroom when there is no internet connection. for example, one student said, “when traveling on the bus or on the road, if the phone does not have an internet connection, you cannot listen to audio files." the other feature is the limitation of teacher-student interaction on google classroom. fifty students reported that google classroom was still not so good at facilitating different modes of interaction. for acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 54 example, two students said: google classroom does not allow teachers and students to interact and discuss directly but can only teach and learn through preloaded document files on the application. i do not want my private messages to my teacher to be seen by other classmates all the time. as google classroom is a free learning management system, it might not have all functions as other commercial ones. however, an implication of these results is that google should improve google classroom features to meet teacher's and students' needs. taken together, the results indicate that the listening module has helped the students develop their basic listening skills and learner autonomy. for the participants in this study, they found google classroom a useful tool for their listening module. the next chapter moves on to discuss the significance of the findings and the implications for practice. 5. conclusion this present research study's main aim was to design a listening module to train efl students on bottomup listening skills and investigate students’ views on its impact on their listening study. the second aim of this study was to examine the students’ perspectives on the use of google classroom as a learning tool in the listening module. the participants, on the whole, demonstrated a positive attitude to the module. they reported that the module improved their bottom-up listening skills, especially "s/es" ending sounds, connected speech, "ed" ending sounds, and elision. the majority commented that the listening module also developed their autonomy in learning. after taking the module, most students reported having more confidence in finding listening materials and having more time on listening tasks. finally, the overall response to the question about the use of google classroom for language learning was positive. the students found google classroom useful and convenient. however, two concerns were expressed about the unavailability of its functions when used without the internet connection and about its limited functions to facilitate interaction among students and teachers. these results were very encouraging; however, the generalizability of these results is subject to certain limitations. this study's scope was limited in terms of time and resources so that not all the bottom-up listening skills were introduced in the module. there should be more time for students to practice, and further modules should be developed to continue training efl students on other skills such as listening for assimilation, intonation, resyllabification, the chunk of language, accents, prefix, and suffix. another issue that was not addressed in this study was whether the practice of bottom-up listening skills would improve students' listening ability. further research could be conducted to determine the listening module's effectiveness on students' listening ability by triangulating the survey results with pre-test and post-test data and interview data. despite its exploratory nature, the present results are significant in at least three major aspects. the study adds to our understanding of the importance of bottom-up listening skills for efl learners, especially for beginning learners. it is suggested that teachers consider integrating bottom-up listening exercises in the teaching suitable to their own teaching context and learners. training should also be provided to both teachers and students to maximize the effectiveness of teaching and learning bottom-up listening skills, which are the foundation for students to develop their listening ability in general. in another aspect, this study has contributed to the rapidly expanding field of learner autonomy. the study indicates that students will be able to enhance their learner autonomy and the twenty-first century's competence if they are guided and nurtured. it is thus recommended that courses can be designed to organize activities to develop learners’ responsibility intentionally. finally, this study strengthens the idea that technology, for example, google classroom, can be used to assist students’ language learning. in contexts where facilities and resources are limited, a free but user-friendly learning management acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 55 system is still a good choice. however, it is important to note that technology needs to be employed with sound pedagogies if it aims to foster language learning. acknowledgment this research was funded by hanoi pedagogical university 2 foundation for science and technology development via grant number: c.2019-18-01. references cheng, w., & warren, m. (1997). having second thoughts: student perceptions before and after a peer assessment exercise. studies in higher education, 22(2), 233−239. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079712331381064 david, j., & liss, r. (2006). effective academic writing 3 (1st ed.). usa: oxford university press. pham, v. p. h., luong, t. k. p., tran, t. t. o., & nguyen, q. g. (2020). should peer e-comments replace traditional peer comments? international journal of instruction, 13(1), 295−314. https://doi.org/10.29333/iji.2020.13120a albashtawi, a., & al bataineh, k. (2020). the effectiveness of google classroom among efl students in jordan: an innovative teaching and learning online platform. international journal of emerging technologies in learning (ijet), 15(11), 78-88. al-jasser, f. (2008). the effect of teaching english phonotactics on the lexical segmentation of english as a foreign language. system, 36, 94-106. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2007.12.002 albirini, a. (2006). cultural perceptions: the missing element in the implementation of ict in developing countries. international journal of education and development using ict, 2(1), 1-16. retrieved from http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=146. benson, p. (2001). teaching and researching autonomy in language learning. harlow: longman/pearson education. berne, j. e. (2004). listening comprehension strategies: a review of the literature. foreign language annals, 37(4), 521-531. brinton, d. m., snow, m. a., & celce-murcia, m. (2014). teaching english as a second or foreign language. boston, ma: national geographic learning. chapelle, c. a. (2001). computer applications in second language acquisition: foundations for teaching, testing and research. cambridge: cambridge university press. dina, a. t., & ciornei, s. i. (2013). the advantages and disadvantages of computer assisted language learning and teaching for foreign languages. procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 76, 248-252. duong, t. n. a., mai, t.t.h., hoang, t.t. (2019). the use of google classroom in teaching english for second year students at hoa lu university. vietnam journal of education, 3(5), 235-239. field, j. (2003). promoting perception: lexical segmentation in second language listening. elt journal, 57, 325-334. field, j. (2008). listening in the language classroom. cambridge: cambridge university press. field, j. (2012). listening instruction. in a. burns & j. c. richards (eds.), the cambridge guide to pedagogy and practice in second language teaching (pp. 207-217). cambridge: cambridge university press. goh, c., & taib, y. (2006). metacognitive instruction in listening for young learners. elt journal, 60, 222-232. http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=146 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 56 graham, s. (2003). learner strategies and advanced level listening comprehension. language learning journal, 28, 64-69. hasan, a. (2000). learners’ perceptions of listening comprehension problems. language, culture and curriculum, 13, 137-153. hill, d. a., & tomlinson, b. (2013). coursebook listening activities. in b. tomlinson (ed.), developing materials for language teaching (pp. 384-521) (2nd edn). london: continuum. https://www.scirp.org/(s(351jmbntvnsjt1aadkposzje))/reference/referencespapers.aspx?referenceid=1 454927 islam, s. (2008). bangladeshi university students’ perception on using google classroom for teaching english. international journal of psycho-educational sciences, 8 (2), 57 – 65. kim, h. s. (2013). emerging mobile apps to improve english listening skills. multimedia-assisted language learning, 16(2), 11-30. levy, m. (1997). computer-assisted language learning: context and conceptualization. new york, ny: clarendon. markham, p., & peter, l. (2003). the influence of english language and spanish language captions on foreign language listening/reading comprehension. journal of educational technology systems, 31(3), 331341. nguyen, t. h. n. (2015a, august). designing tasks for efl listening using youtube video resources. paper presented at the 6th international conference on tesol, seameo regional training centre, ho chi minh, vietnam. nguyen, t. h. n. (2015b, july). choosing and employing youtube videos in english listening classes. paper presented at applied linguistics seminar series, brisbane, australia. richards, j. c. (1983). listening comprehension: approach, design, procedure. tesol quarterly, 17(2), 219240. richards, j. c. (2008). teaching listening and speaking. cambridge: cambridge university press. rost, m. (2015). teaching and researching listening (3rd edn). harlow, uk: pearson. siegel, j., & siegel, a. (2015). getting to the bottom of l2 listening instruction: making a case for bottom-up activities. studies in second language learning and teaching, 5(4). sukmawati, s., & nensia, n. (2019). the role of google classroom in elt. international journal for educational and vocational studies, 1 (2), 142-145. vandergrift, l. (2015). researching listening. in b. paltridge & a. phakiti (eds.), research methods in applied linguistics: a practical resource (pp. 299-311). london: bloomsbury publishing. vu, h. y., & shah, m. (2016). vietnamese students’ self-direction in learning english listening skills. asian englishes, 18(1), 53-66. doi:10.1080/13488678.2015.1136104. white, g. (2006). teaching listening: time for a change in methodology. in e. usó-juan & a. martínez-flor (eds.), current trends in the development and teaching of the four language skills (pp. 111-135). berlin, germany: m. de gruyter. yeldham, m., & gruba, p. (2014). toward an instructional approach to developing interactive second language listening. language teaching research, 18, 33-53. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1362168813505395 yunus, m. m., nordin, n., salehi, h., embi, m. a., & salehi, z. (2013). the use of information and communication technology (ict) in teaching esl writing skills. english language teaching, 6(7), 1-8. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 57 biodata: nguyen thi hong nhat is a lecturer of english and a teacher educator at hanoi pedagogical university 2, vietnam. she holds a doctor degree from the university of queensland. she has been conducting a number of workshops for language teachers on teaching english with technologies. her research interest is in the teaching of listening as a foreign language skill, curriculum and program development, efl materials development, teacher education in computer-assisted language learning, educational change. 12 asiacall online journal received: 18/12/2020 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 15/01/2021 vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 accepted: 30/01/2021 pp. 12-23 online: 06/02/2021 microsoft teams in the context of freshmen elf learning tran thi thanh mai faculty of foreign languages, van lang university, vietnam mai.ttt@vlu.edu.vn abstract the aim of this research paper is to determine how microsoft teams worked when teaching the first-year english at van lang university through the covid-19 pandemic. microsoft teams is a new application used by the university, and this paper reports on the experience of using it for other colleagues to critique and improve on. the sample for this study consisted of eighty freshmen selected from four classes. a set of questionnaires with fifteen likert-scale items together with interviews served as instruments for data collection. the findings demonstrated that using microsoft teams for teaching and learning was an effective way to keep learning activities going on. in general, despite some inconveniences with the technological problems, the students were eager to a new means of learning but did not make good use of this collaboration tool in their learning. also, the research paper results reveal that the participants possessed positive attitudes towards the benefits of using microsoft teams in online learning. in contrast, they expressed an unfavorable perspective on the drawbacks of using this tool respectively. keywords: attitudes, microsoft teams, benefits, drawbacks, implications i. introduction with the global trend of educational era 4.0, there is always an inherent must in an attempt to improve the quality of education and encourage students' autonomy learning. without a doubt, an ever-increasing demand for web-based teaching and learning has been generated by the easy accessibility of technological devices and social networks. consequently, along with the strong development of information and communication technology, online education – also known as e-learning comes into life as a result of teaching and learning renovation. indeed, online education, which is categorized into three common implementations: fully internetbased learning, blended learning, and web-based supplements for face-to-face traditional learning, is not a new practice since it has been infiltrating into a vast number of schools across the globe (gilbert, 2015). there is a plethora of robust evidence that online learning is considered a pedagogical solution that facilitates personalized learning and flexibility to acquire knowledge regardless of time and geographical locations (guragain, 2016). nevertheless, it has been widely proven that e-learning develops unevenly in all regions of the world, with the strongest growth in north america and europe and the prospective but less application in asia and southeast asia. in line with the educational reform policy regarding industrialization and modernization enacted by vietnam's government in 2010, the application of e-learning, especially in the higher education context, witnessed a significant increase for learners' sake. what matters is 13 vietnamese e-learning is mostly in the form of blended learning, while traditional education with interactions between teachers and students is widely believed to be the most effective education method during so many years ranging from primary schools to tertiary institutions (le et al., 2013, p. 240). in response to the common trend in today’s education, both teachers and learners at van lang university have explored the moodle software as an e-learning tool to facilitate learning and teaching since 2015. like many other vietnamese universities, e-learning activities in the university are in the shape of blended learning. particularly, a majority of the lecturers take advantage of this learning management system in uploading a series of lectures, references; giving assignments, and hosting a forum. on the whole, this software facilitates students’ learning by giving them more chances to keep track of the lessons, store the studying resources and discuss their concerns. unfortunately, due to the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic at the beginning of the second semester of the school-year 2019-2020, all students throughout the country had to stay off school and be under social distancing, and van lang students were not an exception. to avoid the irresistible interruption of the training schedule, a new application, i.e., microsoft teams, was introduced to resolve other apps' problems, which fails to enhance a face-to-face interaction like that of traditional classrooms. however, this teaching method was not favored by those who are not accustomed to autonomy learning and subject to technological problems. in reality, despite 8-time unrivaled opportunities of supplementing registration, the number of students enrolling in the real-time courses was not up to 85%, not to mention the ever-increasing proportion of students' dropout during the semester. hence, making microsoft teams a more beneficial teaching tool is far more necessary than ever before. surprisingly, there are no studies to find out the students’ perceptions towards the use of microsoft teams at van lang university. in other words, to what extent this online teaching tool is beneficial to students and what kinds of reflection students have after experiencing by themselves are not addressed formally. the main purpose of this research paper is to explore how learners' – actually respond to learning english with microsoft teams' help. it also investigated how teachers at this university use microsoft teams as a facilitator of language learning. the results gave some teaching implications for those who would like to make better use of these teaching tools due to the drawbacks of using them revealed by the students respectively. research questions 1. how do the first-year english majors respond to the use of microsoft teams in online learning at van lang university? 2. what can be done to improve the quality of online courses in the application of microsoft teams? 2. literature review benefits of online learning a review of recent literature on online learning supports that online learning should be integrated into schools’ teaching programs due to it is beneficial in terms of flexibility, convenience, and personalized learning opportunities (e.g., segaren, 2020; guragain, 2016; smedley, 2010). specifically, in the area of flexibility and convenience, zhang et al. (2006) 14 and judahil et al. (2007) once emphasized the advantage of e-learning as a way of flexible learning with substantially less need for commuting to classes. also, e-learning is far more flexible on account of time and geographic locations, allowing learners to select the best time or place to study (guragain, 2016). in other words, students enabled to easily access resources such as videos, powerpoint lecture slides, and so on for learning many times at many places, including at home, at a café, or even on the road. as far as henninger (2012) was concerned, the advantages of e-learning were outlined with a way of relieving learner's anxiety about their study since no matter where they live, they are likely to receive the same quality of training. in terms of the personalized learning experience, according to wagner et al. (2008), elearning could benefit students through the exploration of discussion boards, including forums, email, and chats, which motivated students to interact, expose and respect different standpoints without any fear of losing face. hence, students can have continual access to materials regularly, seek help from teachers or peers, explore lessons at his/ her own pace, use preferred learning devices, and gain timely feedback in order to reflect upon their own learning. in the review of recent relevant studies and related books, seragen (2020) proposed a diagram presenting eight different benefits of e-learning, including flexibility, accessibility, global knowledge, students control study time, a chance for interaction, cost-effectiveness, better opportunity, and student-centered as shown in figure 1. figure 1. benefits of e-learning (adapted from aragon, 2020) 15 disadvantages of online learning like other teaching methods, e-learning also has its own drawbacks since it is not likely to replace unique features, including human emotional interaction as well as face-to-face interaction that can be found in the classroom. also, heavy dependence on computer skills and internet access, according to twomey (2004), became a barrier for students to effective learning. according to several research findings, online classes' anonymity drove students to be prone to cheating, which deteriorated ways of assessment and the quality of education. more importantly, e-learning was not effectively applicable to a multitude of specialized courses or discipline such as medical science and pharmacy, vocal arts, graphic design, and so on since it curbed learners' practical involvement (e.g., akkoyuklu and soylu, 2000; hameed et al., 2008; arkorful, 2014). microsoft teams as a means of online teaching facility integrated directly with a full package of microsoft 365 applications, microsoft teams has been commonly used in most large corporations and schools. it facilitates better communication and collaboration with absolute confidentiality. its key utilities lie in performing a series of activities like real-time discussing, instant texting, powerpoint presenting, programs sharing and running, whiteboard interacting, audio calling, giving assignments, and online meetings. unlike other free web-conference tools, this copyrighted software is far more helpful in holding a long meeting, which can be lasted up to a few hours without interruption. additionally, its easy-to-use and the simple interface takes the users a very quick time to get acquainted with the software by reading the manual guideline rather than participating in a relevant training workshop. 3. methodology this study was designed as qualitative research, which aimed at investigating students’ perceptions of learning english with the help of microsoft teams at van lang university. therefore, qualitative research instruments, specifically interviews and questionnaires, were used to collect data as they are considered effective instruments for gathering information about attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs in second language classroom research. the respondents providing the data for this paper were eighty first-year english majors belonging to four classes at van lang university. then, 10 of these students were interviewed face-to-face to gain further insight into microsoft teams' use in online learning. noticeably, the interview comprised mainly of the two following questions: 1. what are your experiences when you study online using microsoft teams? 2. what can be done to improve online teaching and learning by the use of microsoft teams? 16 data analysis procedure the study results were presented in tables, and explanations were provided accordingly. together with the questionnaires' data, the interviewed students' responses were presented. 4. findings and discussions student attitudes towards using microsoft teams to online learning table 4.1. advantages of using microsoft teams to online learning items sd % d % n % a % sa % 1. i found learning through microsoft teams convenient since i can study via my cellphone or laptop. 5 6.2% 6 7.5% 8 10% 22 27.5% 39 48.8% 2. i can save time because i don’t have to commute to school. 2 2.5% 6 7.5% 6 7.5% 28 35% 38 47.5% 3. i feel comfortable for not being in a classroom surrounded by many classmates and not being prone to the coronavirus infection. 3 3.8% 6 7.5% 11 13.7% 33 41.2% 27 33.8% 4. i can access study resources easily and quickly through the toolbar "files". 3 3.8% 5 6.2% 7 8.8% 20 25% 45 56.2% 5. i can study online at my favorite place, e.g., at home or at a café. 4 5% 12 15% 9 11.2% 20 25% 35 43.8% 6. i can correct my response easily by using the “edit” function. 3 3.8% 5 6.2% 7 8.8% 20 25% 45 56.2% 7. i can re-watch the recorded lectures at anytime and anywhere. 4 5% 5 6.2% 6 7.5% 15 23.8% 50 62.5% 8. i can receive frequent and timely feedback from the teacher and peers on my response(s) and assignment(s). 6 7.5% 9 11.2% 16 20% 31 38.8% 18 22.5% 9. i can study in accordance with my learning pace because i can pause or rewind the video clips many times after the meeting on microsoft teams. 7 8.8% 4 5% 18 22.5% 33 41.2% 18 22.5% 10. i have unrivaled opportunities to get involved in the discussion without embarrassment. 5 6.2% 10 12.5% 6 7.5% 37 46.3% 22 27.5% [notes: sd: strongly disagree; d: disagree; n: neutral; a: agree; sa: strongly agree] as shown in table 4.1, most students expressed positive attitudes towards online learning through microsoft teams with higher percentages of agreement (a) and strong agreement (sa). generally, the responses showed that most students rank the benefits of applying this software in online learning 4 and 5 on a 5-point likert scale. specifically, 86.3% of the participants agreed or strongly agreed that learning through microsoft teams gave them flexibility because they could re-watch the recorded lectures at any time and anywhere. 82.5% was the second-highest proportion of participants expressing their agreement or strong agreement on the help of online learning through microsoft teams in saving time to school. 81.2% appreciated the ease of access to study resources and response correction when having 17 a meeting on microsoft teams, while 76.3% confirmed the convenience of online learning with a variety of learning aids, e.g., a laptop or even a cell phone. as far as the benefits of personalized learning opportunities, more than half of the samples, i.e., 73.8%, were stress-free from a fear of losing their face or shyness in participation. noticeably, 61.3% of the students reported that their response(s) and assignments could be reviewed with comments frequently and timely from their lecturers and peers, while 63.7% of the respondents could keep track with the lesson at their own learning pace since they found it easier to rewind or pause at the difficult part. 75% was the proportion revealing the students’ comfort of studying at their favorite place rather than being in a crowded classroom and being subject to the coronavirus infection. although online learning through microsoft teams benefited students in many ways, its application was somewhat disadvantageous, according to the following findings. table 4.2. disadvantages of using microsoft teams to online learning items sd % d % n % a % sa % 11. i lose my concentration gradually in a longlasting teaching session (2 hours and a half) through microsoft teams. 5 6.2% 6 7.5% 4 5% 50 62.5% 15 23.8% 12. my knowledge acquisition deteriorates during 2-hour-a-half online teaching period. 3 3.8% 8 10% 10 12.5% 25 31.2% 34 42.5% 13. i feel exhausted when continuously looking at the screen. 4 5% 9 12.4% 12 15% 34 42.5% 21 26.2% 14. i am sometimes interrupted by the unstable network connection. 9 11.2% 3 3.8% 10 12.5% 46 57.5% 12 15% 15. i can't interact well with my friend due to their lack of a mic or camera. 3 3.8% 8 10% 12 15% 41 51.2% 16 20% table 4.2 reveals that the majority of participants de-appreciated online learning through microsoft teams, for 86.3% of the students claimed that they couldn't stay concentrated on the lecture during a long teaching session that lasted over two hours. in addition to losing concentration, 73.7% of the participants reported that it was quite hard for them to acquire knowledge in such a long period. in response to the rest of the items, students who revealed their agreement or strong agreement on being tired accounted for 68.7%, while 72.5% and 71.2% supposed that the network connection sometimes prevented them from studying and their classmates’ lack of relevant aids caused problems in interacting with one another respectively. interview results question 1: what are your experiences when you study online in the use of microsoft teams? the first question was to find out students’ real-life experiences in studying online through microsoft teams. all of the interviewees stated that it was beyond their prior anxiety of online courses’ quality because they found it convenient and flexible to some extent. ten participants from different classes shared the same response that they could study at their comfort simply with a technological device and a network connection no matter where they are. in addition, 18 all of the interviewees appreciated the logical storage of study resources in the microsoft teams application, which helped them find out the needed files and re-watch them over and over again. in comparison with the traditional face-to-face learning, three out of ten students added that the lecture's content was simplified, and the teacher put into more practice with the introduction to kahoot and quizlet every twenty minutes. four other students stated that receiving frequent and detailed feedback from the teacher and classmates to their response and assignment facilitated them to perform better and know exactly what should be improved. nevertheless, two other participants said that they were overwhelmed with the computer skills since their friends or they sometimes pressed the wrong button, i.e., "take control", which accidentally disrupted the teaching and learning process and caused a loss of control. they further explained that some of their friends were not responsible for their study by the fact that they joined the meeting and did their own business, e.g., sleeping, playing games, or doing household chores. apart from lack of computer skills, one of the participants complained that she was annoyed with the other's microphone squeaking sound and the teacher's cacophony generated by the teacher's live recording. more importantly, she showed feeling isolated because she could not communicate with her classmates in the flesh. question 2: what can be done to improve online teaching and learning by the use of microsoft teams? of all the interviewees, eight students are expressing that most teachers made good use of microsoft teams that facilitated them to better online learning. as online learning activities are concerned, they all agreed that the content and the structure of the lesson should be simplified and gave room for practice and discussion time. to do so, they reported that lecturers should lecture within 10 minutes and then change the atmosphere into a relaxing and challenging way with the help of interactive games. meanwhile, one student reported that sometimes there was a technical problem, so learners fail to listen to the lecturer smoothly. as the participants' suggestion, the teacher should master the software before he or she started teaching. the other students added that sometimes their teacher looked somehow embarrassed when they talked in front of a camera and failed to manage students' attendance and performance properly. these students desired their lecturers to have a dashboard or portfolio to keep track of such problems. 5. discussion and implication for teaching the findings mentioned above are quite consistent with the literature on the benefits of online learning or e-learning. particularly, the advantage of giving learners flexibility and convenience aligns with work by guragain’s study of e-learning benefits and application (2016). his conclusion is that the business of e-learning is fast growing since it assists students everywhere. more importantly, the findings do not contradict the literature review on students' personalized learning (e.g., wagner et al., 2008 ). although works in the literature review did not represent some strengths that emerged from the study (e.g., frequent and timely feedback, anonymously confident participation, learning pace adjustment), the findings contribute to support the application of microsoft teams to online learning as an effective solution for teaching and learning in the complicated situation of covid-19 pandemic. 19 it is clear that using microsoft teams in online learning received much positive feedback. students who experienced the software reported that they gained more than expected beyond the initial fear, ranging from convenience, flexibility, and personalized learning opportunities. nevertheless, these advantages could not outweigh a series of drawbacks, including loss of concentration, lack of knowledge acquisition, the feeling of tiredness, lack of face-to-face communication and interaction, as well as heavy dependence on technology and network connection. implications for teaching there is no reason that more and more vietnamese universities and even high schools and primary schools have been implementing or are about to apply this web-based application instead of zoom app in their training schedule for its easy-to-use characteristics and continuous long-time meetings. following the worldwide educational trend in the era of comprehensive modernization, to cope with the ever-increasing risk of coronavirus infection, the vietnamese school system should take advantage of microsoft teams for learners' sake. however, exploring microsoft teams in online learning successfully is quite a daunting task because it is always believed that traditional courses outperform online learning, and there still exists a vast number of shortcomings. there are many practical solutions for both teachers and learners to overcome such challenges. as far as teachers are concerned, they have to hone their online class management by a plethora of helpful ways including using a new feature, i.e. polly in microsoft teams to check attendance and mark learners’ participation, checking and assessing students through quick assignments or a quick survey through form apps. in addition, varying activities and changing teaching methods every half an hour should be carried out to ensure to stop learners from being bored and distracted. short explanations or lectures should be followed by discussion, a short break with music, tasked-based learning, or interactive games, which creates an exciting online learning atmosphere. during a long-time teaching period, teachers are likely to focus on the main point and simplify some unnecessary content. for the sake of learners, choosing the best place to study, which is tranquil and comfortable, is an absolute must for students to absorb the lecture at their convenience. secondly, to avoid falling behind what the teacher is saying, students should briefly refer to the required materials beforehand. in other words, students have to cultivate their self-study in an attempt to learn and explore knowledge actively. finally, learners should use opportunities for discussion to interact with their peers and the teacher with the help of a camera, microphone, and emotional chat forums in microsoft teams. conclusion with an ever-increasing innovation in era 4.0 and the outbreak of covid-19 pandemic, educational institutions face the challenges of requiring new approaches in education and preparing students to meet the diversified working environment requirements. online learning is one of the successful means of teaching methods that best suits keeping the training schedule going on and a convenient online teaching and learning environment. from the findings of this study, beyond the fear and anxiety at the first time and some difficulties during online teaching 20 and learning, online learning using moodle or microsoft teams is favorable and receives many positive attitudes from students and should be widely used and explored. references le, l., tran, h., and hunger, a. (2013). developing active collaborative e-learning framework for vietnam’s higher education context. proceeding of the international conference on e-learning, pp.240-249. gilbert, b. (2015). online learning revealing the benefits and challenges. education masters. p. 303. henninger, m., & neal, d., r. (2012). incorporating web-based engagement and participatory interaction into your courses. social media for academic, (2012), 141159. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-1-84334-681-4.50008-6 seragen, s. (2020). 5 benefits of e-learning. retrieved on august 30, 2020 from the world wide web: https://www.studyinternational.com/news/benefits-online-learning/ smedley, j.k. (2010). modelling the impact of knowledge management using technology. or insight (2010) 23, 233–250. https://doi.org/10.1057/ori.2010.11 twomey a. web-based teaching in nursing: lessons from the literature. nurse educ today 2004 aug, 24(6), 452-8. wagner, n., hassanein, k. & head, m. (2008). who is responsible for e-learning in higher education? a stakeholders’ analysis. educational technology & society, 11(3), 26-36. zhang, d., zhou, l., briggs, r. & nunamaker, j. (2006). instructional video in e-learning: assessing the impact of interactive video on learning effectiveness. information & management, 43(1), 15-27. appendices appendix 1: students’ questionnaire the purpose of the questionnaire is to do a survey on students’ attitudes towards using microsoft teams in online learning at van lang university. it is the foundation for teachers to have an insight into how students experienced this software. therefore, i would like to appreciate your contribution in responding to this questionnaire. your opinion will be confidential and only used in this research paper. thank you for your cooperation. date:………………………………………. please read each statement carefully and mark your best choice. sd = strongly disagree d = disagree n = neutral a = agree https://www.studyinternational.com/news/benefits-online-learning/ 21 sa = strongly agree items sd d n a sa 1. i found learning through microsoft teams convenient since i can study via my cellphone or laptop. 2. i can save time because i don’t have to commute to school. 3. i feel comfortable for not being in a classroom surrounded by many classmates and not to be prone to the coronavirus infection. 4. i can access to study resources easily and quickly through the toolbar “files”. 5. i can study online at my favorite place, e.g. at home or at a café. 6. i can correct my response easily by using the “edit” function. 7. i can re-watch the recorded lectures at anytime and anywhere. 8. i can receive frequent and timely feedback from the teacher and peers on my response(s) and assignment(s). 9. i can study in accordance with my learning pace because i can pause or rewind the video clips many times after the meeting on microsoft teams. 10. i have unrivalled opportunities to get involved in discussion without embarrassment. 11. i lose my concentration gradually in a long-lasting teaching session (2 hours and a half) through microsoft teams. 22 12. my knowledge acquisition deteriorates during 2-hour-a-half online teaching period. 13. i feel exhausted when continuously looking at the screen. 14. i am sometimes interrupted by the unstable network connection. 15. i can't interact well with my friend due to their lack of a mic or camera. appendix 2: screenshots from microsoft teams’ activities figure 3: microsoft teams interface 23 figure 4: screenshot from one writing class figure 5: screenshot from one writing class citation asiacall online journal received: 18/08/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 26/08/2021 vol. 12, no. 5, 2021 accepted: 27/08/2021 pp. 1-16 online: 01/09/2021 citation | nguyen, t. k., & nguyen, t. h. t. (2021). acceptance and use of video conferencing for teaching in covid-19 pandemic: an empirical study in vietnam. asiacall online journal, 12(5), pp. 1-16. acceptance and use of video conferencing for teaching in covid-19 pandemic: an empirical study in vietnam nguyen thanh khuong1*, nguyen thi hong tham2 1 ho chi minh university of law, ho chi minh city, vietnam 2 hoa sen university, ho chi minh city, vietnam *correspondence: nguyen thanh khuong, ho chi minh university of law, vietnam. e-mail: ntkhuong@hcmulaw.edu.vn abstract the coronavirus disease outbreak of 2019 (covid-19) has fundamentally altered the nature of learning at all levels, from university to primary school. in vietnam, continual learning is ensured through the use of video conferencing applications. video conferencing is a teaching tool that is used to facilitate communication and engagement between professors and students during an epidemic. the study employs a unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (utaut) to ascertain the elements that influenced the adoption of video conferencing for online training in vietnam during the covid-19 pandemic. a survey of 203 instructors who have used video conferencing for instruction during the covid-19 epidemic was conducted and evaluated using a structural equation model (sem). the results indicate that significant elements influencing the use of video conferencing for teaching during covid-19 include effort expectancy, habit, hedonic motivation, and behavioral intention to use, which together account for 59 percent of video conferencing for teaching usage (r2=0.59). keywords: video conferencing, utaut2, teacher video conferencing adoption 1. introduction covid-19 will touch over 1.6 billion learners in 190 nations worldwide by 2020, according to united nations data (brief, 2020). in vietnam, schools at all levels must be closed during the covid-19 outbreak in accordance with directive no. 16/ct-ttg on the implementation of social distancing. dispatch no. 1247/bgddt-gdcthssv on enhancing the safety of preschool children, students during their study over the internet on march 14, 2020 to implement solutions to ensure the continuous learning of students. on march 23, 2020, at the college and university level, dispatch no. 988/bgddt-gddh was issued regarding ensuring the quality of distant learning during the covid-19 outbreak. next, on march 25, 2020, the ministry of education and training issued directives, including dispatch no. 1061/bgddt-gdtrh on internet and television instruction for general education institutions mailto:ntkhuong@hcmulaw.edu.vn https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, t. k., & nguyen, t. h. t. vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 2 and institutions during the period of student leave from school due to covid-19 in the 20192020 school year. adapting teaching and learning practices in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic is a significant problem for vietnam's education sector. however, this is an excellent opportunity to further enhance online learning approaches. one extensively used technique is to educate using conference technologies in conjunction with learning management systems (lms). in vietnam, video conferencing tools such as zoom, google meet, microsoft teams, and skype are widely used. this also happened in malaysia, thailand and iran (hashim, 2006; rahimi & bigdeli, 2014). throughout covid-19, this was a frequently employed method of instruction. according to townsend, a.m., demarie, s.m., & hendrickson, a. r. (2001) in turns out that the student achieves good results when using the conference system (townsend, demarie, & hendrickson, 2001). another study by maclaughlin, supemaw & howard (2004) found that learning through conferences gives the same academic performance as traditional learning (maclaughlin, supemaw, & howard, 2004). additionally, numerous research has been conducted on students' intended behavior when it comes to video conferencing in order to ascertain the elements that influenced their use of this instrument during the covid-19 pandemic ((bui, luong, nguyen, nguyen, & ngo, 2020); (ngo, nguyen, & tran, 2020); (pham & ho, 2020); (fatani, 2020); (hiroyuki, o., 2021); (nguyen, t. n. m., & nguyen, p. h., 2021); nguyen, h. u. n., & duong, l. n. t. (2021)). however, studies on the intended behavior and usage of video conferencing for teaching of instructors are of little notice at various school levels. in this study, the author focuses on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (utaut) ((venkatesh, morris, davis, & davis, 2003); (venkatesh, thong, & xu, 2012)) to discover the elements that impact the intention and usage behavior of teachers in employing the video conferencing system to educate during the covid-19 pandemic. the subjects and scope of inquiry are instructors at different levels of education who have utilized video conferencing technology to educate during the covid-19 pandemic in vietnam. 2. literature review 2.1 video conferencing video conferences, according to the oxford dictionary, are "meetings in which persons from diverse locations communicate via voice and video." according to the united nations development programme, free video conferencing tools such as zoom, google meet, microsoft teams, and skype were heavily used during the covid-19 crisis. by utilizing video conferencing, businesses may increase their productivity, optimize and expedite decisionmaking, and reduce customer and employee travel costs associated with communication, exchange, and meeting procedures. video conferencing in education enables continuous instruction throughout the covid-19 cycle and lays the groundwork for the creation of online teaching activities in remote learning situations ((fatani, 2020); (sahi, mishra, & singh, 2020)). acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 3 2.2 research model information systems research has extensively examined new technology adoption. trendconscious conduct was identified using the psychosocial perspective on theory of reasoned action (tra) ((azjen, 1980); (fishbein & ajzen, 1977)). ajzen created the theory of planned behavior (tpb) by adding a component of perceived behavioral control to the tra theory ((ajzen, 1985);(ajzen, 2002)). tpb urges the researcher to look at how consumers' social sensitivity affects their decision to utilize an online system (crespo & del bosque, 2008). in order to explain human behavior linked to information technology adoption, the technology acceptance model (tam) builds on the tra's theoretical underpinnings ((davis, 1989); (davis, 1993)). the idt detailed how people assimilate technical advancements (rogers, 1995). venkatesh et al. created the utaut to explain information system users' intentions and behavior. a combination of the tpb and tam models, idt, the motivation model (mm) (davis, bagozzi, & warshaw, 1992), the model of personal computer use (mpcu) (thompson, higgins, & howell, 1991), and social cognitive theory were used to construct utaut (sct) (compeau & higgins, 1995). performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating condition were used to produce utaut. venkatesh et al. later introduced utaut2, which adds hedonic motivation, price value, and habit to the original utaut concepts. then utaut2 includes demographics like age, gender, and experience. 2.3 hypotheses performance expectancy (pe) is described as an individual's belief that by implementing a specific system, they will be able to achieve competitive advantages at work (venkatesh et al., 2003). perceived usefulness in tam, extrinsic motivation in mm, job fit in mpcu, and result expectation in sct are the five constructs that make up various models of performance expectancy. the teacher believed that video conferencing would boost their performance and that individual students would be happier with it. as a result, the subsequent hypothesis has been proposed hypothesis 1: pe has a beneficial effect on the intention to use video conferencing (vci). effort expectancy (ee) is described as the ease with which information systems can be combined (venkatesh et al., 2003). according to amoaka (2004), the effort is anticipated to determine the end-intention users to use the information system (amoako-gyampah & salam, 2004). teachers' decisions on whether or not to use video conferencing are influenced by the system's expected effort. the following is the h2 hypothesis: hypothesis 2: ee has a beneficial effect on a person's intention to engage in video conferencing (vci). the degree to which an individual is aware that other influential individuals believe the new method is better for work is referred to as social influence (si) (venkatesh et al., 2003). the subject norm in tam, social element in mpcu, and image in idt are all examples of https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, t. k., & nguyen, t. h. t. vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 4 social influence as a direct predictor of behavioral intention. teachers would be influenced by the social aspects of video conferencing in deciding whether or not to use it. as a result, it proposes: hypothesis 3: si has a beneficial effect on the intention to use video conferencing (vci). the facilitating condition (fc) is that the degree to which an individual believes that a company and technical infrastructure exist to create the system easier to use (venkatesh et al., 2003). perceived behavioral control, facilitating condition, and compatibility are the principles indicated by three separate conceptions in tam, mpcu, and idt. the technological features of a video conferencing facility would have an impact on the teacher's decision to use it or not. as a result, the following proposal was made: hypothesis 4: fc has a beneficial effect on the intention to use video conferencing (vci). hedonic motivation (hm) is described as joy or enjoyment experienced as a result of utilizing the system, as well as a significant contribution to the desire to use the new system (brown & venkatesh, 2005). research on information systems has found that hedonic motivation is directly connected to the adoption and use of technology. the teacher's decision to employ video conferencing would be influenced by its hedonic motive. the h5 theory is as follows: hypothesis 5: hm has a beneficial effect on the intention to use video conferencing (vci). habit (hb) is described as the degree to which humans tend to perform behaviors automatically as a result of learning, and habit is sometimes confused with automaticity (limayem, hirt, & cheung, 2007). venkatesh (2012) claims that hb has a direct or indirect influence on behavioral intention (venkatesh et al., 2012). the hb of a video conferencing system will influence the teacher's decision to use the system in the future. as a result, we have hypothesis h6 and h7: hypothesis 6: hb has a beneficial effect on the intention to use video conferencing (vci). hypothesis 7: hb has a beneficial effect on the use of video conferencing (vcu). price value (pv) is defined as a consumer cognitive trade-off between the perceived benefits of applications and the financial cost of using them. (dodds, monroe, & grewal, 1991). venkatesh (2012) defines pv as users' perceptions of trade-offs between benefits and costs (venkatesh et al., 2012). the teacher's decision to employ video conferencing would be influenced by the pv. as a result, we've got the h8 hypothesis: hypothesis 8: pv has a beneficial effect on the intention to use video conferencing (vci). video conferencing intention (vci) is defined as an individual's intention to perform a acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 5 specific action or as a subjective probability of completing the behavior, as well as the cause of a specific act of usage (mun, jackson, park, & probst, 2006). the goal of video conferencing is to get teachers to use it. as a result, we have the hypothesis h9: hypothesis 9: vci has a beneficial effect on the use of video conferencing (vcu). the analysis included demographic data (de), such as age, gender, school level, and information technology communication (ict) experience, as suggested by utaut2. as a result, it speculates on the following: hypothesis 10: de has an effect on both independent and dependent elements. 3. methods 3.1 research method the research was conducted in two stages: (1) preliminary qualitative research and (2) formal quantitative research. to create a draft scale, the author used the theory of unifying and accepting technology use (utaut2) and the actual situation of using conferences to teach during the covid-19 outbreak in vietnam. following that, the author discussed the draft scale with teachers who used the video conferencing system to teach during the covid-19 epidemic in order to calibrate it and provide a preliminary experimental scale for research. the scale from the preliminary study was used in the formal study after it was corrected. the observed variables in the official study were quantified using a 5-point likert scale (at the lowest level 1 is strongly disagree and the highest level is 5 strongly agree). the survey will be distributed via social media platforms, forums, and teacher communities in vietnam. a total of 215 data samples were collected, with 203 samples (12 invalid samples) of 29 observed variables being usable. spss software (cronbach's alpha and efa) and amos were used to clean and analyze the collected data (cfa and sem). the formal study's analysis included exploratory factor analysis (efa); reliability analysis (cronbach's alpha); confirmatory factor analysis (cfa); and analysis of the structural equation model (sem) to test the model and the research model's hypotheses. 3.2 data collection and descriptive statistics the descriptive data are used to determine indicators for teachers who used video conferencing to train students during the covid-19 epidemic. video conferencing app: 54% of respondents utilized zoom, with 32% using ms team, the rest were google meet and other applications, 11% and 3% respectively. gender distribution is unequal, with roughly 70% female and 30% male. age: respondents aged 31-40 and 41-50 account for 50.2 percent and 29.6 percent, respectively; the remaining respondents are aged 22-30 and above 50. ict experience: nearly 85% of respondents reported having more than ten years of computer experience; the remainder reported having fewer than five years. school level: more over half of the respondents are now in high school, and around one-quarter of them are currently in secondary school. another onequarter of the respondents are currently at university, and the remaining nine percent are in primary school. https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, t. k., & nguyen, t. h. t. vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 6 4. results 4.1 exploratory factor analysis (efa) pv1 and pv3 were excluded from the first exploratory factor analysis (efa) because their factor loadings were less than 0.50. after eliminating pv1 and pv3, the price value (pv) component was left with just one variable to evaluate. as a result, the pv component of the exploratory factor analysis was omitted (efa). the second efa then extracted eight items from the 26 indicators. as predicted by the theoretical model, the variables coalesce into eight groupings factors in the rotational component matrix, including effort expectancy (ee), facilitating condition (fc), hedonic motivation (hm), habit (hb), video conferencing intention (vci), and video conferencing usage (vcu). according to table 1, the efa factor loadings of all indicators vary between 0.641 and 0.904. table 1. structure of components and scale for video conferencing usage observed variables factor loading c ro n b a ch a lp h a a v er a g e v a ri a n ce e x tr a ct ed efa cfa cr ave performance expectancy (pe) 0.763 0.531 1 i am always available to use the video conferencing system to teach online. pe1 0.70 0.82 2 i'm really interested in learning how to use and operate the video conference system. pe2 0.64 0.80 3 i'll be using a video conferencing system that fully combines online teaching support tools. pe3 0.84 0.79 effort expectancy (ee) 0.892 0.679 4 i find it simple to teach online using the video conferencing method. ee1 0.90 0.87 5 i know how to use the video conferencing technology. ee2 0.78 0.84 6 the video conferencing system gives me complete instructions to help me with the teaching process. ee3 0.71 0.83 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 7 observed variables factor loading c ro n b a ch a lp h a a v er a g e v a ri a n ce e x tr a ct ed efa cfa cr ave 7 it's simple to learn how to use the video conferencing technology. ee4 0.87 0.75 social influence (si) 0.827 0.627 8 my colleagues believe that using the video conferencing system for online education will be more effective. si1 0.75 0.88 9 other schools also use the video conferencing system for online education. si2 0.89 0.76 10 my supervisor believes that i should use video conferencing to teach online to boost engagement. si3 0.73 0.73 hedonic motivation (hm) 0.778 0.544 11 i will have access to all necessary information for online training via the video conferencing technology. hm1 0.67 0.85 12 utilizing a video conferencing solution enables me to expand my capacity for online interaction with students. hm2 0.70 0.83 13 when i'm teaching online via video conferencing, it's simple for me to enlist the assistance of another instructor. hm3 0.76 0.83 habit (hb) 0.847 0.650 14 i have made it a practice to use the video conferencing system for online instruction. hb1 0.77 0.83 15 i am confident in using the video conferencing system for online education. hb2 0.79 0.85 16 i can't quit using video conferencing to teach online. hb3 0.77 0.77 https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, t. k., & nguyen, t. h. t. vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 8 observed variables factor loading c ro n b a ch a lp h a a v er a g e v a ri a n ce e x tr a ct ed efa cfa cr ave facilitating condition (fc) 0.841 0.571 17 have ideal settings for using the video conferencing equipment to teach online fc1 0.69 0.79 18 provide good settings for obtaining video tutorials for learning and for using the video conferencing system for online teaching. fc2 0.81 0.73 19 find instructions on how to use the video conferencing technology to teach online. fc3 0.72 0.76 20 i quickly learned how to use the video conferencing equipment to support my teaching. fc4 0.78 0.75 price value (pv) 21 online teaching with video conferencing provides more information and comfort than it costs. pv1 eliminated 22 video conferencing increases engagement and ensures teaching. pv2 23 using video conferencing to teach online will save you time and effort. pv3 video conferencing intention (vci) 0.876 0.703 24 i intend to use the video conferencing system for online instruction. vci1 0.72 0.82 25 i always consider employing the video conferencing technology. vci2 0.88 0.75 26 i intend to employ video conferencing for online instruction more regularly. vci3 0.82 0.60 video conferencing usage (vcu) 0.853 0.668 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 9 observed variables factor loading c ro n b a ch a lp h a a v er a g e v a ri a n ce e x tr a ct ed efa cfa cr ave 27 i always teach online using the video conferencing method. vcu1 0.73 0.80 28 i use the video conferencing equipment to improve my relationships with students. vcu2 0.77 0.70 29 i had numerous unique experiences using the video conferencing system to teach online. vcu3 0.90 0.71 4.2 confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) validates the model's fit to the data. according to table 2, the chi-square (χ2)/df value is 1.197; the gfi value is 0.895; the tli value is 0.975; the cfi value is 0.979; and the rmsea value is 0.031. according to table 1, all observed variables had high standardized cfa factor loadings, ranging between 0.604 and 0.883. according to fornell & larcker (1981), an average variance extracted (ave) of 0.53 to 0.70 (more than 0.50) indicates that the measures have a high degree of convergent validity (fornell & larcker, 1981). additionally, because all aves are greater than the associated squared correlation coefficients, the measures acquire discriminant validity (r2). additionally, the cronbach alpha values for all variables in official measurements are adequate, indicating that they are valid measures (>0.70). table 2. cfa indicator indicator level of acceptance results reference rmsea rmsea <0.08 0.031 (hair, 2009) gfi if greater than or equal to 0.9, the model fits satisfactorily. between 0.8 and 0.9 is an acceptable level of model fit. 0.895 (seyal, rahman, & rahim, 2002); (hu & bentler, 1999) cfi if greater than or equal to 0.9, the model fits satisfactorily. 0.979 (hair, 2009) https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, t. k., & nguyen, t. h. t. vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 10 tli if greater than or equal to 0.9, the model fits satisfactorily. 0.975 (hair, 2009) cmin/df (χ2/df) 1.0 < cmin/df <3.0 1.197 (hair, 2009) 4.3 structural equation model (sem) analysis the maximum likelihood (ml) estimation of the structural equation model (sem) yields theoretical scale indices of χ2/df=1.786; gfi=0.825; tli=0.900; cfi=0.910; and rmsea=0.062. in this case, the model is a good match for the market data. table 3 shows the sem in the estimates, which reveal that ee, hm, and hb have positive effects on vci with =0.157 (p=0.003), 0.222 (p=0.003), and 0.294 (p=0,001), respectively, supporting h2, h5, and h6. neither the path from pe, si, and fc to vci, nor the line from hb to vcu are, however, dismissed. and the findings back up h9 by demonstrating that vci has an effect on vcu with =0.592 (p=0.001). table 3. analysis results of relationship hypothesis relationships estimate se cr p value result h1 vci  pe 0.056 0.079 0.706 0.480 rejected h2 vci  ee 0.157 0.054 2.943 0.003 supported h3 vci  si 0.071 0.056 1.263 0.206 rejected h4 vci  fc 0.122 0.070 1.735 0.083 rejected h5 vci  hm 0.222 0.074 2.998 0.003 supported h6 vci  hb 0.294 0.068 4.326 *** supported h7 vcu  hb 0.110 0.074 1.486 0.137 rejected h9 vcu  vci 0.592 0.094 6.275 *** supported the anova test is used to examine if any variations in the connection between pe, ee, si, fc, pv, hm, vci, and vcu are due to demographic factors such as age, gender, school level or ict experience. the data suggest that relationships between independent and dependent variables are unaffected by age, gender, school level or ict experience and are statistically significant at p=0.05. as a result, h10 is deemed invalid. this research generally supports four out of every ten hypotheses (see figure 1). acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 11 figure 1. the acceptance and use of video conferencing model 4.4. discussions in summary, four of the study's ten hypotheses are accepted, and structural equation model (sem) analysis indicates that independent and intermediate components may account for approximately 59% (r2=0.59) of the variation. according to the study, 59% of video conferencing usage behavior in teaching during the covid-19 outbreak was driven by variables that directly affect video conferencing usage. in terms of ee, hm, and hb, factors are those that have a direct effect on the teacher's intention to use the video conferencing system, as well as on the teacher's action. this study examined the factors affecting the acceptance and use of video conferencing for teaching in vietnam during the covid-19 pandemic, using the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (utaut2) framework. our study discovered that effort expectancy had a significant effect on teachers' behavioral intention to use video conferencing (ee). additional studies (tarhini, al-busaidi, mohammed, & maqableh, 2017) corroborate this finding. a study found that ee had a big effect on the employment of animation and storytelling during this regard (suki & suki, 2017). as a result, the teaching-learning process appears to be simplified during covid-19 pandemic when using video conferencing. hedonic motivation (hm) had a major positive effect on the behavioral intention of teachers to use video conferencing. hm was connected to a mobile learning adoption intention (moorthy, yee, t'ing, & kumaran, 2019). when it involves video conferencing, enjoyable learning experiences are critical. a userfriendly environment and electronic content significantly contribute to the creation of pleasurable learning experiences (el-masri & tarhini, 2017). as a result, educational designers should keep these characteristics in mind. the findings of this study indicated that habit (hb) https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, t. k., & nguyen, t. h. t. vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 12 had a positive effect on teachers' intentions to use video conferencing systems. in keeping with venkatesh et al. (2012), routine use of a technology incorporates a significant effect on its adoption (venkatesh et al., 2012). in general, our study found that teachers' behavioral intentions to use video conferencing had a big effect on their actual video conferencing use. our findings corroborated prior research ((hoque & sorwar, 2017); (suki & suki, 2017); (ravangard, kazemi, abbasali, sharifian, & monem, 2017)). the intention to use video conferencing was predictive of actual use. the particular use of video conferencing was also contingent teachers' behavioral intent to try and do so. in summary, our findings indicate that teachers are willing to use video conferencing to boost the standard of their teaching experiences. we believe that teachers come from a range of economic, social, and cultural backgrounds in developed and developing countries. these various circumstances may have a major impact on teachers' intentions to adopt a brand new instructional system. video conferencing may be a new approach within the covid-19 pandemic and better education in vietnam as a developing country. as a result, additional research on video conferencing system adoption is strongly recommended. 5. conclusion the purpose of our work to examine the instructor's acceptance and use of video conferencing technology using the utaut2 methodology has been accomplished. the findings indicate that variable measures ensure reliability. both efa and cfa generate high factor loadings for the variables, and their measures exhibit discriminant validity. additionally, the sem analysis demonstrates that factors such as effort expectancy, hedonic motivation, and habit all influence and affect video conferencing adoption; conversely, video conferencing adoption has an effect on video conferencing usage. according to the study's conclusions, teachers must make substantial efforts to continue continuous education throughout the covid-19 epidemic by utilizing video conferencing technology. obtaining support from communities and professionals in the same field has also resulted in the development of various values beneficial to instructors, which is one of the major reasons for utilizing video conferencing for teaching. by utilizing video conferencing to educate during the covid-19 epidemic, instructors were able to develop favorable behaviors that enabled them to use information technology to enhance education. the intention to use conference sessions is most strongly influenced by habitual variables. thus, teachers should use video conferencing on a regular and consistent basis to build habits when adopting remote learning. for online training, the study's findings shed light on the most widely used methods for ensuring continuous learning between teachers and learners who may interact and converse in real time. as a result, the use of conference meeting apps is required for distance training programs and during the covid-19 epidemic. however, to ensure efficient usage of this application, teachers require training and direction on how to use it effectively during the teaching process. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 13 additionally, teachers play a critical role in the session's effectiveness and the happiness of learners while using conference meeting programs for teaching ((selim, 2007); (shee & wang, 2008); (alqahtani & rajkhan, 2020)). the teacher will operate not just as a teacher, but also as a transmitter of knowledge, assisting learners in their learning process through the use of conference meeting software. for managers and educational policymakers, research indicates that using video conferencing technology for distance training and online teaching is a viable option. developing online and distance education programs requires the use of video conferencing tools to facilitate communication and instruction between teachers and students. as a result, managers must develop an appropriate strategy for utilizing, exploiting, and integrating conference applications into learning content management systems appropriate for each specific level of study in order to ensure the quality of teaching and learning outcomes for learners. additionally, as new technologies are implemented in education, managers must develop training and teacher development plans in order to develop a core human resource for the future development of online training and distance learning. in a follow-up study, the authors will explore the combined effects of the elements as well as expand the scope and subject of the research, modify the scales, add more variables to the research model, use random sampling, and make recommendations that will help educators, elearners, educational organizations, and service providers implement video conferencing and elearning strategies. references ajzen, i. (1985). from intentions to actions: a theory of planned behavior. in action control (pp. 11-39): springer. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-69746-3_2 ajzen, i. (2002). perceived behavioral control, self‐efficacy, locus of control, and the theory of planned behavior 1. journal of applied social psychology, 32(4), 665-683. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2002.tb00236.x alqahtani, a. y., & rajkhan, a. a. (2020). e-learning critical success factors during the covid-19 pandemic: a comprehensive analysis of e-learning managerial perspectives. education sciences, 10(9), 216. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci10090216 amoako-gyampah, k., & salam, a. f. (2004). an extension of the technology acceptance model in an erp implementation environment. information & management, 41(6), 731-745. doi:10.1016/j.im.2003.08.010. azjen, i. (1980). understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. englewood cliffs. brief, p. (2020). education during covid-19 and beyond. united nations(accessed 2020, at https://www. un. org/development/desa/dspd/2020/04/socia l-impact-of-covid-19.). https://www/ https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, t. k., & nguyen, t. h. t. vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 14 brown, s. a., & venkatesh, v. (2005). model of adoption of technology in households: a baseline model test and extension incorporating household life cycle. mis quarterly, 399-426. https://doi.org/10.2307/25148690 bui, t.-h., luong, d.-h., nguyen, x.-a., nguyen, h.-l., & ngo, t.-t. (2020). impact of female students’ perceptions on behavioral intention to use video conferencing tools in covid-19: data of vietnam. data in brief, 32, 106142. doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2020.106142 compeau, d. r., & higgins, c. a. (1995). application of social cognitive theory to training for computer skills. information systems research, 6(2), 118-143. https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.6.2.118 crespo, a. h., & del bosque, i. r. (2008). the effect of innovativeness on the adoption of b2c e-commerce: a model based on the theory of planned behaviour. computers in human behavior, 24(6), 2830-2847. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2008.04.008 davis, f. d. (1989). perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. mis quarterly, 319-340. https://doi.org/10.2307/249008 davis, f. d. (1993). user acceptance of information technology: system characteristics, user perceptions and behavioral impacts. international journal of man-machine studies, 38(3), 475-487. https://doi.org/10.1006/imms.1993.1022 davis, f. d., bagozzi, r. p., & warshaw, p. r. (1992). extrinsic and intrinsic motivation to use computers in the workplace 1. journal of applied social psychology, 22(14), 11111132. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1992.tb00945.x dodds, w. b., monroe, k. b., & grewal, d. (1991). effects of price, brand, and store information on buyers’ product evaluations. journal of marketing research, 28(3), 307-319. https://doi.org/10.2307/3172866 fatani, t. h. (2020). student satisfaction with videoconferencing teaching quality during the covid-19 pandemic. bmc medical education, 20(1), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-020-02310-2 fishbein, m., & ajzen, i. (1977). belief, attitude, intention, and behavior: an introduction to theory and research. philosophy and rhetoric, 10(2), 177-188. fornell, c., & larcker, d. f. (1981). structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error: algebra and statistics. in: sage publications sage ca: los angeles, ca. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3150980 hair, joseph f. (2009). multivariate data analysis: a global perspective. 7th ed. upper saddle river: prentice hall. hashim, z. (2006). open and distance learning: the effectiveness of online discussion forums in promoting the use of english for communication. asiacall online journal, 1 (1), 22, 33. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 15 hiroyuki, o. (2021). the integration of 21st century skill and virtual learning with covid19. asiacall online journal, 12(3), 22-27. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/30 hu, l., & bentler, p. m. (1999). a multidisciplinary journal cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis. structural equation modeling, 6(1), 1-55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540118 limayem, m., hirt, s. g., & cheung, c. m. (2007). how habit limits the predictive power of intention: the case of information systems continuance. mis quarterly, 705-737. maclaughlin, e. j., supemaw, r. b., & howard, k. a. (2004). impact of distance learning using videoconferencing technology on student performance. american journal of pharmaceutical education, 68(3). mun, y. y., jackson, j. d., park, j. s., & probst, j. c. (2006). understanding information technology acceptance by individual professionals: toward an integrative view. information & management, 43(3), 350-363. doi: 10.1016/j.im.2005.08.006 ngo, t. t., nguyen, t. t. t., & tran, t.-g. (2020). influence of learning by using video conferencing tools on perceptions and attitude of vietnamese female students in covid-19 pandemic. available at ssrn 3697029. nguyen, h. u. n., & duong, l. n. t. (2021). the challenges of e-learning through microsoft teams for efl students at van lang university in covid-19. asiacall online journal, 12(4), 18-29. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/60 nguyen, t. n. m., tra, v. d., & nguyen, p. h. (2021). difficulties and some suggested solutions in studying online of the students in van lang university during the covid19 pandemic. asiacall online journal, 12(4), 9-17. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/58 pham, h.-h., & ho, t.-t.-h. (2020). toward a ‘new normal’with e-learning in vietnamese higher education during the post covid-19 pandemic. higher education research & development, 39(7), 1327-1331. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2020.1823945 rahimi, a., & bigdeli, r. a. (2014). ict and efl students’ self-regulation mastery: educational meat or poison. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859). rogers, e. (1995). diffusion of innovations (4th eds.) acm the free press (sept. 2001). new york, 15-23. sahi, p. k., mishra, d., & singh, t. (2020). medical education amid the covid-19 pandemic. indian pediatrics, 57(7), 652-657. doi: 10.1007/s13312-020-1894-7 selim, h. m. (2007). critical success factors for e-learning acceptance: confirmatory factor models. computers & education, 49(2), 396-413. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2005.09.004 https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, t. k., & nguyen, t. h. t. vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 16 seyal, a. h., rahman, m. n. a., & rahim, m. m. (2002). determinants of academic use of the internet: a structural equation model. behaviour & information technology, 21(1), 71-86. https://doi.org/10.1080/01449290210123354 shee, d. y., & wang, y.-s. (2008). multi-criteria evaluation of the web-based e-learning system: a methodology based on learner satisfaction and its applications. computers & education, 50(3), 894-905. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2006.09.005 thompson, r. l., higgins, c. a., & howell, j. m. (1991). personal computing: toward a conceptual model of utilization. mis quarterly, 125-143. https://doi.org/10.2307/249443 townsend, a. m., demarie, s. m., & hendrickson, a. r. (2001). desktop video conferencing in virtual workgroups: anticipation, system evaluation and performance. information systems journal, 11(3), 213-227. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2575.2001.00103.x venkatesh, v., morris, m. g., davis, g. b., & davis, f. d. (2003). user acceptance of information technology: toward a unified view. mis quarterly, 425-478. https://doi.org/10.2307/30036540 venkatesh, v., thong, j. y., & xu, x. (2012). consumer acceptance and use of information technology: extending the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology. mis quarterly, 157-178. https://doi.org/10.2307/41410412 biodata nguyen thanh khuong is a lecturer of information technology at ho chi minh university of law, vietnam. his academic interest areas are open and distance education, online learning, e-learning, information communication technology in education, information system in business and e-commerce. nguyen thi hong tham is a teacher at nguyen thai binh secondary school and is currently studying for a master of arts in linguistics at hoa sen university, vietnam. she has over 10 years of experience in teaching english for students. her academic interest areas are about education and methodology in learning a foreign language. asiacall online journal received: 03/01/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 28/01/2021 vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 accepted: 05/02/2021 pp. 58-71 online: 06/02/2021 58 improving english speaking ability through e-learning su ai anh thu1*, cao thi xuan tu1, le do lam vy1, nguyen le ngoc trinh1, nguyen thi lan anh1 1van lang university, ho chi minh city *corresponding author’s email: khanhhang61@gmail.com abstract e-learning is an alternative approach to education, which mentions the utilization of information and transmission technologies to allow the way to online learning. many previous studies have compared elearning with face-to-face learning to determine the benefits and drawbacks of each method and see if they could substitute the other. however, few studies examined whether e-learning affects english as foreign language (efl) in speaking skill; some were successful in investigating, but some were not. in order to fill this gap, this study demonstrates the effectiveness of e-learning in improving english speaking ability. the researchers used a random sampling method with twenty questionnaires and five questions to interview to achieve the goal. participants were fifty junior students of the faculty of foreign language who had two years of experience of studying speaking skills at van lang university (vlu) in ho chi minh city. the procedure of collecting results lasted two weeks, and data collection was analyzed based on the results presented in the chart. these findings shed light on the difficult factor students encountered when speaking english and highlight development-speaking ability progression via e-learning. keywords: e-learning, speaking ability, traditional learning, efl introduction background of the study according to kauffman (2015) [13], the improvement of technology, involving the internet, has influenced education provision over the world. therefore, educators sought a new technique of learning based on technology, which is called 'e-learning'. e-learning has become a popular form of training all over the world for many years (bui et al., 2020). some developed and developing countries have been using traditional and e-learning to facilitate students' learning environments. allen and seaman (2004) reported that most students in the usa attended at least one online class, and about 91% of the public schools in the usa offered online classes (cited in bonk and zheng). according to bui et al. 2020, e-learning is an impressive and highly powerful way of learning and a very appropriate approach to meet society's requirements. e-learning is defined as an instructional approach where the teachers and students are divided by distance and by time (boyette, 2008) [4] and mainly access to learning knowledge via the applying of technology (benson, 2002; carliner, 2004; conarad, 2002; moore et al. 2010). e-learning refers to using content distribution tools such as a personal computer and smartphones to interact and take part in a diversity of educational activities (boyette, 2010). therefore, online learning offers some advantages that traditional learning does not. online education provides convenience and flexibility in time and space, especially for those learners who want to balance work, school, and family mailto:khanhhang61@gmail.com acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2; 2020 59 (kauffman, 2015) [13]. furthermore, online students can be motivated through (or by) self-learning and selfdirected (kauffman, 2015) [13]. english has indeed become the international language, thereby increasing the demands of learning english. as english is worldwide, according to boonkit (2010) [3], he suggested that english speaking competence should be advanced together with other skills (listening, reading, and writing) so that both native learners and foreign learners could develop interaction accomplishment. speaking is one of the four main compulsory skills in english, which is used as a means of transmission, especially when learners are not interacting in their native language (boonkit, 2010) [3]. speaking integrated with writing are the two productive skills in the development of successful communication (boonkit, 2010) [3]. speaking skill or communicative skill plays a significant role in life; therefore, successful conservations usually provide an amount of value for both learners and business organizations (boonkit, 2010) [3]. however, students who learn english have limited chances of speaking english outside the traditional classroom (zhang, 2009 cited in boonkit 2010) [3], which is why students are afraid of speaking english and unwilling to communicate with foreign speakers. therefore, students need to spend more time practicing speaking by applying different methods, including e-learning instruments. in order to improve english speaking skills, students have the opportunity to practice speaking through electronic tools such as videos on youtube, bbc news, duolingo, elsa, online dictionary, etc. all tools are free online learning, and students need to contact the internet to access software. duolingo, according to garcia i. (2013) [8], online learning with no cost helps students to learn english by doing some exercises. to the students, in other words, these activities assist them in becoming more active and being able to communicate confidently. to the teachers, e-learning also provides particular software to upload and make suitably material learnings (cohen & nycz, 2006) [5]. teachers use powerpoint to demonstrate and make lessons more exciting by adding videos. for e-learning, teachers become instructors and facilitators (eldeghaidy & nouby, 2007) [7]. therefore, e-learning is considered a useful tool for learning english speaking. statement of the problem while many countries in the world have been successful by applying blended learning, which combines elearning with face-to-face learning in education. for instance, in the united states, thirty states and further than half of the schools suggest online learning, and more than 40% of the students in high school and middle school are fascinated by online learning (watson, 2008) [21]. furthermore, in china, the school conditions are poor both in the developed and undeveloped regions. a larger number of students could not go to the highly regarded universities, and the universities generally lack good-condition educational sources. with rapid development, the chinese now can offer better alternative methods in education and other basic conditions for schools and universities. it is believed that e-learning is a talented method because it advances different ways for students to interact with their teachers. on the other hand, in vietnam, e-learning is quite strange to both learners and teachers because they prefer face-to-face learning. to vietnamese learners, traditional learning has been a vital and successful approach in education. nevertheless, due to the explosion of the corona epidemic over the world in early 2020, education has been seriously affected and stayed longer. in order to avoid long delaying learning, online training is considered the best choice to meet demand. from that point, some students and teachers adjust new approaches, and acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2; 2020 60 then, they find some positive impacts of online learning during the process of learning and teaching. this study aims to determine the effectiveness of e-learning on the english speaking ability of college students. significant of the study. the study proves that e-learning is beneficial for students and undergraduates who still hesitate whether to use a wonderful method to improve english speaking skills or not. according to newton (2003), applying elearning can improve the accessibility of the educational system and training process, enhance the quality of teaching and learning, and alter higher education institutions to maintain the advantages in a transformation for students undergraduates. literature review what is e-learning? moore et al. (2010) stated that the definition of e-learning is not specific; the authors refer to a certain definition of e-learning based on their own observations in their studies. in 2003, nichols defined e-learning as accessible using electronic tools such as web-based, web-distributed, and web-capable. while in the study of manocher (2006), e-learning was referred to using the use of processes to learn and electronic applications like computer-based learning, web-based learning, digital collaboration, and virtual classrooms. as well, in a website, isp (2004) reported that the content of e-learning is delivered via the cd-rom, tv, internet, and intranet with multimedia capabilities. however, triacca (2004 cited in moore et al., 2010) presented that elearning was a kind of online learning. according to stockey (2003), e-learning is a curriculum program that involves using electronic means to deliver learning material. e-learning was the first internet-based training broadly used in education since the mid-1990s (solak & cakir, 2014) [19]. as a result of model alteration from traditional classrooms to elearning classrooms, solak & cakir (2014) [19] report that students who take responsibility for learning prefer online learning despite arguing whether face-to-face learning is better than e-learning. many previous research studies have compared the function of e-learning and traditional learning, and the purpose of this study is to verify the sight of english language learners towards e-learning and face to face learning, at the same time, determine the role of academic accomplishment, which is the output of education (solak & cakir, 2014) [19]. hence, researchers found that there are many notions of e-learning. nevertheless, in this study, e-learning is defined that students use electronic devices to support their learning, such as computers, laptops, and smartphones through websites or applications. some difficulties in english speaking skills. al-eiadeh, al.sobh, al-zoubi, & al-khasawneh (2016) [2] reported that many students have difficulties in speaking english, such as misunderstanding and lack of confidence because they did not practice speaking sessions accurately in school. they do not know how to practice speaking effectively or use it in communication. besides, there is a limited amount of vocabulary among students. because most vietnamese classes are big, both teachers and students hardly communicate in english. instead, they only focus on reading skills and grammatical lessons. furthermore, students are afraid of speaking english. according to hosni (2014) [11], students have no object to explain themselves and lack confidence about their pronunciation. therefore, nakhlah (2016) [17] acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2; 2020 61 recommends creating an environment for learning and stimulating students to speak english smoothly to improve advanced english speaking. but in this study, the researchers only concentrate on five factors that strongly influence students’ speaking ability. 1. pronunciation 2. vocabulary 3. stress 4. intonation 5. undetermined: grammar, structure, miscomprehension some effects of e-learning on english speaking skills. mohammadi, ghorbani, & hamidi (2011) [15] proved e-learning's effects in learning a language. through some advantages of e-learning, they found that it is like a communicative method of learning languages, which gives learners opportunities to interact with learners peacefully. they are able to use electronic devices and study whatever they want. according to this study, the teachers can use sounds, pictures, and actions on the televisions to attract learners' attention. sometimes, online games are also language teaching devices. by using this method, learners easily study vocabulary and practice pronunciation. in addition, learners use the internet and multimedia technologies to study english. for instance, learners can look up new vocabulary via online dictionary websites, practice speaking through videos on youtube, or enhance various listening, reading, and writing papers. in conclusion, it is believed that e-learning is a useful method for learning the language. previous research studies many previous researchers have compared the function of e-learning and traditional learning. students in the combined courses were more motivated and supported by their teachers, and the course was likely to create higher learning consequences. the participants' higher academic accomplishment gets positive views towards e-learning. besides, students' attitudes toward e-learning depend on what they perceive as benefits and drawbacks to this educational method. according to zabadi and al-alawi (2016) [22], factors such as endurance, self-awareness, the facility to use soft wares, the good technological ability to manage time affect attitudes of students toward e-learning, so that attitudes can be positive if the new educational method is suitable for students. on the other hand, bhatia (2011 cited in zabadi and al-alawi) [22] states that the attitudes can be negative if the students are unable to fit into the new system because they do not have the necessary set of traits. al-eiadeh et al. (2016) [2] found some suitable ways to recover limitations in english speaking ability are recorded by using various media, such as a recording device or a smartphone with a recording application. then, the interview questions and the student answers are written down on paper, and hard duplicated for statistical analysis. the result indicated that other researchers should conduct studies at many different universities to compare similarities and differences in teaching speaking skills. and in the second study, the researchers advised that students should use modern majority media such as facebook, youtube, duolingo, and so on. according to the research study of shen and suwanthep (2011) [20], they surveyed to investigate acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2; 2020 62 how e-learning constructive role-plays influences on speaking skills of chinese learners in the seminary classes via new horizon college english (nhce) e-learning. data collection was assembled by using speaking pretests and post-tests, students recording analysis, questionnaires, and interviews lasting 18 weeks. the participants were 300 junior undergraduate students with non-english major enrolling in college english advanced classes. the students were divided into three groups based on high, medium, and low language proficiency level terms. after the scores from their previous english final exams and english pretests, 260 students were selected and randomly allocated into an experimental group of 130 students and a control group of 130 students. while the experimental group worked in a constructive role in the one-hour computer lab class, the control group worked with the present behavioral role in nhce e-learning in the one-hour computer lab class. after 18 weeks, both groups were required to take the speaking post-tests to determine the role's effects on their performances. the results can be examined in terms of speaking performance, language productivity, and students' attitudes toward applying constructive role play. it is proved that the e-learning constructive role plays have a positive effect on improving the speaking performance of the students in the experimental group at all language proficiency levels. moreover, data collection from questionnaires expressed that students are interested in learning language through e-learning constructive role plays and the process of learning to speak english more collaboratively and enjoyable. the majority of the students also agreed that constructive e-learning role plays provided valuable information on how to speak english. from the results of the study, the researchers proved that e-learning constructive role plays have a positive effect on students' improvement in english speaking. besides some previous studies investigating e-learning's effectiveness in improving english speaking ability, some studies also indicated that efl learners also recover the factors like vocabulary or pronunciation, which seem to be important to learn a second language. the study of ahmadi (2012) stated that vocabulary knowledge plays an important role in learning foreign languages. in addition, zhang and anual (2008 cited in ahmadi, 2012) examined the connection between vocabulary knowledge and foreign language learning. the results indicated a strong, meaningful relationship between learning a foreign language and vocabulary knowledge. according to a study by stahl and nagy (2006 cited in ahmadi, 2012), learning vocabulary is difficult. therefore, ahmadi found a solution to improve foreign language vocabulary through reciprocal teaching methods. the goal of this study is to identify whether mutual teaching methods enhance learners' vocabulary or not. as well, ahmadi defined vocabulary into two forms, one is oral vocabulary, in which words are spoken and read verbally, and the other is printed vocabulary, which learners understand when they are reading or writing. accordingly, the better comprehension of vocabulary definition is, the better comprehension of the whole description of the content would provide. in addition, ahmadi stated that the reciprocal teaching method is one of the successful approaches in teaching foreign languages and also provides learners environment learning to improve students' learning level. this method points out reading skills, reading motivation, and vocabulary learning. the mutual teaching method has four strategies: predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing. each strategy has its own benefit, but in general, they help students motivate in reading and have a clear set of goals in learning vocabulary. in addition, teachers have to prepare new vocabulary, hold up students' activities, and adopt reciprocal teaching strategies to improve various topics of vocabulary for students. for example, to memorize words for a long time, teachers should include some pictures or colors which describe the vocabulary to make it easier to learn vocabulary. therefore, the teacher's teaching strategy can help and improve the vocabulary in which students have difficulty. consequently, the result of this study acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2; 2020 63 indicated that the reciprocal teaching method has significantly positive effects on improving vocabulary. pronunciation features should be recovered as well. according to scriven (2005 cited in yangklang, 2013) reports that it is important for undergraduates to learn more pronunciation because they need to understand more in english. furthermore, intonation is also a significant feature that helps learners know when speakers complete their point (harmer, 2007 cited in yangklang, 2013). about 2,800 were undergraduates who applied english foundation i course taught by e-learning. learning goals are the undergraduate's feeling and attitude toward e-learning programs. the undergraduates will be checked pronunciation by the speaking test in that program. a questionnaire was used to examine after the post-test to evaluate the students' learning. relied on the students' scores, the researchers summarized that students agree that e-learning is worthy and able to help them boost their pronunciation strongly. this study represented the undergraduates' pronunciation ability after using e-learning. speaking is a macro language skill that is actively used to convey messages and meanings (hosni, 2014, afshar & asakereh, 2016, & leong & ahmadi, 2017). the dissemination of english as a language requires learners to achieve communicative competencies for various practical purposes (copland, garton, & burn, 2014). and speaking in the efl context is not an easy task; researchers from english contexts such as foreign languages (efl) choose a solution to develop students' speaking english skills. in this study, researchers synthesized studies performed from 2013 to 2018, nearly six years in different contexts. this study aims to identify english-speaking learning problems efl learners face as related to curriculum, teaching methods, learning activities, psychology, and testing systems. research on efl learners' speaking problems is in nonnative language contexts. they need to communicate a lot with foreigners by directly or indirectly communicating through social networking sites to increase their speaking english reflexes. in addition, teachers and administrators also need to provide learners-appropriate methods and curricula (efl) so that they can improve their speaking skills most effectively. english speaking skill is one of the main goals in most vietnamese universities' english language curriculum. however, it remains a challenge for many undergraduates, especially freshmen of can tho university (ctu) in vietnam. in order to help first-year english majoring students learn their speaking skills more effectively, this study explored difficulties in teaching and learning in the english language from 131 students, interviews with lecturers, and classroom observations. the paper by gan (2012) explored students' obstacles to speaking skills specialized in english and found that students encountered some problems such as lack of vocabulary, focus on a lot of grammatical structures, no opportunity to speak english in class and outside environments. according to kabir (2014) and izadi (2015) 's research, they are recommended for both faculty and administrators to provide support to improve students' speaking practice. for example, teachers and administrators should encourage students to improve their english by organizing activities such as english rhetoric, english speaking contest, or presentations in english. in addition, timely findings from learners' weaknesses in english speaking and suggest the need for teacher readiness support by diversifying their teaching activities. in 2011, bashir, azeem & dogar reported that using short conversations and asking some short queries could improve students' english speaking skills in classrooms. teachers could give students dialogues and show structure for them to repeat. they also designed a survey to investigate the influences that affect english speaking skills of secondary level students. all the teachers and students of 9 to 10 grades in punjab's province were the participants in the study. the investigators will give them questionnaires, which are respectively designed to fill. the data collection will be organized in tabular form with a particularly calculated percentage. relied on the result, the interactive techniques are used by both teachers and students acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2; 2020 64 during the course. this study also counseled that teachers should boost more english culture of communication in the course and inspire students to speak english with their friends. according to liao (2009), she reported that integrated skills mixed with listening, writing, reading, and speaking would boost students' speaking ability. she also showed the problems that in china, teachers concentrated too much on reading and writing, so that speaking was not emphasized. furthermore, teaching activities are not exciting because they depend on traditional styles, which were all on the papers, and the students are not inspired. examinations and tests also do not include speaking skills. the same as china, vietnam also has the same method in teaching english speaking skills. the students do not consider speaking as an important skill because they rarely have opportunities to speak with native speakers. in addition, most entrance exams of high schools and universities do not include speaking tests. in fact, speaking skill is important to express feelings and information and improve writing and reading skill. if teachers are not good at speaking, it is impossible to emphasize speaking skills in the class. instead, they use dialogues of native speakers to bring authentic accents. by combining four skills in activities, the teachers bring chances to perform the oral activities. the researchers conduct a class with integrating skills by giving students clues. they also use questionnaires to obtain data collection or let students work in pairs to conduct quizzes with factual answers. on the other hand, in 2018, lumettu and runtuwene have reported a way of teaching english is called 'impromptu speaking' method, which is conservation with little or no preparation. they conducted a survey to investigate this method's effects and compare it with total memorization. the participants were the students of the tourism department of manado state university. they used qualitative methods and some techniques to gather the data, such as inspection, interviews, and papers. the students were divided into two groups; each group had ten members. one group applied the 'impromptu speaking' method, and others learned by heart the full text. based on the result, 'impromptu speaking' was effective in flowing and natural because students could use their imaginations to speak. however, the other group was mostly unsuccessful because students were anxious when they could not remember the words or sentences. hence, this study counseled that this amazing method should be applied more in improving students' english speaking skills. research questions 1. which difficulties do students have in improving speaking skills? 2. how do students use e-learning to improve their difficulties? 3. is there any effect of e-learning on students? methodology research context and participants. this survey was conducted at the faculty of foreign languages of van lang university, one of the principal majors in higher education coaching. each year, the number of candidates applying in the faculty is more than eight hundred students. thus, the number of classes is increasing. during the first two years, with the english language, students had to learn four compulsory skills such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing in order to acquire output standards. students are also trained in four optional majors: business, acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2; 2020 65 teaching, tourism, and translation. during the curriculums, the faculty has organized some contests such as foreign language contest (fola contest) and the speaking english contest to help students communicate confidently and improve speaking skills and essential skills. in particular, to facilitate students to study abroad, the faculty co-operates with international university to obtain a master degree and ph.d. in some countries such as the united states, canada, and australia. sampling method these survey participants were 50 third-year students who have completed two years of studying english speaking skills. their ages average from 20 to 23. they improve their english speaking skills with upgraded infrastructure such as computers, projectors, smartphones, etc., every day. this survey was conducted with random sampling, which was a probability sampling technique and convenient sampling. it took two weeks to collect answers and information. in week 1, fifty students were given questionnaires through a group of the faculty's third years on facebook. the questionnaires were designed on google form, which is a tool for conducting surveys. in a second week, ten random students were picked to interview. after collecting answers from 2 weeks, the answers were divided into five factors, which are the difficulties in english speaking skill: pronunciation, vocabulary, stress, intonation, and undetermined. all these questions are aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of e-learning in improving students’ difficulties in english speaking ability. research procedure all the assembled data will answer two main research questions. it is simple for students to answer the questions, and questionnaires are flexible and multiform. the questionnaires can be printed on paper and extensively shared on facebook. there are 20 questions, 10 of which will ask issues related to e-learning and students’ comprehension of e-learning, and the others are about difficulties in speaking english and how to improve english speaking through e-learning. also, students’ names are perceived as anonymous to guarantee their privacy. there are 10 questions for the interview, which clarify the problems students face when speaking and improving english. all answers in the interview were recorded. the more questions were sent and shared, the higher the response rate the researchers have. kučírková and jarkovská (2016) [14] claimed that a high response rate also evaluates the accuracy of the study. data collection and analysis answers collected from questionnaires and interviews were gathered to analyze. the questionnaires are the process of gathering quantitative, and the interviews are qualitative. the purpose of quantitative questions was to discover how difficulties students have in speaking english. the purpose of qualitative questions was to find out how effectively students improve speaking skills through e-learning. the researchers analyzed the data through software and displayed the graphs or figures' data. the researchers show data by percentages or average in relation to quantitative data. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2; 2020 66 results and discussion research question 1: which difficulties do students have in improving speaking skills? the purpose of the paper's first research question is to discover difficulties students have in speaking english, and the data collection indicates that almost (95%) students in this survey get hardship to communicate in english. in order to recognize elements, the researchers gave the students five aspects as pronunciation, vocabulary, stress, intonation, and undetermined to decide which elements students encounter when speaking. in the circumstance, the supposition was precise; the study could explore how students improve all these skills in speaking english through e-learning. chart 1 presents the comparison of the percentages of these five factors. chart 1. the percentages of five factors chart 1 shows the results of the percentages of five elements students find difficulty in speaking; thus, these also cause a lack of confidence when communicating (55%). as can be seen, in a number of difficulties, two factors with high percentages were pronunciation (70%) and vocabulary (50%). the other factors are the average proportion of 31.6%. this result indicated that most students have difficulty pronunciation and vocabulary, which blocks them from speaking english. chart 2. the most complicated factors students find difficult in speaking english. 70% 50% 35% 40% 20% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% factors 22% 32%13% 20% 13% the most complicated factors pronunciation vocabulary stress intonation acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2; 2020 67 however, according to the most complicated factors present in chart 2, vocabulary takes up the highest proportion with 32% whilst pronunciation has a second position with 22%. the other factors also seemed to be difficult but not worth considering as getting a low average proportion with nearly 15%. basically, it can be concluded that both vocabulary and pronunciation are the significantly difficult factors of speaking english skills. these results resemble previous research, such as gilakjani (2011) [10] claimed that pronunciation is one of the most significant factors of a personality's communication. bad pronunciation is unable to listen and leads to misunderstanding. therefore, this conclusion was the foundation for the study to explore how students improve english speaking skills through e-learning. research question 2: how do students use e-learning to improve their difficulties? at the second research question of the study regarding how students use e-learning to improve their speaking english skills, the researchers aimed to ask about e-learning instruments and the progression of enhancing the difficulties in speaking. table 1 presents the e-learning instruments and educational applications. table 1. the e-learning instruments. instruments cellular phone 65% computer 35% table 1 shows the results of the e-learning instruments and education applications. as can be seen from the table, most students use cellular phones (65%) for studying while the other students choose computers (35%). the result showed that a large number of students often use cellular phones for learning because cellular phones are convenient to bring out and full of necessary functions. computers are also chosen to learn but less than cellular phones. chart 3. apps for e-learning 55% 5% 15% 17% 8% applications releated leanring english youtube duolingo elsa t-flat others acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2; 2020 68 hence, 85% of the respondents get the applications of education related to studying english. the researchers highlighted some applications as characteristic models such as youtube, elsa, duolingo, and t-flats for students. table 1 indicates that students often apply youtube (55%) for improving speaking skills and use tflat (17,5%) for learning languages. subsequently, it can be assumed that students tend to utilize e-learning as an instrument for studying. the study also found that 70% of respondents learn vocabulary through movies or tv shows, 75% of those learn vocabulary by listening to a song or reading a journal. especially, nearly 93% of students often repeat the impressive sentences in the movies that help students practice pronunciation. these results resemble preceding study such as kar, saha, & mondal (2014) [12] and celee-murica (2001) found that students in university had an auspicious and agreeing attitude towards accepting e-learning strategy for studying; thus, the study revealed that listening and speaking could expand english speaking skill. research question 3: is there any effect of e-learning on students? for the third research question of the study regarding whether e-learning is effective in improving english speaking skills, researchers ran a simple interview to determine the result of the improvement procedure. chart 4. improvement of skills as can be seen from the data in chart 4, vocabulary is the most developed factor with 50%. pronunciation is also improved but not as significant as vocabulary with 33%, while other factors are not outstanding advancement, especially stress with 0%. hence, the researchers could conclude that students can improve their vocabulary and pronunciation through e-learning effectively. however, the study figured out that elearning is just effective in two factors above when others are not improved. at the second interview question, the respondents are asked about which factors students want to improve first. most of them choose the two-first-factors: vocabulary and pronunciation. half of them improve vocabulary first, and the others improve pronunciation. when asking about the reasons why respondents chose that factor to improve first in the third interview question, the respondents offer many reasons. firstly, they seriously lack vocabulary; some consider vocabulary a basic standard in speaking. on the other hand, the respondents who chose pronunciation said that having good pronunciation is the most important for listeners to comprehend. from the result, the researchers concluded that vocabulary and pronunciation are 33% 50% 0.00% 8.30% 8% series 1 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2; 2020 69 the most important and priority factors in speaking english skills. at the fourth review question, the researchers asked respondents what advantages and disadvantages that they found in e-learning. most claimed that the network is too weak for them to access the materials, limitation in interactions among learners, less concentration on the lessons, and less satisfaction. in contrast, they also pointed out some advantages of e-learning that are convenient, saving time and money, and flexible. the researchers could assume that e-learning has both benefits and drawbacks. discussion this result is the same as the study of gilakjnai (2011) [10], who found that many english foreign language learners have crucial difficulty with english pronunciation and vocabulary while learning for many years. more importantly, the use of e-learning positively influences on improving english speaking skills. the progress of enhancement could take a long time, but the improvement ability is significantly increasing. these seem to maintain the view about the advantages of e-learning because it encourages students to selfdiscipline and gain more knowledge through the lessons on videos and dialogue. the result of rodrigues and vethamani (2015) found that e-learning helps to increase language proficiency and boost students' confidence. hence, rodrigues and vethamani (2015) recommended that e-learning be combined in english language programs because it improves oral skills among learners. conclusion in conclusion, this study successfully replied to all the research questions that discovered the effectiveness of e-learning in improving english speaking skills. using cellular phones, computers, and some educational applications can enhance the ability to speak. however, the study has some limitations. the researchers just focus on five difficult factors of speaking, and that did not figure out all other complicated aspects of whether the respondents can increase self-confidence to communicate. besides, the number of the participants is very low, with 50 people, which cannot claim the effects of e-learning in improving english speaking, and the researchers need more participants. hence, it is recommended for future studies that the universities should alternatively use both traditional learning and e-learning methods in teaching and studying english language, because learners should take part in oral activities to practice regularly, exchange their thoughts in english and, the teachers hold up the task-based language teaching, and make a use of electronic instruments support the teaching and learning. it is hoped that future investigations could explore the new environment for education to help to create an interesting learning area. references [1] afshar, h. s., & asakereh, a. (2016). speaking skills problems encountered by iranian efl freshmen and seniors from their own and their english instructors’ perspectives. . electronic journal of foreign language teaching, 13(1), 112–130. [2] al-eiadeh, a.-r., al.sobh, m. a., al-zoubi, s. m., & al-khasawneh, f. (2016, july). improving english language speaking skills of ajloun national university students. international journal of english and education, 5(3), 181-195. [3] boonkit, k. (2010, jan 6). enhancing the development of speaking skills for non-native speakers of english. procedia social and behavioral sciences 2, 1305-1309. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2; 2020 70 [4] boyette, m. a. (2008). an investigation of the online learning environment in higher education through the observation and perceptions of students of color. [5] cohen, e. b., & nycz, m. (2006). learning objects and e-learning: an informing science perspective. interdisciplinary journal of knowledge and learning objects, ii, 23-34. [6] cooper, t., & scriven, r. (2017). communities of inquiry in curriculum approach to online learning: strengths and limitations in context. autralasian journal of educational technology, 33(4). [7] el-deghaidy, h., & nouby, a. (2007). effectiveness of a blended e-learning cooperative approach in an egyptian teacher education programme. elsevier, 988-1006. [8] garcia, i. (2013, january 25). learning a language for free while translating the web. does duolingo work? international journal of english linguistics, iii(1). retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/105539/ijel.v3n1p19 [9] garrigues, s. (1999). overcoming pronunciation problems of english teachers in asia. korean: kyongbuk national university. [10] gilakjnai, a. p. (2011). a study on the situation of pronunciation instuction in esl/efl classrooms. journal of studies in education, 924. [11] hosni, s. a. (2014, june). speaking difficulties encountered by young efl learners. international journal on studies in english language and literature, 2(6), 22-30. [12] kar, d., saha, b., & mondal, b. c. (2014). attitude of university students towards e-learning in west bengal. journal of education research, 669-673. [13] kauffman, h. (2015, july 30). a review of predictive factors of student success in and satisfaction with online learning. research in learning technology, xxiii. [14] kučírková, l., & jarkovská, m. (2016). e-learning in business english course – results of the questionnaire survey. kučírková, l. & jarkovská, m. (2016). e-learning in businczech republic. czech university of life sciences prague. [15] mohammadi, n., ghorbani, v., & hamidi, f. (2011). effect of e-learning on language learning. procedia computer science 3, 464-468. [16] morley, j. (1999). trends in speech/pronunciation instructional theory and practice. michigan: the university of michigan. [17] nakhlah, a. m. (2016). problem and difficulties of speaking that encounter english language students at ai quds open university. international journal of humanities and social science invention , 96-101. [18] rodrigues, p. d., & vethamani, m. e. (2015). the impact of online learning in the development of speaking skills. jounal of interdisciplinary research in education, 43-67. [19] shen, l., & suwanthep, j. (2011, january). e-learning constructive role plays for efl learners in china’s tertiary education. asian efl journal, 49. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2; 2020 71 [20] solak, e., & cakir, r. (2014). face to face or e-learning turkish efl context. tukish online journal of distance education, (15) . [21] watson, j. (2008). blended learning: the convergence of online and face-to-face education. north american counclis for online learning. [22] zabadi, a. m., & al-alawi, a. h. (2016, may 25). university students' attitudes towards elearning: university of business & technology (ubt)-saudi arabia-jeddah: a case study. international journal of business and management, 11(6). retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ijbm.v11n6p286 open distance learning: delivering linguistics and education courses in a blended learning environment ong, cheng teik asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a1 open distance learning: delivering linguistics and education courses in a blended learning environment ong cheng teik ctong@wou.edu.my wawasan open university, malaysia submitted 22 august, 2015; accepted in final form 7 january, 2016 abstract taking cognisance of working adults’ aspiration for career advancement, wawasan open university (wou) has been established as the third open university in malaysia to provide tertiary education via the open distance learning (odl) mode. this is in line with the country’s vision 2020 (office of the prime minister, putrajaya, malaysia, 2010) to steer the country towards a fully developed nation by the year 2020. in this quest, it recognises that “our people are our ultimate resource …. [and that] malaysia must give the fullest emphasis possible to the development of this ultimate resource … [in terms of] the skills of our people … and knowledge upgrading and self-improvement” (the way forward, p 3). this paper describes wou’s experience in and model for providing such distance education with a focus on the courses offered by the school of education, languages and communications (selc). specifically, it examines the different aspects put in place to sustain and support students’ learning which include, but are not limited to, the physical infrastructure, information and communications technology (ict) facilities and learner support. it concludes with a discussion of some potential pitfalls to avoid and measures for addressing them. keywords: learner management system (lms), learner support, online assignment submission (oas) system online learning, open distance learning (odl), turnitin, working adults introduction open and distance education has liberalised and revolutionised the educational landscape in the past decades by providing students greater access to tertiary education with affordable fees and the flexibility of learning that is not bound by the constraints of space and time. in asia, this is evidenced by the establishment of “very large ‘dedicated’ distance teaching universities e.g. [in] pakistan, india, sri lanka, thailand, bangladesh, indonesia; others such as malaysia, vietnam, singapore have in place much smaller scale operations” (dhanarajan, 2009, p. 3). to function effectively, these distance-learning universities need to have in place basic essentials, the chief of which are material design and production, establishment and management of a learner management system (lms) and the provision of learner support and guidance. leveraging its edge in capacity building, wawasan open university (wou) was established with a view to providing working adult learners with the opportunity to fulfill their aspiration of having a tertiary education qualification without having to leave their jobs. given the students’ family and work commitments, wou has adopted the blended learning approach to afford students with the option of attending traditional face-to-face tutorials to supplement the online component of their courses. according to ausburn (as cited in ellis, hanington, ong & wilkinson, 2012), this type of presentation has become increasingly popular: mailto:ctong@wou.edu.my open distance learning: delivering linguistics and education courses in a blended learning environment ong, cheng teik asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a2 there has, in fact, been considerable support in recent literature for the internet plus face-to-face blended or hybrid model that joins technology, campuses and people. some believe that mixing bricks and clicks may be the ideal learning structure for non-traditional adult learners. (p. 73). wawasan open university (wou): background established in 2006 as the third open learning institution in malaysia (loo, 2014), wawasan open university provides working adults with the opportunities to pursue tertiary education through the open learning distance mode (odl), the main mode of delivery for the majority of the courses offered even though it has also begun catering to the needs of school leavers through the on campus learning mode (ocl) since jan 2014. based on the statistics in malaysian qualification assurance (mqa) document: bachelor of arts in english studies (baes) (wawasan open university, n.d.), working adults make up 75% of the population ranging from the ages of 21 to 71 years of age with the majority coming from the age group of 21 to 35 years old (part c, area 1, p. 1). taking cognisance of the fact that these are mature students with work and family commitments pursuing lifelong learning, the courses at wou are delivered on a blended study mode consisting of two main components i.e. face-to-face tutorials and online learning via wawasanlearn, the university’s learning management system (lms). under the odl mode, students have the choice of attending any of the five face-to-face tutorials conducted on the main campus in penang and various regional centres nationwide in addition to the main online discussion forums and course materials on the lms. these regional centres are located in ipoh, kuala lumpur johor baru and kuching apart from three other regional offices in petaling jaya, klang and subang that provide learner support to students. as these are mostly self-funded adults pursuing lifelong learning, they are highly motivated, self-directed and autonomous in their approach to learning, traits which are suited for the blended study mode. as a malaysian university, wou’s programmes are designed to meet the needs of a knowledge society (drucker, 1994) by equipping her graduates with skills and knowledge that are relevant to the needs of the market and industry, hence developing knowledge workers that contribute to the development of the country and its aspiration to achieve a fully developed nation by the year 2020 (office of the prime minister, putrajaya, malaysia, 2010). central to a knowledge society is the availability of upward mobility (drucker, 1994) to everyone through formal education, regardless of age, time and location. as regards this, wou is well positioned to provide working adult learners with the opportunity to upgrade their knowledge and skills through part-time study by harnessing the latest developments in information and communications technology (ict). school of education, languages and communications (selc): background and programmes among the 4 schools at wou, the school of education, languages and communications (selc) was set up in 2009 to provide programmes at degree, postgraduate and phd levels in the areas of education, languages and communications in tandem with the needs of the country for qualified teachers, lecturers, education institution administrators, editors, writers and other related vocations. these programmes are fully accredited or in the process of being accredited by the malaysian qualifications agency, mqa. according to the official portal of the malaysian qualifications agency, kementerian pendidikan open distance learning: delivering linguistics and education courses in a blended learning environment ong, cheng teik asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a3 malaysia (2013), mqa is a statutory body established under the malaysian qualifications agency act 2007 to oversee “quality assurance of higher education for both the public and private sectors” (mqa at a glance, para. 1). currently, selc offers 2 undergraduate programmes namely bachelor of education (hons) in primary education (bepe) and bachelor of arts (hons) in english studies (baes), both of which provide working adults with the opportunities to further their professional and academic qualifications in these areas. the 121-credit bepe programme targets in-service teachers in primary schools who plan to upgrade their qualifications from diploma or certificate in education to a degree on a part-time basis without having to leave their workplace and families. the completion of bepe will qualify graduates for appointment as graduate teachers in primary schools (wawasan open university, 2015a). on the other hand, the bachelor of arts (hons) in english studies (baes) programme requires students to undertake 121 or 123 credits of studies in one of the two core minors i.e. language and literature and teaching of english as a second language (tesl). diverse career opportunities are open to graduates from school teachers to journalists, editors and copywriters (wawasan open university, 2014). at postgraduate level, selc offers postgraduate diploma in education (pgde) programme and master of education (m. ed.). the former is a thirty-three-credit programme that caters to graduate teachers without a teaching qualification (wawasan open university 2015d). whereas the latter is a forty-five credit programme with two strands of specilisation in education management and teaching of english as a second language (tesl) (wawasan open university, 2015c). selc also recently launched its doctor of philosophy in arts and humanities based on research work that enables students to undertake an in-depth research in an area of interest culminating in a written thesis. this in turn contributes to or expand on knowledge in the filed of research. (wawasan open university, 2015b). entry requirements: open entry system the ministry of higher education (mohe) has approved wou, with another six universities in malaysia, to admit students via the open entry system. this system admits mature students above 20 years old for undergraduates and above 34 years old for postgraduates with minimal qualifications based on mohe’s conditions (liew & teoh, 2012). specifically, these students must possess at least one principal in stpm / hsc /a-levels. for students without these pre-university qualifications, they must have pmr / spm / mce /uec senior middle iii or other equivalent high school qualifications with work experience based on the university’s assessment (wawasan open university, 2014). for candidates without formal qualification, they can take the accreditation of prior experiential learning (apel) assessment conducted by the ministry of education (moe) and malaysian qualifications agency (mqa) (wawasan open university, 2014). course duration: flexible progression pathways in its effort to promote life-long learning, selc provides students with the flexibility of deciding the number of open distance learning (odl) courses to study in each semester, taking into account students’ work and family commitments and financial capability, among other considerations. as students are not open distance learning: delivering linguistics and education courses in a blended learning environment ong, cheng teik asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a4 constrained by a maximum duration to complete their studies, they take ownership in pacing their own studies with the leeway of opting to take a break from their studies for one or several semesters in between. student profiles the majority of students from selc are adult learners with working and family commitments with the aspiration of pursuing tertiary qualification in a move to upgrade their qualifications for better work prospects, especially in the field of education. this calls for learners to develop independent learning, selfdiscipline and good time management skills that the odl courses help to promote by providing adequate learner support. as many of these aspiring teachers and educators are already teaching in educational institutions, their work experience stands them in good stead in reinforcing their studies and vice versa. course delivery modes: wou and conventional universities compared the following table highlights some of the main differences between wou (an odl institution) and the traditional / conventional universities in a number of areas: area conventional / traditional universities wou (odl mode) access limited to traditional campus-based universities overcome barriers to access arising from geographical remoteness and other barriers student 19 – 23 years old 21 – 71 years old academic background fairly similar (post stpm i.e. local pre-university qualification) very varied (mohe open entry system: pmr i.e. local lower secondary school qualification to phd) experience minimal extensive approach teacher centred learner centred mode lectures & tutorials self-learning, online learning, tutorials and video tutorials time & place fixed flexible learning materials/resources lecture notes library (e-lib)  self-instructional learning materials in multimedia format through study guides, web-based materials, cd roms  online learning management systems  e-library accommodation for students hostels homes study environment campus office/ homes figure 1: wou and conventional universities compared open distance learning: delivering linguistics and education courses in a blended learning environment ong, cheng teik asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a5 adapted from: part c. information on area 1: vision, mission, educational goals and learning outcomes. in wawasan open university, malaysian qualification assurance (mqa) document: bachelor of arts in english studies (baes) (p. 5-6). wawasan open university: penang. tutorials sessions for open distance learning (odl) courses depending on the class sizes, five scheduled tutorials are conducted via various modes such as face-to-face, video conferencing (vc) or skype by part-time tutors with approximately one-month interval in between. these tutorials are conducted concurrently at the various regional centres (rcs) in penang (pgrc), ipoh (iprc), kuala lumpur (klrc), johor baru (jbrc) and kuching (kcrc), depending on the enrolments at each rc. for courses with face-to-face tutorials, a tutor is appointed in each rc to conduct the tutorials whereas for vc and skype tutorials, they are usually anchored from one rc to other rcs. a course can have a flexible combination of tutorial modes based on the class size at each rc. for example, a course is conducted via face-to-face mode in penang with a large class whereas it is conducted via vc / skype mode anchored from kl to ipoh and jb where student numbers are small in these three rcs. as there is no student enrolment in kuching, the class for the course there is closed. the five tutorials correspond to the five course units, with each tutorial of two hours focusing on one unit. as such, students are expected to do the relevant reading and discussion points are posted by a tutor on the learner management system (lms) prior to the tutorial to facilitate a meaningful and focused discussion in each tutorial. tutors go through the course unit powerpoint slides – generic or tutor-specific – to highlight salient points and to scaffold students’ learning. although attendance is not compulsory, students are strongly encouraged to attend the tutorials to engage in discussion on the course materials and tutor-marked assignments (tmas), a process that affords students the opportunity to enrich their perspectives and to have their queries clarified by their course mates and tutor. learner support a multiplicity of provisions of learner support is put in place to help students achieve their course learning outcomes and hence, succeed in their study. among these provisions are scheduled tutorials, learning management system (lms), consultation sessions and library resources. this is in line with the blended learning pedagogy adopted by distance education institutions involving three learning modes “i.e. selfstudy, online learning and face-to-face interaction” (wawasan open university, unit 4, n.d., p. 3). apart from conducting tutorials, tutors are required to allocate telephone consultation time for students to clarify their queries. students are strongly encouraged to take advantage of this support to seek guidance and advice from their tutors. in addition to the course units on wawasanlearn, the course moodle based lms, students are also supported by supplementary materials, relevant online links, forum discussions and exchanges with course mates, tutor and course co-ordinator. the supplementary materials are sourced from book chapters, research journal articles and open educational resources (oer), online video and audio clips, among others. the open distance learning: delivering linguistics and education courses in a blended learning environment ong, cheng teik asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a6 use of different media to supplement the course materials on the lms serve to deliver the course more effectively by catering to differing learning styles and preferences. the university is also equipped with extensive electronic library resources which students can access online anywhere anytime in their study and in completion of their tmas. at the regional centre (rc) level, staff members are on hand to help students, and facilities such as computer labs, libraries and free access computer terminals are provided. course presentation / materials instead of using prescribed text books, wou commissioned content specialists in their respective areas to write course materials that cater to the needs of odl learners. as such, the course materials are written to approximate tutor explanations so that they are highly readable and accessible to students as they engage in their independent study. as regards this, the materials are organized under different units and sections to guide and pace students’ learning. the course guide provides an overview and preview of the course, outlining the aims, learning outcomes, objectives, course materials, a suggested study schedule, recommended learning strategies and assessment, among others. such crucial information helps to manage students’ expectations and prepare them for their tutorials. each of the five study units are designed to be reader friendly and to facilitate self-study with the following sections (wawasan open university, unit 4, n.d., p. 9): introduction / overview sets of specific objectives text guided reading activities, often with commentaries self-tests, usually with feedback summary reference list the introduction section leads students into the materials by activating students’ schemata, hence linking their previous background knowledge from earlier units or other courses to what they are learning in the present unit. the unit objectives clarify what students are expected to know from each unit. the body of each unit is presented in short manageable sections under different sub-headings that can be completed in one sitting so as not to overwhelm students with too much information. the whole unit which can be completed in about three hours (wawasan open university, unit 4, n.d., p. 10) are punctuated with learning activities, in-text questions and self-assessment questions to promote self-study, self-checks and self-reflection. suggested answers, commentary and feedback are provided at the end of each unit to guide students in their answers. a summary at the end of each unit consolidates students’ learning and prepares them for the next unit. this is followed by a reference list that directs students to relevant resources for further reading. some units may also include a glossary of key concepts and other notes. open distance learning: delivering linguistics and education courses in a blended learning environment ong, cheng teik asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a7 development of course materials to ensure that they are of high quality, the development of course materials undergoes a rigorous process involving a course development team (cdt) that comprises various parties ranging from content experts (writers) to instructional designers and language editors. as part of quality assurance, an external course assessor (eca) is engaged to review and suggest revisions to the materials produced by the writers (wawasan open university, part c, area 2, baes, n.d., p. 5). the end product is a set of comprehensive self-study pedagogically designed course materials that are then uploaded in the form of pdf files to wawasanlearn, wou’s learning management system (lms), comprising a course guide and five course units for students to access. contemporary issues, selfreflection activities and discussion points are also incorporated into the course materials to foster meaningful exchanges in tutorials and online forums. central to this process is the determination of course learning outcomes that takes into account the level of study and the level of anticipated cognitive skills by bloom (1956). specifically, these learning outcomes factor in the following considerations (wawasan open university, part c, area 2, baes, n.d., p. 5, 6): the needs of industry, workplace knowledge and skills the overall programme goals the alignment with assessment criteria the following diagram summarises the pathway taken to identify the course learning outcomes: figure 2: the learning outcome identification process source: wawasan open university (n.d.). part c. information on area 2: programme design and delivery. in wawasan open university, malaysian qualification assurance (mqa) document: bachelor of arts in english studies (baes) (p. 6). wawasan open university: penang. open distance learning: delivering linguistics and education courses in a blended learning environment ong, cheng teik asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a8 characteristics of learning materials in wou this section describes some of the key characteristics of wou learning materials to cater to the needs and profiles of odl students (wawasan open university, unit 4, n.d., p. 5, 6). 1. use of informal conversational style of writing to enhance their readability and accessibility in an open distance learning (odl) environment, the learning materials are written in informal conversational style to ease students’ comprehension of potential difficult concepts, hence motivating students in their study. wherever possible, visuals such as pictures, diagrams, graphs and tables are presented to complement the texts. all these are crucial to pique students’ interest in a subject and develop their self-esteem. 2. stimulating interaction related to the conversational style of writing, the course materials simulate conversation between the course writer and the students in the absence of frequent tutorial sessions. such a personalised feature to stimulate interaction is further enhanced by interactive activities and well-designed self-assessment tasks. 3. activating background knowledge in order to scaffold students’ learning, the course materials foreground the relevance of new knowledge in relation to students’ existing knowledge and needs. such nexus is central to promoting effective learning as students are made to see the purpose of their learning. as such, the introduction section of the course materials incorporates and reviews previous learning materials as pre-requisite knowledge for the new learning task. in addition, each unit is preceded by a set of clearly defined objectives to activate students’ schemata. the summary and conclusion section again consolidate learning and reinforce such link. 4. interactive assessment formats another feature that enhances the readability of the course materials is the interactive assessment formats comprising activities and self-assessment questions that are provided at appropriate junctures of the course unit to help students gauge their comprehension of potentially problematic concepts, to reflect on the preceding discussion and to apply their newly acquired knowledge. students can then check their answers / responses against suggested answers and commentary provided. the two tutor-marked assignments (tmas) that accompany each course serve as both assessment for learning and assessment of learning as they account for part of the course assessment and also prepare students for their final exam. the qualitative feedback from tutors on their tmas identifies both strengths and weaknesses which students should work on for further improvement. learning management system (lms) introduced in 2007, wawasanlearn is a moodle based learning management system (lms) that serves to provide online support to our students enrolled in open distance learning (odl) courses at wou. it is the online platform for course presentation in which course materials, supplementary materials, tutor-marked assignments (tmas), specimen final exam papers, online quizzes, updates and announcements, among others, are uploaded and posted. wawasanlearn enables synchronous and asynchronous communication among its users where the former involves real-time or ‘live’ interaction such as online forum and chat room whereas the latter occurs with some time lapse. examples of these are emails and announcements. open distance learning: delivering linguistics and education courses in a blended learning environment ong, cheng teik asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a9 via online forums, chat room and announcements, tutors and the course coordinator post updates and reminders to students and students can have their queries clarified by the tutors and course coordinator. the system also features an individual tutorial forum that allows the respective tutor and students in each tutorial group to communicate with each other at the regional centre level instead of the course level. this prevents posting on specific matters related to a tutorial group from clogging up the online forum and, more importantly, it affords students the confidence to participate in online discussion and share their thoughts. for administrative purposes, the lms gives access to the course coordinator to monitor discussion and postings in all the individual tutorial forums and to intervene whenever necessary to remedy occurrences of misinformation or irrelevant discussion and postings. participation and access of the course lms can also be monitored by the course coordinator in terms of access dates and time, hence managing students who have not been accessing the lms consistently. there is also a separate guide for tutors section that is only open to the tutors and course coordinator. there, confidential materials such as assignment marking schemes and tutor guides are posted. the course coordinator can also utilise the cc-tutor forum to communicate with the tutors on course administration, among other matters. to facilitate the navigation between various course-related online sites, students can click on various hyperlinks in the course lms that will connect them to other online services such as the student portal, the online assignment submission (oas) system, wou digital library and turnitin, an online text-matching learning tool. to illustrate, the appendix section provides lms interface screenshots of selected main sections of the course eed219/05 foundation in education, a course taken by pgde students. course assessment to evaluate students’ achievement of the course learning outcomes, each open distance learning (odl) course offered by the school of education, languages and communications (selc) comprises two main assessment components i.e. assignments and a final exam. the former requires students to submit two tutor-marked assignments (tmas) with each accounting for 25% of the overall course assessment to be submitted on different deadlines that are well spaced out. tma 1 covers units 1 and 2 whereas tma 2 includes unit 3 and 4 of the course materials, serving as formative assessment on learning. tutors are required to mark the assignments with descriptive and constructive feedback for students to reinforce their strengths and act on tutor’s suggestions to remedy their weaknesses. tma 1 is to be returned to the students before the submission of tma 2 with the expectation that students act on the comments and show improvement in their tma 2. the same assessment process applies to tma 2 which will be returned to students before the final exam to inform students about areas that they need to further work on in preparation for their final exam, hence both tmas are also a form of assessment for learning. to safeguard academic integrity, students are to submit their assignments to turnitin, a plagiarism detection software that tries to match the assignments with other sources. students whose assignments have high similarity indices are required to revise and resubmit them to turnitin until the indices are low before submitting them to the university’s online assignment submission (oas) system. open distance learning: delivering linguistics and education courses in a blended learning environment ong, cheng teik asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a10 at the end of the course, students sit for a three-hour final exam that is invigilated concurrently in all regional centre exam halls. this summative assessment gauge students’ mastery of the course learning outcomes and understanding of the course materials through structured and essay questions covering a range of skills in the cognitive domain based on bloom’s taxonomy from the level of knowledge to evaluation. strengthening academic standard: potential pitfalls to avoid with a sound academic framework and a reliable ict infrastructure, wou can ensure that its courses further benefit from a review of course delivery and course assessment in particular with a view to safeguarding academic integrity, enriching students’ learning experience and engendering the culture of the learning community. this works towards consolidating its position as a provider of quality tertiary education. as such, this paper will highlight some of the perennial issues and potential pitfalls inherent in the courses and suggest measures to rectify the situation. one such issue is the frequent requests for extension of tutor-marked assignment (tma) submission. in consideration of the students’ work and family commitments, the current practice allows students to make up to a maximum of three such requests on the online assignment submission (oas) system, with the first request for seven-day extension, the second request for a fourteen-day extension and the third request for a twenty-one-day extension. although such provision is well intended for contingency reason and on compassionate grounds, the increasing ubiquity of such requests citing family and work commitments as reasons is indicative of the students’ lackadaisical attitude towards their study and adherence to deadlines. this runs counter to promoting values such as self-discipline, academic responsibility and fairness as students do not incur any penalty by making such requests. on the contrary, they have the edge of additional time to complete their tmas over students who strive to meet the submission deadlines. to deter students from abusing this provision and to deter diligent students from being demotivated and discouraged in the future, a preventive measure can be implemented to effectively screen such requests with supporting documents and to penalise those that are not genuine by marks deduction. in relation to tmas, although students are strongly encouraged to run through their tmas in turnitin, a web-based plagiarism and text-matching learning tool, and to subsequently revise tmas with high similarity indices, it is not a mandatory practice, hence, resulting in arbitrary remedial measures in addressing such issue by different course coordinators ranging from substantial to token marks deduction based on different interpretations of high similarity index. as such, the course assessment can benefit from greater transparency and consistency by insisting on assignment submission to turnitin and by standardising the threshold for and quantum of marks deduction to discourage practices of plagiarism, collusion and other forms of academic dishonesty, hence strengthening students’ academic integrity. tutor-marked assignments (tmas) are different from other forms of writing such as descriptive and narrative writing as it comes with writing conventions that are peculiar to the academic writing genre, an area that many students are not aware of and familiar with, hence resulting in submission of poor quality tmas. among writing areas that warrant serious attention are organisation and presentation of points, lack of coherence in discussion and arguments, inadequate or absence of elaboration and poor referencing skills. as such, students can benefit tremendously from attending workshops on academic writing / discourse skills which the university can organize as another form of learning support for students. to ensure the flourishing of a thriving learning community and to engender the culture of collaborative learning among students, various measures can be put in place from encouraging online forum discussion open distance learning: delivering linguistics and education courses in a blended learning environment ong, cheng teik asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a11 to improving tutorial attendance, hence enriching the exchange of ideas among tutors and students with different perspectives. a short-term measure to address this issue is to allocate participation marks for online discussion and tutorial attendance given that students pay serious attention to any form of assessment that affects their overall performance. although such extrinsic motivation is not ideal, it is hoped that such an interim measure eventually paves the way to igniting students’ genuine desire to create and participate in a learning community in the long run. predicated on the theory of situated learning in communities of practice (lave & wenger, 1991), this learning community in wou has the advantage of bringing together professional working adults to engage in exchange of ideas and discussion that is informed and enriched by their respective professional expertise. conclusion and recommendations this paper describes the blended learning environment in which linguistics and education courses by the school of education, languages and communications (selc), wawasan open university (wou) are delivered from the programme entry requirements to student profiles and learner support. specifically, the descriptions highlight the flexibility afforded to students undergoing these courses in an open distance learning (odl) mode under the wou model. in the wou odl model, various ict affordances and learner support are required to facilitate a form of student learning that transcends the constraints of space and time. to achieve programme and course learning outcomes through this alternative learning route, students benefit from reader-friendly selfinstructional course materials specifically developed for independent learning. these are complemented by a multiplicity of learner support structures, the chief of which are monthly face-to-face tutorial sessions, a highly accessible learning management system (lms) that supports online discussion and communication among students, tutors and course co-ordinator, and a flexible course assessment system that allows online assignment submissions. with all these, adult learners with various commitments enjoy the advantages of conventional face-to-face sessions and the flexibility of odl in charting their own progression pathways to complete their study. nevertheless, the discussion also highlights a number of learning points and potential pitfalls in some areas that can be reviewed to further fine-tune the course delivery, in particular the course assessment system and course participation. the implementation of a reliable assessment system should include an equitable assignment submission practice that only allows genuine requests for assignment submission extension. this entails insistence on documentary evidence and penalty as a deterrent. of equal importance is the need to safeguard academic integrity by implementing a standard policy requiring students to submit their assignments to turnitin, an online text-matching tool and by formulating clear guidelines on assignments with high similarity indices. in an odl environment, online forum discussion is the main channel for students to exchange ideas and engage in enriching discussion. this in turn engenders a learning community whose members support and motivate each other, hence mitigating any potential student isolation. however, students are not taking full advantage of and benefitting from this virtuous cycle as indicated by the lukewarm response to online forum discussion on the lms. one possible solution is to allocate marks for student participation in online forum with a view to raising awareness of the benefits of such discussion and the ultimate aim of translating this awareness to intrinsic motivation. open distance learning: delivering linguistics and education courses in a blended learning environment ong, cheng teik asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a12 references dhanarajan, g. (2005). sustaining knowledge societies through distance learning: the nature of the challenge. in the 19th aaou annual conference, jakarta, indonesia, 15-17 september 2005. dhanarajan, g. (2009). open distance learning: managing change – building capacity. in china central radio & tv university 30th anniversary international summit on open and distance education, beijing, china, 16-17 october 2009. drucker, p. (1994). knowledge work and knowledge societies. the social transformation of this century. usa: goldkin lecture, harvard university. ellis, m., hanington, l. m., ong, c. t. & wilkinson, m. (2012). blended is better? a new approach to communication skills for pre-service teachers. in kabilan, m. k., wei, k. t. & widodo, h. p. (eds.), ict & elt: research & practices in south east asia (pp. 72-91). pulau pinang: universiti sains malaysia press. lave, j., & wenger, e. (1991). situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. cambridge, ma: cambridge university press. liew, t. k. & teoh, a. p. (2012). assuring the quality of online teaching and learning: the case of wawasan open university. asian association of open universities (aaou) journal vol. 7, no. 1, september 2012, 13 – 33. loo, c. h. (2014). teaching accounting in the distance learning mode and on campus mode: a comparative study at wawasan open university. in the 28th asian association of open universities conference, hong kong, china, 28-31 october 2014. office of the prime minister, putrajaya, malaysia (2010). vision 2020. retrieved from http://www.pmo.gov.my/home.php?menu=page&page=1904. accessed: 20 august 2015. the official portal of the malaysian qualifications agency, kementerian pendidikan malaysia (2013). mqa at a glance. retrieved from http://www.mqa.gov.my/. accessed: 27 may 2015. wawasan open university (2015a). study with us. overview. study with wou. school of education, languages and communications. bachelor of education (hons) in primary education. retrieved from http://www.wou.edu.my/bachelor_of_education_%28hons%29_in_primary_education.html. accessed: 14 august 2015. wawasan open university (2015b). study with us. overview. study with wou. school of education, languages and communications. doctor of philosophy (arts and humanities). retrieved from http://www.wou.edu.my/master_of_philosophyin_arts_and_humanities.html. accessed: 14 august 2015. wawasan open university (2015c). study with us. overview. study with wou. school of education, languages and communications. master of education. retrieved from http://www.wou.edu.my/master_of_education.html. accessed: 7 august 2015. wawasan open university (2015d). study with us. overview. study with wou. school of education, languages and communications. post-graduate diploma in education. retrieved from http://www.wou.edu.my/post_graduate_diploma_in_education.html. accessed: 14 august 2015. wawasan open university. (2014). school of education, languages and communications. penang, malaysia: wawasan open university. wawasan open university (n.d.). part c. information on area 1: vision, mission, educational goals and learning outcomes. in wawasan open university, malaysian qualification assurance (mqa) document: bachelor of arts in english studies (baes) (p. 1-6). wawasan open university: penang. wawasan open university (n.d.). part c. information on area 2: programme design and delivery. in wawasan open university, malaysian qualification assurance (mqa) document: bachelor of arts in english studies (baes) (p. 1-22). wawasan open university: penang. http://www.pmo.gov.my/home.php?menu=page&page=1904 http://www.mqa.gov.my/ http://www.wou.edu.my/bachelor_of_education_%28hons%29_in_primary_education.html http://www.wou.edu.my/master_of_philosophy-in_arts_and_humanities.html http://www.wou.edu.my/master_of_philosophy-in_arts_and_humanities.html http://www.wou.edu.my/master_of_education.html http://www.wou.edu.my/post_graduate_diploma_in_education.html open distance learning: delivering linguistics and education courses in a blended learning environment ong, cheng teik asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a13 wawasan open university (n.d.). part c. information on area 2: programme design and delivery. in wawasan open university, malaysian qualification assurance (mqa) document: bachelor of education in primary education (bepe) (p. 11-22). wawasan open university: penang. wawasan open university (n.d.). unit 4: course presentation & learning support. in wawasan open university, course coordinator handbook (pp. 1-18). penang, malaysia: wawasan open university. open distance learning: delivering linguistics and education courses in a blended learning environment ong, cheng teik asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a14 appendix: lms interface screenshots of selected main sections of the course eed219/05 foundation in education. figure 3: wawasanlearn login interface open distance learning: delivering linguistics and education courses in a blended learning environment ong, cheng teik asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a15 figure 4: wawasanlearn course main interface open distance learning: delivering linguistics and education courses in a blended learning environment ong, cheng teik asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a16 figure 5: wawasanlearn course online forum interface figure 6: wawasanlearn course announcements from course coordinator interface open distance learning: delivering linguistics and education courses in a blended learning environment ong, cheng teik asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a17 figure7: wawasanlearn course tutorial forum interface figure8: wawasanlearn course tutorial 1 interface open distance learning: delivering linguistics and education courses in a blended learning environment ong, cheng teik asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a18 figure 9: wawasanlearn course guide for tutors interface emerging technologies, benchmarking, and valuing: the dilemma of the bandwagon asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, christine sabieh 103 emerging technologies, benchmarking, and valuing: the dilemma of the bandwagon christine sabieh csabieh@ndu.edu.lb notre dame university, lebanon abstract : given continuous exposure to the idea of being an emergent culture, the technology bandwagon of today is left to open criticism – more negative than positive. the environments, framed wherein tech-based or tech-supported teaching/learning mediums are created, continue to be observed for effectiveness. my input would be to question what kind of measurement is being applied to the assessment to benchmark for effectiveness. rhetorically, what makes for a decision of effective benchmarking? the benchmark is considered effective in relation to what or in relation to whom or in relation to when? i believe benchmarking the mediums as effective may only happen when the observation addresses the way the tech is used. the purpose of the paper is threefold. the first purpose is to address the major ―emerging technologies‖ to advance what they are briefly, ground them and discuss their effectiveness as tools to enhance learning and as means to enhance the methodology of teaching and of learning. the second purpose is to address the value of the ―emerging technologies‖ to enhance learner centered teaching/learning environments, such as active learning, exploratory learning, discovery learning. the third purpose is to question what is/are the determining force(s) that warrant(s) the use of such technologies in the mediums. given that present in the mediums are the educational leaders – administrators or educators--and the technologies, be they used for tech-based or tech-supported purposes. it is concluded that educators must make conscious decisions as to how and what the ―emerging technologies‖ are doing to add value to the any given teaching/ learning environment. educators must act accordingly. keywords: culture, computer assisted language learning (call), web 2.0 given continuous exposure to the idea of being an emergent culture, the technology bandwagon of today is left open to criticism – more negative than positive. for the past two decades, the west has significantly increased in its use of technology in education (sabieh, 2008; good 2007; maloney, 2007). it is a world where emerging technologies ―spank trends that spawn and evolve at nearly the speed of light, so the evolution […] is very much in flux, and the ultimate form they will evolve into is hard to predict‖ (waters, 2008, p. 7). emerging technologies, according to tim o‘reilly, the key player in the creation of web 2.0, is what he terms the ‗bleeding-edge information age movement‘ that is revolutionizing the way the internet today is to be used making it no less than a global platform for everything to tie together collective mental diversities (good, 2007). setting a stage we live in an area of the world given the label of an emergent culture. by definition, culture is communication and communication is ‗culture behavior‘ learned to give definition to a way of life (culture, 2008a; culture, 2008b). social science researchers note that people are what they learn. cultural determinism places no limits on human abilities to do or be whatever they want, mailto:csabieh@ndu.edu.lb asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, christine sabieh 104 and what that is can only be perceived by them as being right. cultural awareness of the diverse environments allows the communities to decide on the practices or ways and commitments. thus, the perception of what is right is relative to the society and this perception becomes central in negotiating or adapting to change if it is to happen (culture, 2008a). yet the label of emerging or emergent cultures continues to be applied. does the justification of being given such a label automatically set forth for us the need to reformulate and mark out the oneness with the rest emerged cultures. ikegami (2000) notes caution is needed. sabieh (2003a) advocates we need to ask ourselves, to what degree do we share our beliefs, ways, acts with the others in the world – specifically the west? to what degree do we live and think like the others? to what degree do we social interact with the others, exchange and use the symbols they do? to what degree has all of this become internalized due to conscious or unconscious learning of habits and ways of thinking and doing? is it taken for granted that we have, and is it natural for us to do what is being done in the west? so, being alluded to as an emergent culture, the technology bandwagon we are on today may be left to open-criticism – such criticism is usually more negative than positive. our thinking is not the same . our values, habits, and customs are not the same to what degree are our educational framework, philosophies and methods of teaching the same as others in the west? given this, to what degree can the use of technology as the west uses it be the right use in our environment even though learning is seen as a social process integrating ―sociocultural-techno‖ influences (stahl, 2000) on what is learnt? deciding to benchmark on effectiveness i believe the education environments, framed wherein tech-based or tech-supported teaching/learning mediums are created, continue to be observed for effectiveness in any setting – east or west (sabieh, 2002). as more and more technologies are used in the education set ups, change in the ways of thinking, teaching and learning are to happen (maloney 2007; sabieh, 2003b). technology to be used to deliver the content is a fact of the past. educators and students use the technology of tools to enhance and support course management and learning. to most, especially in our culture, this course management frame is wherein the learning acquisition, not putting the students at the center, lies. accommodating the diverse learning styles is what web 2.0 – the latest evolution of the web, does today (maloney 2007; read write web, 2003). since this is taking dominance in the west, does this make the grounds for us to follow them? is this what globalization means? all cultures of the world become one – following the west? (sociocultural evolution, 2008). are we creating virtual communities in education settings when we use technology in the classrooms? are we creating a cyber-culture because of the social conditioning being created due to the continued computer use (cyberculture, 2008) or are our network users within and among the others preserving their existence as defined entities? according to petrides (2002), k-12 and universities are concerned with this issue and with what is being created due to the influence of technology in education. my input would be to question what kind of measurement is being applied to the assessment to benchmark for effectiveness. rhetorically, what is effective benchmarking? i believe that the benchmark is considered effective in relation to what it measures or in relation to whom it measures it on or in relation to when it is doing the measuring? in other words, the benchmark should be made in relation to the educational setting. the benchmark should be made in relation to who is the user of the technology – the educator or the students. the benchmark should be made in relation to where the technology is to be used – be it education setting or home use. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, christine sabieh 105 i believe benchmarking the medium of teaching/learning as effective may only happen when the observation, or the observer benchmarking, addresses the way the tech is used (sabieh, 2003b). petrides (2002) looked at the ways technology – specifically web based technology – was used as a tech-support tool in the classroom. observing that the use of the technology can not be a delivery tool as such, the technology had to be used to create support in the environment to make the teaching/learning focus purposeful, holding an active place in the students‘ learning process (petrides, 2002). advancing the purpose the purpose of the paper is threefold. the first purpose is to address the major ―emerging technologies‖ -to advance what they are briefly, to ground them and to discuss their effectiveness as tools to enhance learning and as means to enhance the methodology of teaching and of learning. the second purpose is to address the value of the ―emerging technologies‖ to enhance learner-centered teaching/learning environments, such as active learning, exploratory learning, discovery learning. the third purpose is to question what is/are the determining force(s) that warrant(s) the use of such technologies in the mediums. purpose 1: advancing emerging technologies emerging technologies may have come about to be used in the educational settings, according to wallace (2008), because educational foundation realized their students were not responding to the technology with motivation to act; they realized the need to make the students exhibit on task focus by making the tech communication platform interactive, yet still controllable by the foundation. emerging technologies had already infiltrated the realm of the business work for a minimum of four years (web 2.0 in education, 2008). web 2.0 needed to turn the education tech support based environment into what the students and educators would feel became a personal space – be it for learning or teaching, centering the user in the process (waters 2008). even with the educator in control, these new technologies would give the students more responsible control of their learning. this is what most education sets ups attempted to do (sabieh, 2006; 2003b). the draw of web 2.0 in education settings was the element of connectedness. waters (2008) noted that a study in august 2007 started as a small pilot study of six teachers grew to 495 teachers, 1908 students, 88 online courses and 33 online collaborative groups by early 2008. the web 2.0 features, such as social networks, blogs, wikis, folksonomies and mash up tools, provided a platform to combine and transform knowledge in a way to make the medium a powerful learning space showing achievement (waters 2008). educators when discussing web based or teach-supported learning effectiveness tend to bring up issues related to cost-effectiveness, access, flexibility and delivery (sabieh 2007; petrides, 2002; fetterman, 1998, and rumble 199desitnation 8, n.d.). these are important; however, the focus needs to be on the what the technology enables the educator to measure, making it a facilitator of learning (sabieh 2007; petrides 2002). all new technologies are to be used—as platforms--by all persons in all diverse real-world locations (cyberculture, 2008), mediated through the use of ict. they are, according to cyberculture, 2008; dodge, n.d.; stahl, 2000; sabieh 2007, to be used through the creation of cybercultures, promoting cognitive and social boundaries, not geographical, by joining similar minded interplay, interaction, collaboration, and connectivity. the students become responsible and centered for learning on their own (petrides 2002, sabieh 2007). asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, christine sabieh 106 web 1.0, the world wide web as it is known, is a tool of endless information and features. web 2.0 is what is known as the new emerging technologies or as the read write web (2003). it is important that technologies are identified briefly to ground them to understand what they are to show what function the tech-tool has to enable creations of more effective teaching / learning mediums. its creator, o‘rielly (2005), saw the new technology as possessing the power to promote creativity, collaboration, and information sharing as central features to linking and contributing to global unity. web 2.0 has three defining elements: users of the technology are able to create and share content they put together; users are able to connect and collaborate in tech supported environments at any time, and users work within no boundaries, integrating, connecting and collaborating individually or in group. content creating and sharing, sharing and making connections with others, and making connection within a content and context allows web 2.0 features such as wikis, blogs, cms systems, social bookmarking, social networking, media sharing platforms, mash-ups, and podcasting are popular in education. defining a few features will put the power of web 2.0 into perspective. wikis, simply put, are collaborative web spaces in which users can actively shape content through gathering and editing content and revising without formal editing procedures (wiked, 2008; skiba, 2006; read write web, 2003; blog, 2008). wikis are used as a collaborator tool to create and collect ideas. one popular example is wikepedia (wiki, 2008). weblogs --blogs or microblogging – are topical websites that are kept like a journal by a person or a school / organization (wiked, 2008; blog, 2008; read write web; 2003). blogs enable users to post links, images, video using simple web interface; it also allows then to discuss and comment on other work. blogs may be personal, corporate, blogshare blog, journals. examples include blogger or wordpress. through journal format, students will be encouraged to keep records of learning curve and time. cmc systems stands short for content management systems (o‘reilly, 2005; skiba, 2006). these systems are tools that are used to organize the various or different forms of content into interrelated and organized webspace. this tool is very popular in education since it allows the educators or the students to gather info from different and varied resources and put them together to support the author‘s focus. examples of such systems are plone, moodle, sakai and drupal. social bookmarking, such as del.icio.us, digg, diigo, rebbit, enables the user to make bookmarks on topics of interest and share or collaborate the resources with other users. through the use of key word categorizing, the user works within urls and online resources, enabling group or individual search applications (o‘reilly, 2005; skiba, 2006; social bookmarking, 2008; read write web, 2003). this will aid the user to enrich searching and compiling material with added trace value. social networking sites are platforms that provide online activity space that engage users by connecting them together through email, chat, profile sharing and broadcasts, games, and news sharing (wiked, 2008). popular networks include facebook and myspace. elgg (read write web, 2003) is a social network created for educators. basic issues of concern today, since it the platforms are social network providers, are privacy and cyber-bullying. media sharing platforms are sites that distribute and spread media and information. a popular platform is youtube; this platforms allows users to upload, download, share, comment and vote asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, christine sabieh 107 on music and videos. flickr is great for photosharing and educators are able to share education material on teachertube and instructibles. another important feature for us would be to identify possible platforms to make content connections. mashups or portal architectures and podcastings are two such examples. mashups or portal architectures allow users to find, use or view information and tailor it the way they want to share it with other users. in other words, the users are able to tailor the information by manipulating it to promote their views on the subject matter. an example of a mashup would be google maps. all the features on web 2.0 can do this. the user is able to surf and take information from a diverse number of sites and mesh it together to provide new meaning on one site. the storing of data allows other users to then use it and manipulate it also (wiked, 2008; social bookmarking, 2008; waters 2008) podcasting also similar, enables the educator to put the educational material into a context to give the students a feeling of an audience (podcast, 2008; read write web, 2003; 25) . given web 2.0, education settings need to determine how to best accommodate the features into the system as it stands at present if educators and administrators see value in the adoption. educations systems need to be assessed to see what they stand for and what they expect of their students in relation to the methodologies they are using. these assessments will pave a realistic look into the bandwagon should or can be followed. purpose 2: questioning the value of emerging technologies to enhance the settings as educators we tend to want to provide rich learning environments for our students irrespective of what type of education methodology and philosophy we function in. thus, in this case, it would go without saying that the value of the ―emerging technologies‖ to enhance learner centered teaching / learning environments must be addressed. research studies point out that the emerging technologies reinforce and promote users to practice active learning, exploratory learning, discovery learning – to name but a few-opportunities. as stated above, the use of emerging technologies in the west is on the rise (sigala, 2008), and we in our part of the world want or always feel the need to adopt such trends into our educations environments. however, we need to be aware that research, to date, has unsuccessfully identified pedagogical theory, conditions, styles or models to prompt, support and maintain the exploitation of web 2.0 as such – partially or completely as an integral or support mode within the educational endeavor (sigala, 2008; 15). petrides (2002) examined ways higher education classes, supplemented by web based technologies, looked at learning issues and learner centered education. the key word here is learner centered education (sabieh, 2001b). unless we have that, we can not or should not bring in the emerging technologies into our system since it will call upon the users of these technologies to do things their educational environments do not promote or build on. my advocacy on the topic is based on my reading and my exploring of web 2.0 features for evaluative use in my educational settings at both undergraduate and graduate levels. whether for educator use or student use, it does warrant integration if, and only if, the education environment is flexible, the teaching methodology is learner centered, and the learning is active, making the students central in the teaching/ learning set up. for example, godwin-jones (2007), discussed online reading – a once passive activity that has become on many sites active. readers not only read, but also comment, collaborate and critic; that is they have become consumers, producers and participants at the same time. add to this the asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, christine sabieh 108 reading passage now has added features that enable animation, pop up windows and annotations to bring the material to life. all this has great value, if the user has a language base, the skills and critical know how to contribute. to the language learner or educator this may be overwhelming in the quest to learn or teach the language. they both need to work in relation to level of language skill and the need to build meta-cognitive skills to develop the how to learning and how to improving the learning endeavor (godwin-jones, 2007). given our educational environment, will such a scenario add to the success of the endeavor? there is no such guarantee of success in the west (godwin-jones, 2007). what will ours be? i believe emerging technologies do enhance learner-centered teaching methodologies. students will be expected to become active learners, explorers, collaborators and discovers, as they take on responsible roles in their learning quest. simply put, active learning moves students from passive learners to active beings in the teaching /learning set up. it prompts students to become engaged in the topic, activity, environment at hand. the students are acquiring for self – doing for self – through the discussions, observations and collaboration with others (fink, 1999). learning becomes the responsibility of the student (active learning, 2008), making recall, behaviorist or cognitivist, of information a derivative of active engagement with the material (bonwell & eison, 1991; bruner 1961; mayer 2004; active learning, 2008; active learning, 2003). to name a few successful strategies, this is best accomplished through class discussion, ‗think pourshare‘, learning by teaching, self guided learning and worked example effect (clark, ngyyen & sweller 2006; active learning, 2003; active learning, 2008). such approaches when applied on the net, makes the students even more engaged (dodge, n.d.). likewise, exploratory learning is the approach to learning that anticipates and gives confidence that the students find out and discover relationships. such learning does not necessarily need to have educator guidance – it may or may not. exploratory learning is highly recommended for general teaching ventures and skill building. it does not work well with environments that expect students to memorize (usability glossary, n.d.). also, discovery learning stems from the idea that learning is inquiry based. this is excellent to teach problem solving since it forces the students to draw on their own experiences and prior knowledge to discover new facts to solve the dilemmas (clark, jan. 22, 2000). the new technologies give the students a new release in building knowledge in their realm. to date, positive value assessment of the new technologies outweighs the negativity. the negatives are seven in number. one negative is that the new technologies call on the students‘ discussion and sharing to be less structured than what would be expected in an educational set up, yet this allows the students to be more open to receive and reflect on other viewpoints to consider in relation to their stance – a positive value. the second negative is the challenge put on the students to keep up with the amount of information provided by the sources and by other users at any one moment. the third negative is the fact that students feel the pressure to depend on themselves to becoming experts and decision makers on the topic exploration as opposed to depending on the educator‘s expertise and guidance. the fourth negative has to do with the students‘ reaction to the fear of not receiving the feedback of virtual communication they are so used to receiving in a face-to-face setting that it hinders the students form wanting to become actively involved in the use of the new technologies (sabieh, 2004). this means that the fifth negative has to do with the need to get students used to the new ways of learning and teaching. the sixth negative has to do with the fact that the educator‘s role of involvement changes to become more and more of a facilitator since the learning process is more and more asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, christine sabieh 109 student centered. the last negative has to do with computer support and frustration – students may not have computers available to them for use outside the education setting or the tech set up may include a slow modem. such negativity may defeat the students attempt at using the technologies since they may feel overwhelmed before actually reaping the reward. i advocate 20 positives for promoting the use of web 2.0 in the education setting. the positives are not listed in order of importance. these positive points i call ―value‖. these points of value, in my opinion, all stand equal; thus, making the power of the new technologies in the e-learning community live up to the so called ―boom‖ technology in the west has witnessed (maloney 2007). with the new technologies, the first value to identify has to do with the fact that it provides the students with more diverse and distributed learning opportunities, promoting a learner centered versus teacher centered medium of learning (petrides, 2002). value number two is that students are provided with opportunity to experience diverse opinions across time, topics and assignments (petrides, 2002). this leads to value number three in that students will have a lot of ideas to work with and contribute to the making of their focus, to their initiating collaboration and inquiry beyond what they bring with them to the web (petrides, 2002). this is a key component in the students‘ feeling of building a repertoire of knowledge, creative in nature to address their thoughts about the topics and assignments expected of them. value four has to do with the increased opportunity of exposure to different channels of communication and mediums enables the students to better understand the material, students‘ ideas and positions. value number five has to do with the posting of information for distribution, commenting, examining, and reflection in forum like platforms (petrides, 2002). students are able to raise questions, issues and feedback not defined within the boundary of time, like in a class setting. students are exposed to multiple-loop learning, enabling cyclical answering, reflecting and in depth growth to happen; the students reflect–learn-reflect–learn, etc… as this happens, value six would enumerate the fact that the students are able to bring in their own experiences and own opinions to the platform limitlessly, unlike the class face to face interaction (sabieh 2007). value seven has to do with participation. students here are not forced to interact with others; however, by getting the students involved and on task, the topics are thought of more in depth calling for less shallow but more exploring and responsible learning. this may not be the case in the class (petrides, 2002). value eight grows out of value seven in that learning with different students in different setting broadens their reading of views, thinking of diverse thoughts and reflecting on their own views. this opportunity gives them value nine, which is their personal choice of writing the expose online in a selected form to continue communication online or prompt face to face communication, bringing with it a sense independence and trust (petrides, 2002). value ten points out that the uses of such technologies take place in a non-traditional educational set up, where security, confidence building and protection of well being are central. value eleven notes that such technologies provide students with opportunity of interaction comfort in relation to face to face communication (petrides, 2002). as mentioned before, value twelve has to do with reflection and exposure in a less structured, visually responsible format, but comfort zone, making value thirteen perceives are being less fearful of the technology and more motivated to want to be more involved in the making and collaborating as a way of learning (sabieh, 2004). value fourteen emphasizes the way the technology is used. the educators may still guide and be taken into account, but the students are the ones to experience and provide opinion to make the learner center teaching endeavor measurable, a fact the software designers must account for (petrides, 2002). thus, the time spent on doing the work, project, or learning is defined by personal learning goals and it is not dictated by physical presence or boundaries. flexibility and feelings of wanting to continue and collaborate in such time frames enables the students to reschedule work formulas to suit their perusal of knowledge – this is value fifteen (petrides, 2002). asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, christine sabieh 110 values exist for educators also. value sixteen points out that educators together through blogs ad wikis help each other within the teaching endeavors, subject matter or professional development. value seventeen would be the idea that web site no longer are the product of the programmer solo, but the work of a user, creator and programmer to build a learning platform of learning and collaboration (wiked, 2008). thus, bring in the idea that the internet is not longer isolated information (good 2007) but bound together through the new technologies – value eighteen. value nineteen reinforces the fact that the technologies open-up the opportunities for writing and rewriting on the web continuously. all 19 values will lead to the ultimate point of value – value 20 --which is that the users will have created identities of their own – their own personal spaces, active and cyclical in direction (good 2007; sabieh 2007). sharing online with communities, carrying out projects, seeing info, editing info and modifying documents collectively (waters 2008) enrich the cyclical growth process. to sum up, it can not go unnoticed, given the twenty values outlined above, that web 2.0 is having a dominant influence (sigala, 2008) on the way students and educators may use the technology to search, to collaborate, to develop to, share and to influence (waters 2008) whereby the spotlight web 2.0 is occupying has to do with user innovation, creation, collaboration and collective building of knowledge to deliver, manage, and interact beyond mere content sharing (maloney 2007). does all this warrant its use in our setting, given the education setting we have (sabieh, 2006)? purpose 3: determining what warrants use of emerging technologies the third purpose of this paper is to question what is / are the determining force(s) that warrant(s) the use of such technologies in the mediums. from what has been advanced so far, the first determining force that warrants consideration is that it can be said that emerging technologies can be defined as having three essential features – collection, selection and reflection (waters 2008), through connectivity and interactivity. irrespective of the type of education system we have, the fact remains that web 2.0 is social in nature and promotes formal and informal learning together. the second point of warranting is the need to compare teaching methods – traditional and new and decide where it is that we fit on the continuum of change (sabieh, 2001a). to claim to have incorporated new strategies into the education system means to have moved the teaching/learning set up from a passive to an active environment (sabieh, 2006; 2001b) the traditional learning environment has teacher centered instruction, has a single sense stimulation, single path progression, single media, isolated work, information delivery, passive learning, factual, knowledge-based learning, reactive response and isolated artificial learning/teaching contexts. the new learning environment has student centered instruction, multisensory stimulation, multipath progression, multimedia, collaborative work, information exchange, active, exploratory, inquiry based learning, critical thinking and informed decision making, proactive or planned action and authentic, real world learning / teaching contexts. the most effective learning environment molds the two together to facilitate the learning in relation to individual need. students need to become self directed learners, communicating within a variety of media and formats. they need to access and exchange information in a variety of ways and to collaborate and cooperate in team efforts. they need to compile, organize, analyze and synthesize information to use in appropriate ways to get ahead. where do we fall along this continum? our educational systems are more traditional in framework. we provide information and tasks more than guide our students in the learning process. facilitation and guidance – key components in a learner-centered setting —are not central within the learning process (sabieh, 2006). this is true in most emerging cultures. is this not true? change is eminent, but slow; it will come with time as asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, christine sabieh 111 more and more educators acknowledge need for reform and become comfortable with the steps needed to make change. the third point of warranting is the need to compare the technologies and what they have to offer then and now. for example, to name a few: web 1.0 provides the use of personal websites while web 2.0 offers blogging; web 1.0 offers britannica online while web 2.0 offers wikipedia; netscape versus google; publishing versus participation; directories versus tagging; content management systems versus wikis. web 2.0 has taken on a more active way to ‗harness collective intelligence‘, making hyperlinks, add-ons, editing, interactivity key players in the connectivity and sharing game (o‘reilly, 2005). with existing technologies – the old and the emerging ones – curricula may be modified to create engagement and motivational challenges for the students (yoder, 2006). the educator is able to provide grounds to rouse thoughts, promote creativity, and push forth imagination in outcome products (yoder 2006); however the education system must support such methods of teaching. do the education system we follow and the technology-support availability for use as emerging technologies allow us to see compatibility for use and integration in the present system? given our educational environments – school, university, private, public – can we claim to be able to use web 2.0, with what it calls for students to do, successfully, enhancing the teaching /learning environment to warrant a claim to producing or molding students with critical and responsible spirits? many jumped on the bandwagon for the ride of the moment. the leap may have proved to be ambitious, especially if it was decided upon consciously. however, if education mediums decided to take the plunge because others were, then therein lies the problem, being blind to a situation does not enable institutions to overcome the blindness and cope with the sudden change. there had to be no close examination of the positives in relation to what our education setting provides for us – as educators—to work within and with our students. it may have been that we were blinded by the boom the technology made in the west and assumed we could experience the same vigor technology has on the setting. the west, waters (2008) notes that ―light speed change will transfer the way k-12 students interact academically just as it has permanently altered the way they interact outside of school, but not without the support of teachers, who have been reluctant to embrace and exploit web 2.0 technologies for their academic use […] what is approaching here isn‘t so much a convergence as a big bang. a paradigm shift towards progressively richer learning environments […]. and educators are not ready for it. we haven‘t made the shift yet to teach the kinds of students that a personal-learning-environment represent.‖ my question, to all of us, is: are we ready for it? can we, as the key players in the education setting, be that blind that we can not see our limitations in the system? deciding on who plays the needed role the educational leaders – administrators or educators—are concerned with the students learning outcomes. the technologies are there to be used for tech-based or tech-supported purposes to work within the teaching/learning settings. the commitment on behalf of the educators to integrate the technology – be it web 1.0 or web 2.0 – is to ensure active learning and interactivity is present making it at least two dimensional in direction (active learning, 2003), and centering the student in the learning equation (sabieh, 2006; 2008). both the administrator and the educators carry the burden of decision making (sabieh, 2001c). change has to take place within the education set up. the base of change has to be around five pivotal points: critical thinking, responsibility, learner-centering, interactivity and active asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, christine sabieh 112 learning. once there is quality and effective change along those five pivotal points, the integration of technology – web 2.0 directly – will be possible. at present, educators and students may argue that adaptation web 2.0 into the system is possible now. the technologies are no doubt user friendly and easy to use, through self exploration or guidance. the key issue here to be cautioned is not the possibility of use, but the benchmarking effectiveness of its use vis a vis our education setting as it stand now to promote the making of life long students. blind adoption of web 2.0 in isolation can happen. but blind adoption of web 2.0 is wrong. education systems need to understand the technology users – be they educators or students (good 2007). the emerging technologies need top ―carve out for the self‖ (read write web, 2003) a niche to call its own. recommending the move emerging technologies are here and will continue to emerge as time evolves. it is important for us to get on the bandwagon to make change happen, but this can not happen with out in parallel making change within the education setting. my recommendations are four. first, it is important that educators be willing to make curricular change. integrating another tool into the teaching set up must be incorporated for and that means accommodating new ways of thinking, new ways of teaching and new ways of looking at learning. second, it is important that the education setting itself creates ground to have role shifts happen in relation to responsibilities and teacher / student centering. third, in bringing the technology into the system, it must first come into the classroom taking the role of tech support and then gradually shift to take on the role of being tech based (sabieh, 2007). this may not always need to be the case, however, the point is the technology can not and should not be used tech based if it has not been used as tech support by the students and teachers. fourth, it is highly recommended that educators and students become familiar with the diversities of thinking and doing in a teaching environment, learning environment and tech based environment. there are styles of acting that must occur and comfort zones must be established for effective use to happen. the beginning of a conclusion we must build platforms to critically engage with others, to hear and appreciate ideas and views of other, to better formulate our ideas to turn them into advocacy points. this is true in physical or virtual environments. globalization expects this of us. as educators we are expected to facilitate teaching and learning to ease the ways of communication and make it interactive and multidimensional. as it stands now, there is no room for online teaching with emerging technologies. educators need to grow and experience with students, redefining the use of the technology in the environments to ensure the element of active is present (sabieh, 2007). technology is not a delivery system only (sabieh 1998), it is a motivator to provide grounds for interactivity. the internet platform allows students to be less intellectually distant from each other. communication must be active and the education culture needs to change to encompass this concept a hundred percent. learning must be active, and the culture we live in must reinforce it. the challenge of the west is to figure out how to incorporate the new technologies into the teaching and learning endeavors (maloney 2007). the web 2.0 gives us the power to trace one‘s thinking process in a way that can only be beneficial to one‘s growth process. the challenge is to put the educator into a working framework to contribute to make the tech supported school or asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, christine sabieh 113 tech based learning endeavor posses the ground to encompass and engulf such profound action (maloney 2007; sabieh, 2007). are we able to create education environment s to encompass students controlling their own learning space? the spaces would be platforms to keep record of their learning and striving to reach their long term endeavors. are they, if given the freedom or direction to make the needed connection, capable of depending on themselves, collaborating with others to build and maintain their own learning spaces? are we as the educators ready to do this for them when we have not done this for ourselves? it is concluded that educators must make conscious decisions as to how and what the ―emerging technologies‖ are doing to add value to the any given teaching/ learning environment. educators must act accordingly. one wise instructor designer once said, (destination 8, n.d.), about striving to continually find the cutting edge of technology. ―just stand back and watch the wagon a while, and when you‘re sure what direction it‘s going, jump on, grab the reigns and shout, ‗follow me!‘‖ this is what we need to do. we need to stop, look at what we have, measure, benchmark, modify, rectify, and embrace the new…. references active learning. (2003). active learning: creating excitement in the classroom. retrieved october 10, 2008 from http://www.ntlf.com/html/lib/bib/91-9dig.htm active learning. (2008, july 27). wikipedia. retrieved october 10, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/active_learning blog. (2008, oct. 6). wikipedia. retrieved october 10, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/blog clark, d. (n. d.) discovery learning. use discovery learning. retrieved october 10, 2008 for http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/history/doscivery.html culture. (2008a). retrieved october 10, 2008. http://www.tamu.edu/classes/cosc/choudhury/culture.html culture. (2008b). retrieved october 10, 2008. http://www2.eou.edu/~kdahl/cultdef.html cyberculture. (2008, october 9). wikipedia. retrieved october 10, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/cyberculture destination 8: riding the technology bandwagon (n.d.). retrieved october 10,2008 dodge, b. (n.d.). active learning on the web. retrieved october 10, 2008 from http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/bdodge/active/activelearning. fink, d. (1999). active learning. retrieved october 10,2008 from http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/facdevcom/guidebk/teachtip/active.htm godwin-jones, r. (2007, oct). emerging technologies e-texts, mobile browsing, and rich internet applications. language, learning & technology 11 (3), 8-14. good, robin. (2007, april 20). web 2.0 takes on colleges and universities. retrieved october 10, 2008 from http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2007/04/20/web_20_takes_on_colleges.htm ikegami, e. (2000, winter). a sociological theory of publics: identity and culture as emergent properties in networks. social research 67 (4), 989 – 1012. maloney, e. (2007, jan.5). what web 2.0 can teach us about learning? the chronicle of higher education 53 (18), 1-3. o‘reilly, t. (2005). what is web 2.0 design patterns and business models for the next generation of software. o’reilly. retrieved on october 10, 2008 from http://www.oreilly.com/ http://www.ntlf.com/html/lib/bib/91-9dig.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/active_learning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/blog http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/history/doscivery.html http://www.tamu.edu/classes/cosc/choudhury/culture.html http://www2.eou.edu/~kdahl/cultdef.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sociocultural_evolution http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/bdodge/active/activelearning http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/facdevcom/guidebk/teachtip/active.htm http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2007/04/20/web_20_takes_on_colleges.htm http://www.oreilly.com/ asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, christine sabieh 114 petrides, l. (2002, winter). web-based technologies for distributed (or distance) learning: creating learning-centered educational experiences in the higher education classroom. international journal of instructional media, 29 (1), 69 – 78. podcast (2008, october 8). wikipedia. retrieved october 10, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/podcasting read write web. (2003). about readwriteweb. read write web. retrieved on october 10, 2008 from http://www.readwriteweb.com/about_readwriteweb.php sabieh, c. (2001a) ―how fine is the line between ell & elt?‖ in elt evolution of learning and teaching, www.eltoc.com sabieh, c. (2001b) ―to integrate the use of computer into lebanon‘s new english curriculum as an aid to enhance learning.‖ in new lebanese curriculum for language, s. samra ed., notre dame university press, beirut, lebanon, pp. 101-109. sabieh, c. (2001c) ―administration, technology and building the educational environment.‖ in educational administration in the arab countries, adnan el amine ed., the lebanese association for educational studies, beirut, lebanon, pp. 189-207. sabieh, c. (2003a) american chunky blue cheese salad: a look at multicultural education. in education systems of the world (pp. 27-42). kaslik, lebanon: université du saint-esprit press. sabieh, c. (2003b) world of computer: a partner to learning theories and conditions. in the millennial lecture series 2001-2002 (pp. 11-24). zouk: notre dame university press. sabieh, c. (2004) grounding the fear associated with the use of computers: to combat or to accept? in l. d. chong, (ed.), information technology & language education (pp. 127133). korea: gyeongiu university press. sabieh, c. (2008) realities of integrating online support: a case for the middle east. in davidson, p., shewell, j. and moore, w. j. (eds.), educational technology in the arabian gulf: research, theory and pedagogy (pp. 213-281). dubai, uae: tesol arabia. sabieh, c. (nov. 2006) enhancing the educational environment through learning technologies: only a question of curriculum? plenary speaker 5th asiacall 2006, kuala lampur, malaysia sigala, m. (2008, jan. 24). integrating web 2.0 in e-learning environments: a socio-technical approach. international journal of knowledge and learning 3(6), 628-635. skiba, d. (2006, july-august). web 2.0: next great think or just marketing hype? nursing education perspectives 27(4), 212-215. social bookmarking. (october 6, 2008). social bookmarking. wikipedia, retrieved october 6, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/social_bookmarking sociocultural evolution. (2008, october 9). wikipedia. retrieved october 10, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sociocultural_evolution stahl, g. (2000). a model of collaborative knowledge building. collaborative information environments. icls 2000. retrieved on october 10, 2008 from http://www.cis.drexel.edu/faculty/gerry/publications/conferences/2000/icls/ usability glossary:exploratory learning (n. d.) usability first. retrieved october 10, 2008 from http://www.usabilityfirst.com/glossay/term_369.txl. use http://www.umsl.edu/technology/frc/deid/destination8techinstitutions/8ahistory2 html wallace, b. (2008, oct. 2). report on strategies for web 2.0 technology use. chronicle of philanthropy, 20 (24), 1. waters, john, (2008, june). in the driver‘s seat: web 2.0 is turning the traditional electronic portfolio into a diverse personal learning space, putting students at the helm of their academic experience (web 2.0). t.h.e. journal 35 (6), 43-48. web 2.0 in education: trends for 2008 (2008, march) t. h. e. journal, 35.3, 6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/podcasting http://www.readwriteweb.com/about_readwriteweb.php http://www.eltoc.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/social_bookmarking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sociocultural_evolution http://www.cis.drexel.edu/faculty/gerry/publications/conferences/2000/icls/ http://www.usabilityfirst.com/glossay/term_369.txl http://www.umsl.edu/technology/frc/deid/destination8techinstitutions/8ahistory2 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, christine sabieh 115 wiked (2008). web 2.0 and education (a) su o8. wikipedia. retrieved october 10, 2008 from http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.phl/web_2.0_and_education_%28a%29_su08 wiki (2008, oct. 9). wikipedia. retrieved october 10, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wiki yoder, m. (2006, sept.). adventure in electronic constructivism. learning & leading with technology 34 (1), 24-28. http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.phl/web_2.0_and_education_%28a%29_su08 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wiki citation asiacall online journal received: 24/06/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 07/07/2021 vol. 12, no.4, 2021 accepted: 08/07/2021 pp. 30 45 online: 09/07/2021 citation | pham, v. p. h., & tran, v. d. (2021). the effects of vietnamese high school teacher’s utility of google forms on eleventh graders’ grammatical knowledge. asiacall online journal, 12(4), pp. 30-45. the effects of vietnamese high school teacher’s utility of google forms on eleventh graders’ grammatical knowledge vu phi ho pham1, van da tran2* 1 van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam 2 ton duc thang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam *corresponding author: van da tran, ton duc thang university; email: englishmylife@gmail.com abstract in vietnam, grammar has been taught with conventional teaching methods such as the grammar translation method and audio lingual method, which still focus on paper-based grammar exercises in high schools. these traditional methods demotivate students' learning interest and motivation and fail to increase their independent learning and the effectiveness of grammar instruction. the purpose of this study is to explore the effects of vietnamese high school teachers’ utilization of google forms on eleventh graders’ grammatical knowledge and their perceptions of google forms in learning english grammar. the study results emphasized the intervention of eleventh-grade students' knowledge of grammar and their perceptions of this treatment. the study's findings indicated that the integration of google forms successfully aided students in enhancing their achievement of grammatical knowledge. furthermore, students have a positive attitude towards this application into grammar teaching. keywords: grammar instruction, grammatical knowledge, google forms. 1. introduction thanks to ict development, the implementation of google apps and the application of blended learning in grammar instruction, in particular, have proliferated for a few decades. such ict-based alternatives in language instruction have been affirmed advantageous for both language teachers and students with statistical analysis and reliable evidence in a multitude of noticeable studies. these alternatives can not only improve the effectiveness of teachers' teaching in grammar instruction but also enhance learners' interest, autonomy, and concentration on grammar learning (e.g., garrison & vaughan, 2008; do & nguyen, 2014; isti’anah, 2017; khalil, 2018; and pham, 2018a). on the other hand, according to bilonozhko and syzenko (2020), learners belong to generation z or gen z. it refers to those born after 2000. it is also called the digital generation or digital natives. their lifestyles are established in the basement of the mailto:englishmylife@gmail.com acoj-issn 1936-9859 v. p. h. pham & v. d. tran vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 31 environment where the internet, mobile phones, social media, youtube, and instant messenger are dominated. because they were born and have grown up in such an environment, they have a knack for adopting digital gadgets like computers, laptops, ipads, tablets, mobile phones, and ict applications smoothly. they are also experts for adapting to ict innovations. harmanto (2013) identifies that it is the growth of ict that creates generation z’s styles of learning. they enjoy learning by interacting with ict devices. they can utilize the internet to discover new things and study what they are not familiar with, and the internet and digital tools are integral parts of their learning process. they pioneer to take in new knowledge and skills with new ict tools and innovative ict apps. some studies, such as pham (2021) and pham d. t. t., technology is a helpful tool to help students improve their english, and the students have possitive attitudes towards technology. to be a good teacher for generation z, teachers should incorporate more technologies into their lesson plans. they must make use of ict to modernize their instructional methods. they can use more technology-based activities, including visual content, and offer ways for students to provide and receive their feedback in learning and teaching. furthermore, in a case study, van et al.. (2021) highlighted that more than three-quarters of students used educational apps and smartphones to learn the language, and over 81% of students agreed that technology could enhance the effectiveness of their language learning. however, in her study, pham (2015) points out that grammar-translation method still plays a dominant role in teaching english grammar throughout vietnam because many english teachers are in favor of adopting it in their teaching practice. likewise, khuong (2015) claims that many english teachers are still faithful to audio lingual method (alm) in instructing grammar because they get used to this method and are unwilling to adopt a new one. these conventional approaches to teaching grammar do demotivate students' interests in learning english grammar and minimize teachers' efficiency (pham, 2015). also, on utilizing these traditional teaching methods, teachers miss an excellent opportunity to assist students in their autonomous learning, and students find the language lessons boring (khalil, 2018). furthermore, teachers can not exploit the benefits of blended learning, the combination of activities inside the classroom and outside the classroom, in instructing grammar. in other words, teachers only focus on the process of learning and teaching inside the classroom and ignore it outside the classroom (khuong, 2015). tackling these notable problems will bring practical benefits to both teachers and students in teaching and learning english grammar. google forms combined with blended learning in grammar instruction is one notable recommendation to deal with these issues. google forms is defined by haddad and kalaani (2014) as an interactive web-based platform with a user-friendly application programming interface for producing online surveys, questionnaires, and quizzes. blended learning refers to an educational curriculum that combines online sources with conventional learning in a classroom (graham, 2000). to unravel the effects of vietnamese high school teachers’ utilization of google forms on 11th graders’ grammatical knowledge, a quasi-experimental study is first undertaken. then the questionnaire and the interview are utilized to clarify the vietnamese 11th graders’ perceptions of google forms in learning english grammar. acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 32 2. literature review 2.1 grammar instruction grammar teaching is an important part of language teaching in high school. according to fromkin, rodman, and hyams (2017), grammar instruction is helpful for learners who learn english because it can guide them to acquire and use how language is produced. he also suggests that form-focused language will be necessary if learners promote levels of accuracy in the target language. pham and nguyen (2014) claimed that the teachers at high school often employed the grammar translation method in teaching grammar. dekeyser (1996) believes that grammar teaching is essential to enhance language learning since it provides learners with several basic ways to create language. he also points out that the consciousness of target structures and forms is essential to second language learning. another significant point demonstrated by zhang (2009) is that grammar instruction is fundamental in second language teaching because grammar is the basic background of the english language. without grammar, learners find it impossible to learn a language. in addition, the most important goal for learning a language is to help learners communicate effectively and appropriately in social contexts. thus, grammar teaching can assure this goal because it empowers students to know how to combine vocabulary to make a meaningful sentence used for their communicative purposes. besides, he discusses that grammar learning does not occur naturally, but it needs teaching by teachers who can improve learners' grammar learning effectiveness and accuracy. learners themselves can indeed learn other skills such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. still, they are not capable of learning grammar autonomously, and they need to be supported by teachers in learning grammar. from what has been discussed so far, it is obvious to summarize that grammar teaching is an integral part of language teaching because it is considered a core part of a language and has a decisive effect on second language learning success. 2.2 ict-based alternatives of teaching english grammar with the integration of ict into language teaching, the last decade has seen rapid innovation in teaching english grammar. google-app-based alternatives and blended learning are two of the most leading trends for teaching english grammar at present. google-app-based alternatives al-harbi and alshumaimeri (2016) highlight that language teacher should integrate technology into teaching grammar in the era of technology because this can prompt students to direct their learning and offer them opportunities to practice the target language and develop their autonomous learning language learning outside the classroom. this view is supported by saeedi (2016) and keshta and harb (2013), who points out that interactive technological platforms serving as a motivator should be utilized in grammar teaching. thanks to this, students are able to have access to endless online input sources and be more active in their language learning. in the same vein, khalil (2018) notes that google apps offer teachers considerable ways to conduct english grammar lessons in the digital age. such acoj-issn 1936-9859 v. p. h. pham & v. d. tran vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 33 google-app-mediated alternatives in grammar instruction can promote learners’ autonomy and enhance their willingness. blended learning according to isti'anah (2017), thanks to the never-ending innovation of technology and the internet, blended learning has prevalently been used as an effective approach to teaching english grammar. online classes can be combined with offline ones in english grammar instruction. this integration can improve the effectiveness of teachers' grammar teaching and better students' learning outcomes and interests in learning grammar. concurrent with this research trend, ngo (2018) points out that blended learning, the combination of conventional and technology-mediated methodologies in the language classroom, has become prevalent in grammar instruction. he found that employing blended learning enhanced students' english grammar knowledge and encouraged their autonomy. more importantly, learners had a positive view toward the utilization of blended learning in instructing grammar. overall, these suggestions provide important insights that teaching english grammar with the aids of technology-based learning platforms can be a leading model which may be advantageous for both language teachers and students. 2.3 the ways technology applied in grammar teaching and learning technology does support grammar teaching and learning in a wide range of ways. according to an and williams (2019), one of the noticeable ways is that videos and films can be used in the presentation stage or input. some short videos and movies can raise students' awareness of grammatical structures, and teachers can use them to help students understand how structures are utilized in real-life situations communication. in line with this, chau (2021) points out that ict plays a key role in supporting students to get access to real input and diverse sources of contemporary materials of learning. another way is the use of apps and online games (busyteacher, n.d.). thanks to online apps and games, students can practice grammatical points and memorize the rules better. more significantly, with funny games, students have great opportunities to experience edutainment, the combination of education and entertainment. this can help students enhance the effectiveness of grammar learning and increase their excitement and interest in grammar acquisition. in line with this, busyteacher (n.d.) points out that one more way for technology to be integrated into grammar teaching is web quests. such technological tools are adopted as a virtual classroom in which students are required to complete a grammar exercise, and teachers can visit and give feedback on students' task completion. finally, the technology-based class should be exploited to use the time outside the classroom for students to practice and memorize grammatical points because regular practice outside the class does increase students' efficiency and activeness in the process of english grammar learning (nguyen, 2021). 2.4 google forms and its uses in language instruction according to pham (2018a), google forms is one of the products developed by google. along with docs, sheets, and slides in g suite, google forms is designed for the education area. the initiative aim of google forms is to create various kinds of forms to acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 34 gather information and data for surveys or to enroll in a particular event. google forms can be used to create language quizzes or exercises. pham (2018a) highlights that google forms can provide teachers and students with different types of questions utilized as quizzes in language teaching such as (i) multiple choice, (ii) checklists, (iii) text – for short answers, (iv) paragraph text – for longer answers, (v) choose from a list, (vi) scale – a customizable likert scale question, and (vii) grid – select an answer from a rubric-style grid. what is more, thanks to google forms, tests can be designed for language assessment. in the educational context, google forms is considered a useful technological tool in the classroom. in his online article, catapano (n.d.) suggests several ways for utilizing google forms in learning and teaching. google-forms-based exercises can be used as formative assessments. google forms offers teachers a convenient tool for assessing students’ understanding quickly and accurately. teachers are able to create and adopt google-formsbased tests in their language teaching in time-saving and convenient ways because google forms can set up a time allowance for the tests and score students' answers automatically. last but not least, teachers can adopt google forms for setting up homework/assignments for language teaching. according to pham (2018a), google forms can be utilized for teachers to set up homework or assignments which students have to complete inside and outside the classroom. besides, the teachers can give a deadline for the assignments or homework and give comments and evaluate students' work thanks to google forms. from what has been discussed so far, a vast number of functions of google forms presented in this section are provided for the teacher in language instruction, and google forms can be notable recommendations for a teacher to adopt in instructing english grammar. 2.5 research questions due to the aims, the research makes efforts to seek answers to two primary questions as follows: a) what are the effects of vietnamese high school teachers’ utilization of google forms on eleventh graders’ grammatical knowledge? b) what are vietnamese eleventh graders' perceptions of using google forms in learning english grammar? 3. methods 3.1 pedagogical setting and participants the current study was conducted at a rural upper secondary school in an giang province. this school was established in 1998, and currently, 73 teachers are teaching at it, and 1241 students are attending it. along with other school subjects, english is compulsory for all students from grade 10 to grade 12. the english classes consist of3 forty-five-minute periods every week. the primary goal for english high school education is to create and develop students’ communicative competence. in other words, students are expected to use english as an effective tool of communication and achieve the proficiency level of b1 in the acoj-issn 1936-9859 v. p. h. pham & v. d. tran vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 35 common european framework of reference for languages (cefr) when they finish grade 12. eighty-nine eleventh graders from class 11a4 and 11a5 in the academic year of 2020 2021 were non-randomly chosen out of three hundred and thirty-four students from a pool of eleventh-grade students of a high school in an giang province. the rationale for selecting participants for the study is due to the researcher’s convenience. this choice can help the researcher save time and energy because the participants are authentic class groups, so they are easily accessible and available. participants are all between 17 and 18 years old, and all of them are native speakers of vietnamese and learn english as a foreign language. they were divided into two equal groups. class 11a4 consisting of 25 female students and 19 male students, serves as the experimental group, and class 11a5, including 25 female students and 20 male students, plays the role of the control group. 3.2 design of the study the quasi-experimental research with pretest-posttest control-group design will be adopted to investigate the impacts of vietnamese high school teachers’ utilization of google forms on 11th graders’ grammatical knowledge in the first phase of the research. the design of the study is described in table 3.1: table 3.1: the design of the study group pre-test intervention post-test experimental group x x x control group x o x in this study, the pre-test and post-test were employed for both the experimental and control groups. however, only the experimental group received the intervention of employing google forms in grammar instruction, while conventional approaches were still adopted for teaching grammar to the control group. 3.3 data collection and analysis four typical instruments, such as the pre-test, the post-test, the questionnaire, and the interview, were adopted to collect adequate data for the research. the pre-test was a paperbased test that requires students to answer grammar questions. in the pre-test, there were twenty-five items. the content of the pre-test centered on seven grammatical points such as the sequence of tenses, reduced forms of relative clauses, question tags, if clauses, reported speech with to infinitives and gerunds, wish clauses, and perfect participles in the curriculum of tieng anh 11 – volume 2 textbook. the post-test was similar to the pre-test in terms of time allowance, the number of questions, the grammatical points, question forms, and question levels to make the data gathered for the study more valid and reliable. the questionnaire included fifteen likert questions with five points (strongly agree, agree, uncertain, disagree, strongly disagree). these questions explored the participants' perceptions of enjoyment, engagement, convenience, perceived learning, concentration, motivation, acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 36 satisfaction, effectiveness, and autonomy toward utilizing google forms in learning english grammar. since all participants are efl students, the questionnaire was employed in vietnamese to ensure that all respondents understood and answered the questions accurately. it was designed in the basement of google forms. the semi-structured interview comprised six open-ended questions on six themes such as (i) the level of interest and motivation students achieved through learning english grammar with the integration of google forms,(ii)the level of effectiveness on students’ learning english grammar with google forms exercises, (iii) the extent of convenience that google forms offered students in learning english grammar, (iv) the extent that google-forms-based lessons supported students’ independent learning, (v) the difficulties students confronted when they learned english grammar with google forms, and (vi) students’ recommendations for improving the effectiveness of integrating google forms into grammar instruction. the procedures for gathering adequate data for the study are described in the following table. table 3.2: procedures for data collection step research instrument group of participants type of data collected 1 pre-test experimental group and control group quantitative data 2 post-test experimental group and control group quantitative data 3 questionnaire experimental group only quantitative data 4 interview experimental group only qualitative data it can be seen from the data in table 3.2, procedures for data collection of the study included four steps. first and foremost, the quantitative data of the pre-test conducted with both the experimental and control groups were collected prior to the intervention. second, the data of the post-test for both groups were gathered after the treatment. two first steps were undertaken to help the researcher collect efficient data for the first research question. third, the in-depth information of the questionnaire from only the experimental group was quantitatively brought together. finally, qualitative information in the interview from participants of the experimental group was elicited. two latter steps were carried out in an attempt to seek the answer to the second research question. the descriptive data collected from the pre-test, the post-test, and the questionnaire for the current study were processed and analyzed through statistical package for the social sciences (spss) of version 22.0 for windows. then the textual data gathered from the interview was scrutinized. data analysis procedures followed the phases in the table below. acoj-issn 1936-9859 v. p. h. pham & v. d. tran vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 37 table 3.3: procedures for data analysis phase research instrument type of data analysis values of analysis 1 the pre-test descriptive data frequency, mean, standard deviation, and independent samples t-test of both groups’ means 2 the post-test 3 the questionnaire descriptive data mean, standard deviation 4 the interview textual data textual analysis from the table above, it can be shown that four major phases were included in the procedures for data analysis. in the first phase, the pre-test data had been descriptively analyzed with several values, namely, frequencies, means, standard deviations before independent samples t-test of both participant groups' means were calculated. these analyses were undertaken to ensure that the level of the experimental group was similar to that of the control group prior to the treatment. in the second phase, the post-test data were descriptively processed with the same values as the pre-test to check whether the treatment had statistically significant effects. in the third phase, the data from the questionnaire were quantitatively analyzed with two sub-stages. to analyze the descriptive data, the frequencies of each scale in each item were first calculated. then, each of the five scales in the items of the first part of the questionnaire was coded a value (namely, strongly agree = 1, agree = 2, uncertain = 3, disagree = 4, and strongly disagree = 5). following this, the data had been converted into means for analysis. in the fourth phase, textual data from the interview was translated into english and transcribed into words. next, the data was organized and classified into questionbased themes to analyze the data more quickly and accurately. finally, to process qualitative data from the interview, in each question, answers were put into tables so that the researcher could discover similar answers, collect diverse answers and be aware of the overall trends of the data. in short, the primary purpose of data analysis from the interview was to better understand the participants' answers to the questions in the questionnaire. 4. findings and discussion 4.1 research question 1: what are the effects of vietnamese high school teachers’ utilization of google forms on eleventh graders’ grammatical knowledge? to answer the first research question, the findings from the pre-test and the post-test are described. findings from the pre-test in the table below, the results of the pre-test fro both group are presented. acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 38 table 4.1: summary of pre-test results group n m s.d. t p experimental 44 6.21 .9664 .146 .885 control 45 6.24 1.0354 as seen from table 4.1, the statistical values of the two groups are very much the same. the first feature being recognized was a fair equivalence between the means of both groups (6.21 for the experimental group and 6.24 for the control group). moreover, the two standard deviation values (.966 for the experimental and 1.03 for the control groups) were nearly equal. thus, it could be asserted that both groups shared an approximate similarity: their grammatical knowledge was at the same level. also shown in this table, the value sig (2-tailed) of 0.885 were much bigger than the alpha 0.05, which meant there was no significant disparity between the two means, and two sets of scores were of equivalent means. hence, it can be concluded that the students in both groups had equal grammatical knowledge before the experiment. findings from the post-test like the pre-test, the post-test’s scores of the two groups were also analyzed in the following table. table 4.2: summary of post-test results group n m s.d. t p experimental 44 7.045 .8636 .416 .0005 control 45 6.520 .8447 table 4.2 informed that after the intervention, the mean score of the experimental group (m= 7.045) was higher than that of the control group (m=6.520). in other words, there was a disparity of .5255 of the mean scores of both groups. this result indicated that the students in the experimental group had considerably improved their grammatical knowledge during the time of experimental teaching. also seen from this table, the sig. value (2-tailed) = 0.005 which was smaller than alpha 0.05. this result indicated that there was a significant difference in terms of studying achievement between the experimental and control group after ten weeks of experimental teaching. so far, the data from the pre-test and post-test have been analyzed and interpreted. the analysis suggested that the grammatical knowledge of both groups was initially almost similar at an average level. yet, this similarity was no longer remained after the teaching intervention but substituted by a statistically significant difference. this difference was in favor of the experimental group experiencing google forms in learning english grammar. indeed, this acoj-issn 1936-9859 v. p. h. pham & v. d. tran vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 39 group really made great achievements when the students obtained substantial progress in their scores by integrating google forms into teaching grammar. 4.2 research question 2: what are vietnamese eleventh graders' perceptions of using google forms in learning english grammar? in order to answer the second research question, data from the questionnaire and interview were analyzed and discussed. findings from the questionnaire the results from the questionnaire provided the researcher with students' perceptions concerning the implementation of the teaching alternative, google forms, into teaching english grammar to eleventh students in a high school. the findings from the questionnaire are laid out on two major themes as follows: table 4.3: students’ perceptions of google forms integration into grammar instruction m s.d. interest and motivation i am interested in doing english grammar exercises with google forms. 2.18 0.54 i enjoy learning more english grammar with google forms. 2.18 0.66 i feel more motivated to learn english grammar through google-formsbased exercises. 2.29 0.70 engagement and concentration google-forms-based exercises can make me more engaged in learning english grammar. 2.40 0.84 google-forms-based exercises can help me enhance my concentration in learning english grammar. 2.34 0.79 convenience i feel comfortable completing english grammar exercises with google forms. 2.38 0.84 i am convenient to do english grammar exercises with google forms. 2.31 0.80 usefulness i can get more useful strategies for learning english grammar from google-forms-based exercises. 2.22 0.68 google forms is a useful tool for learning english grammar. 2.09 0.64 as shown in the above table, the means of items ranging from 2.09 to 2.40 (smaller than 3.00) have revealed that students felt more interested, motivated, engaged, concentrated, and useful in learning grammar due to the application of the google-forms-based grammar exercises. acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 40 table 4.4: the effectiveness of google forms integration and its support for students’ autonomy m s.d. effectiveness google-forms-based exercises can help me understand english grammar better. 2.27 0.66 google-forms-based exercises can help me review english grammar knowledge more effectively. 2.22 0.64 autonomy google-forms-based exercises can support my autonomy in learning english grammar. 2.27 0.73 satisfaction i would like to learn google-forms-based lessons for my learning english in the future. 2.25 0.78 i am satisfied with the application of google forms in learning english grammar. 2.20 0.67 google forms should be integrated into grammar instruction. 2.06 0.62 from the above table, the means of items ranging from 2.06 to 2.27 (smaller than 3.00) indicated that effectiveness in learning grammar was enhanced, and students' autonomous learning was supported when google forms was merged into teaching grammar. collectively, this integration of google forms into grammar instruction has left a good impression and a positive effect on the students under treatment. findings from the interview of the questionnaire population of 44 participants, only ten of these (6 females and four males) took part in the semi-structured interview. they can be ciphered as f1, f2, f3, f4, f5, f6, m7, m8, m9, and m10. as discussed earlier, six open-ended questions in the interview were administered to clarify participants’ answers in the questionnaire. about students' interests and motivation, a wide range of responses were elicited. one student stated that “i think doing google-forms-based exercises are similar to playing online games where i can combine learning with entertainment, which makes me feel more interested and motivated in my grammar learning” (f1). one more interviewee added that “well, i enjoy interacting with electronic devices (i.e., smartphone and laptop), so when i do google-forms-based exercises, i feel really interested in learning english grammar.” (m10) acoj-issn 1936-9859 v. p. h. pham & v. d. tran vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 41 in regard to the new approach’s effectiveness, the majority commented that “doing google-forms-based exercises can help them remember the grammar points because i can do them as many times as they would like.” other responses to this question included: “i can do and share google-forms-based exercises with my classmates, which assists me better understand the grammar structures.” (m9) and “i think google-forms-based exercises can help me enhance my strategies for autonomous learning, which can assist me to enhance the effectiveness of learning grammar.” (f5) regarding convenience, a common view against the interviewees was that “completing google-forms-based exercises is convenient because they can do grammar exercises anytime and anywhere they like, and they find really easy to have access to learning materials.” talking about this issue, an interviewee said: “i can do google-forms-based exercises with my smartphone, which is convenient for me in my learning english. moreover, i do not need to bring a lot of learning materials when i do google-forms-based exercises.” (f6) in the aspect of autonomous learning, several interviewees argued that “google forms supports our autonomous learning in learning english grammar because we can do googleforms-based exercises as many times as possible, which assists them to revise the grammatical lessons and remember the grammatical knowledge better.” while others stated: “we can set up a proper plan for our independent learning outside the classroom with the aids of google-forms-based exercises because the contents of these exercises are in line with those of the lesson we learned inside the classroom and we can review the grammar knowledge better through google-forms-based exercises.” another interviewee said: “i do google-forms-based exercises, and then i can check the answers with their clear and detailed explanations by myself, which can encourage my self-studying. what is more, i can do google-forms-based exercises outside the classroom, or anywhere i like.” (f6) about the problems, half of the interviewees responded that they had no problems when they did google-forms-based grammar exercises. however, other participants have confronted several issues as follows: f2 said: my internet connection is not stable, so i have to go to the coffee house for a more stable internet connection. m7 stated: one day, when i was going to complete my google-forms-based exercise, but there was a power cut, i had to do the whole exercise again the next day because i could save what i have completed. f4 considered: “some exercises were designed too long with too many items, my eyes were tiring when i read them, so i feel tired after completing these exercises.” in response to recommendations, participants provided a variety of responses. one interviewee said: “more and more google-forms-based exercises should be created and sent to students so that they can have more opportunities to practice them.” (m8). mentioning this aspect, one interviewee argued that "google forms should be integrated into not only grammar instruction but also other fields like vocabulary, phonetics, listening, reading, and acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 42 so on.” one more student commented: "to be more effective and useful for students to learn grammar, the teacher ought to design the answer keys with more detail explanations.” finally, another interview participant recommended that “the number of questions in each exercise should be limited from twenty to thirty because if the content of the exercises is too lengthy, it can make me tired of reading and answering the questions. moreover, doing an exercise with reasonable length can assist me in avoiding some technical problems such as a power cut or a weak internet connection." all responses to the questions in the interview indicated that the participants had a positive attitude towards the merge of google forms into grammar instruction. 5. conclusion 5.1 conclusion as mentioned in the introduction, the current study was designed to determine the effect of google forms' utilization on eleventh-grade students' grammar knowledge and discover these students' perceptions of this application. the findings from the study have shown as follows. regarding the first research question, vietnamese high school teachers' utilization of google forms on eleventh graders' grammatical knowledge is that google forms merged into grammar instruction to eleventh-grade students has greatly helped improve students' grammatical knowledge. the students from the experimental group have developed from having average scoring points to achieving a lot of fair and good scores. their progress is much more meaningful when compared to the modest improvement of their partners who received the conventional method of grammar instruction. besides, the difference in the score improvement of the two groups has been proved to be statistically significant, which indicated the effectiveness of the trial alternative of google forms when it was implemented to teaching english grammar to 11th graders. last but not least, students perceived that google forms exercises were likely to scaffold the effectiveness of their grammar learning. in response to the second research question, what vietnamese eleventh graders’ perceptions of using google forms in learning english grammar are, students’ perceptions of the teacher’s utilization of google forms in english grammar instruction showed a positive attitude toward the new approach. specifically, learners thought that they felt more interested, motivated, engaged, convenient, and concentrated on learning grammar with the merge of google forms. more significantly, their autonomous learning could be stimulated thanks to this fusion effectively. in short, the google forms alternative does avail students in terms of grammatical knowledge and their attitudes towards this approach. 5.2 limitations although this study may be of value in an efl high school in vietnam, several significant limitations need to be considered. firstly, in comparison with a true experiment, this study, a quasi-experiment, may undergo some limitations related to the generalization to the whole population (the 11th graders) though the subjects (44 students) have some similar acoj-issn 1936-9859 v. p. h. pham & v. d. tran vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 43 matching characteristics (i.e., age, level, and background) to those of the population. secondly, this approach was applied to the 11th graders only. therefore, it does not ensure that it has positive effects on other high school graders. thirdly, the current experiment confirmed the effectiveness of the new approach on grammar instruction only. its effects on other language aspects or skills of language teaching have not been discovered yet. finally, the experimental duration was limited in time and was probably not long enough to determine whether the improvement can be consistent and sustainable over a longer period or not. 5.3 suggestions for further studies from the limitations mentioned above, there are several suggestions for further studies. first and foremost, it is expected that future studies will expand the subjects of study to ensure the generalization of the results for students of the same grade. second, the process genre approach has proved its effectiveness on the 11th graders; therefore, it is suggested that further studies be implemented on the 10th and 12th graders to depict a more comprehensive picture of applying the process genre approach to teaching english writing to high school students. next, the current study is affirmed to be successful on grammar instruction. therefore, future research should concentrate on investigating google forms integration's effects on other language fields (i.e., vocabulary & pronunciation) and other language skills (i.e., listening & reading). finally, to testify the approach's effectiveness over time, future studies should also be conducted in a bigger length of time, for example, an academic year instead of one semester. references an, y. & williams, k. (2010). teaching with web 2.0 technologies: benefits, barriers and lessons learned. international journal of instructional technology & distance learning, 7(3), 41-48. bilonozhko, n., & syzenko, a. (2020). effective reading strategies for generation z using authentic texts. arab world english journal: special issue on the english language in iraqi context.121130. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awej/elt2.8. busyteacher (n.d.). 10 modern ways to use technology in esl instruction. retrieved from https://busyteacher.org/13732-using-technology-esl-instruction-10-modern-ways.html chau, k. g. (2021). the effect of ict on learners’ speaking skills development. international journal of tesol & education, 1(1), 22–29. retrieved from https://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/4. dekeyser, r. m. (1995) learning second language grammar rules: an experiment with a miniature linguistic system. studies in second language acquisition, 17(3), 379–410. do, t. h., & nguyen, h. t. n. (2014). an explaratory study of ict use in english language learning among english university students. teaching english with technology, 14(4), 32-46. fromkin, v., rodman, r., & hyams, n. (2017).an introduction to language (11th ed.). the united states: cengage learning, inc. https://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awej/elt2.8 https://busyteacher.org/13732-using-technology-esl-instruction-10-modern-ways.html acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 44 garrison, d. r., & kanuka, h. (2004). blended learning: uncovering its transformative potential in higher education. the internet and higher education, 7(2), 95–105. doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2004.02.001 graham, c. r. (2006). blended learning systems: definition, current trends, and future directions. san francisco, ca: pfeiffer publishing. haddad, r. j. & kalaani, y. (2014). google forms: a real-time formative feedback process for adaptive learning. the 121st asee annual conference and exposition, 6(2), 902911. doi: 10.18260/1-2-20540. harmanto, b. (2013). teaching english to generation z students (new concept of young learners). contemporary issues in education research, 6(1), 74-81. isti’anah, a. (2017). the effect of blended learning to the students’ achievement in grammar class. indonesian journal of english education, 4(1), 16-30. doi:10.15408/ijee.v4i1.5697. khalil, m. z. (2018). english students’ perceptions towards using google docs and google classroom as online collaborative tools in learning grammar. applied linguistics research journal, 2(2), 33–48. doi: 10.14744/alrj.2018.47955. khuong, t. h. c. (2015). teaching english grammar communicatively: theories, principles, and implications in english teaching in vietnam. international journal of english language teaching. 2(2), 62-68. nguyen, v. m. (2021). english language-learning environments in covid-19 era: efl contexts, english-language environments, technology-based approach, english language learning. asiacall online journal, 12(3), 39-46. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/21 pham, vu phi ho (2021). the effects of lecturer’s model e-comments on graduate students’ peer e-comments and writing revision. computer assisted language learning, 34(3), pp. 324-357. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2019.1609521 pham, d. t. t. (2021). the effects of audiovisual media on students’ listening skills. international journal of tesol & education, 1(1), 13–21. retrieved from http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/3 pham, vu phi ho & nguyen, the binh (2014). the effects of communicative grammar teaching on students’ achievement of grammatical knowledge and oral production. english language teaching (elt), 7 (6), pp. 74-86, doi: 10.5539/elt.v7n6p74 pham, d. t. (2018a). application of google forms in the english classroom. the 2018 international graduate research symposium proceedings, 3rd, 131-137. pham, d. t. (2018b). integration of technology-enhanced language learning tools into teaching english for english students. the 2018 international graduate research symposium proceedings, 640-650. https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--20540 https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2019.1609521 https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v7n6p74 acoj-issn 1936-9859 v. p. h. pham & v. d. tran vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 45 pham, p. k. m. (2015). changes in teaching grammar in the world and in vietnam (matser’s thesis). retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/16700372/changes_in_teaching_grammar_in_the_world_an d_in_vietnam.html. van, l. k., dang, t. a., pham, d. b. t., vo, t. t. n., & pham, v. p. h. (2021). the effectiveness of using technology in learning english. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 24-40. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/26. zhang, j. (2009). neccessity of grammar teaching. international education studies, 2(2), 184-187. biodata (1) assoc. prof. pham vu phi ho, ph.d., faculty of foreign languages, van lang university, vietnam. he used to be a vice-president of ba ria – vung tau university, and vice-president and dean of faculty of foreign languages of van hien university, vietnam. pham has been published 47 research articles in both local and international journals (isi/scopus-indexed), and 8 books and course-books, 2 course-books were used for undergraduate students at hcmc open university, vietnam, and one course-book was used for both the undergraduate and graduate level at lourdes college, higher education department, cagayan de oro city, the philippines. he is the vice president for administrative affairs of the asiacall and the managing editor of its online journal. he is now the editor-in-chief of the international journal of tesol & education. he is also an editor for the asian journal of applied linguistics (scopus-indexed), an editor for the world journal of english language (scopusindexed), and a peer reviewer for some international journals indexed in isi/scopus such as computer assisted language learning, open sage, international journal of instruction. his main interests include academic writing, peer responses, translation, teaching methodologies, and technology-enhanced learning. (2) tran van da is a teacher of english at thanh my tay junior high school, an giang province, vietnam. he has a twelve-year experience of teaching english to junior high school students. the fields he is interested in are english teaching methodology and ict integration into language learning and teaching. https://www.academia.edu/16700372/changes_in_teaching_grammar_in_the_world_and_in_vietnam.html https://www.academia.edu/16700372/changes_in_teaching_grammar_in_the_world_and_in_vietnam.html asiacall online journal received: 11/01/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 28/02/2021 vol. 12, no. 3, 2021 accepted: 07/03/2021 pp. 58-73 online: 08/03/2021 vocational english teachers’ challenges on shifting towards virtual classroom teaching hoang ngoc tue1, le duc hanh1* 1hanoi university of industry, vietnam *corresponding author’s email: leduchanh.haui@gmail.com abstract the covid19 pandemic has brought significant influences on every aspect of our lives and society. with the determination to keep learning continued during covid19, education itself has innovated remarkably to adapt to the lockdown situation in many regions in asia. among those, shifting from traditional face-to-face classrooms into online learning has been considered the ultimate solution with tremendous approvals from all stakeholders. however, at some vocational institutions, the shifting to virtual classrooms has plenteous challenges to all involved partners. since teachers are the keys to effective implementation of this shifting during covid19, it is crucial to understand their challenges to the shifting towards virtual classroom teaching. this paper aims to investigate the attitudes of the english teachers in some vocational colleges in vietnam and their challenges for transferring their face-to-face classrooms into online ones. this research collected the data from a questionnaire survey to 45 vocation english teachers at five vocational colleges and in-depth interviews with nine teachers. the findings would be presented to firstly identify the vocational english teachers' attitudes towards shifting to the virtual classroom. this research also revealed some challenges of teaching online classroom from the teachers' voices, such as students' and teachers' technology-competences, students' motivations, students' technical support, teachers' experiences, teachers' willingness, and institutions' purposes and strategies. some practical suggestions will be presented for teachers on how to face and solve these challenges, specifically during and post covid19 period. keywords: challenges, online teaching, virtual classroom, covid19, teachers’ attitudes 1. introduction the outbreak of the covid19 pandemic has been causing anxiety, fear, and various concerns for people all over the world. every aspect of human life has been seriously affected due to the difficulty in controlling the outbreak from its spread throughout the world. the world health organization (2019) has enforced some recommendations to implement strict regulations, such as social distancing and physical distancing, working from home, or even lockdown situations for many countries in the world. according to uno (2020) report, the covid19 outbreak has suffered the most massive disruption of education systems in history, which has caused influences on appropriately 1.6 billion learners in more than 190 countries and all continents. ninety-four percent of the world's students, up to 99 percent in low and lower-middle-income countries in the world, have been greatly affected by the school closure situation. vietnam has not been an exception. as the consequence of the covid19 pandemic lockdown, vietnamese education witnessed the school closure for nearly three months, from february to may 2020. to cope with the lockdown situation, the ministry of education and training (moet) made an agreement of "suspending school, acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 59 not stopping learning” during the first period of the epidemic. as a result, more than 100 higher education institutions in vietnam opted for online teaching and learning, in which private universities account for 70% (moet, 2020). changes and determinations in learning systems push schools to shift their traditional teaching mode into basically online education, such as e-learning, correspondence education, flexible learning, and massive open online courses. the adaption of fully online teaching and learning is a new experience as well as a significant challenge to all the education stakeholders at all levels, from administrators to teachers and students. there is no doubt that not all the schools at all levels were wellprepared for this transformation, even private universities. hence, there are serious concerns about this hasty change in terms of adapting, implementing, and shifting effectively online learning to reduce the impacts of the covid19 outbreak on education systems. it is legitimate that any education changes before were carefully planned, long-term invested, and evidence-based; this on-thespot adaptation caused by a health emergency (hodges et al. 2020) seems to be predominant. meanwhile, teachers, as the spearhead of the change from traditional face-to-face classrooms into online teaching and learning, must be able to be immediately prepared for this shift to an online environment with all the practical and technical obstacles this mode of delivery entangles, and often without technical support (hodges et al. 2020). a teacher has to face and conquer all the challenges present in online teaching and learning responsively to assure continuous learning to achieve the targets set (aliyyah et al. 2020). therefore, the question of how teachers perceive and overcome their challenges in online teaching implementation to master the specific situation of the covid19 outbreak comes to the fore. although there has been a rise in research on how the covid19 pandemic has changed the education systems, there is still a dearth of research exploring teachers' attitudes and challenges toward their immediate transferring into virtual teaching, especially in developing asian countries like vietnam. hence, this study investigates the teachers' attitudes towards their compulsory changes in teaching delivery and the challenges they faced during their shifting to the online environment from traditional ones. this paper reports on a survey of vocational english teachers in five vocational colleges in vietnam with an attempt to identify the obstacles faced by english teachers during their dramatic shift in the delivery mode of teaching and learning in the unavoidable situation of the covid19 epidemic. 2. literature review 2.1. online learning and teaching the term "online learning" has been universally used but not with the same meaning. with this research's aim, online learning was identified as learning that is mediated by the internet. this identification is considered as much broader than "network meaning"which focuses on the connections and interactions of teachers and students (banks et al. 2003; de laat et al. 2007) – in terms of specificity shortage. online learning is known to emphasize internet-based courses provided synchronously or asynchronously with the use of different devices. students can be offered the possibility of anywhere, anytime learning and interacting with instructors and other students (singh & thurman, 2019). while a synchronous learning environment is structured for students and teachers to attend live lectures with real-time social interactions (mcbrien et al.,2009) and instant responses (littlefield, 2018), asynchronous learning is established to learn indirectly with the independent learning approach. as cited in aliyyah et al. (2020), some subject matter is designed and demonstrated on learning management system (lms) on moodle, or email systems, blogs, online discussions, videos, and other platforms (ko & rossen, 2017; ogbonna et al., 2019; papachristos et al., 2010; sturm & quaynor, 2020; tarman, 2020). students can have access to the teacher synchronously, asynchronously, or both (hunter & st. pierre, 2016; inoue, 2007; richardson et al., 2020). in this study, online learning is indicated as a teaching and learning environment in which (1) the learner is not acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 60 face-to-face with the teacher, (2) the learner uses some technology devices to access the learning resources and materials, (3) the learner interacts with the teacher and other students via some applications, and (4) the learner is certainly supported (anderson, 2011). specifically, during the lockdown situation of the covid19 pandemic, with the implementation of virtual education, such basic online platform needed is described where there would be possible video conference from 30 to 50 attendees, students can discuss with the stable internet connection, lectures and other soft resources can be accessed with mobile phones, not just laptops, and assignments can be taken (basilaia et al., 2020). on the other hand, the school closure confronts all the stakeholders in education systems with an entirely new situation (huber & helm, 2020). the continuity of teaching and learning could only be implemented throughout new means of delivery. while for students, online learning could have opted as a piece of cake, for teachers, this transition to online teaching means various requirements for their new adaptation and implementation (eikelmann & gerick, 2020). even though this crisis forced the institutions, which had been early reluctant to change, to accept modern innovation and technology in education, all the institutions would be confused with plenteous online pedagogical approaches and had to select the appropriate one for their own contexts. in the research conducted by honey et al. (2014), it is claimed that in order to accomplish the positive results in association with teaching technology, the types of interactions among teachers, students, and technologies must be clearly understood. this means that the level and methods of achieving quality results of online teaching are differed and affected by factors related to information and communication technology (ict) competence and practices in education before, during, and after the covid19 epidemic. duraku and hoxha (2020) demonstrated that teachers' perspectives on pedagogy had been confirmed to make an impact on the level of technology integration in the teaching settings. teachers also hopefully play a remarkable role in the implementation success of online learning. therefore, teachers are under pressure to prove their teaching methodology and ict competence amidst the paramount conversion. 2.2. ict transformation in the education system the 21st century has been testifying the widespread ict transformation process in all aspects, particularly in the education system (law, pelgrum & plomb, 2008; mcfarlane, 2019). ict has been acknowledged for its benefits in numerous studies (usun, 2009; prestridge, 2012; hasan et al., 2015; nhu, keong, & wah, 2018; bilyalova, 2017), especially its application is believed to change students' learning style to be more independent and flexible. this would lead to the change of what students need to learn, how students learn, and how teachers teach. ict is also considered as the crucial factor for quality higher education (liebenberg, chetty, & prinsloo, 2012) because of its ultimate facilitation for teaching, learning, and other research activities. however, the benefits of ict are not always understandable since its application achievement depends on various factors such as infrastructure, strategies, support, a number of ict integration activities, and especially teacher's competencies in applying ict (raman & yamat, 2013; prestridge, 2012; wei et al., 2016). the shift of transferring teaching and learning into online teaching obliged by covid19 pandemic has become an indispensable part to persist continuous learning for all students at all levels. with the assistance of ict, teachers would be the main agent to be expected to transit their mode of delivery even they obtain good ict skills or not. this becomes a compulsory burden on the teachers' shoulders. in the same line with shulman (1987), teachers must draw on this sphere of professional knowledge and knit it into sufficient cohesion and skills to master the challenges of teaching. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 61 2.3. challenges on shifting classrooms into the online learning environment before the covid19 outbreak, there have been many studies addressing the challenges related to the introduction and application of online learning. evidence has proved that online learning initiatives have failed because of the unpreparedness and inexperience of institutions and their divisions (aydın & tasci, 2005; borotis & poulymenakou, 2004). in addition, watkins et al. (2004) presented the difficulty in transferring online learning due to the people's attachment to the existing pedagogies. meanwhile, carr (2000) and maltby & whittle (2000) showed students' negative attitudes towards online learning because of their results and motivations. other research has expressed the challenges at the institutional level about the support, structures, or strategies when applying online learning (graham, 2012; hoang, 2015) and the concerns about the technical reliability, workload issues, student outcomes in the new environments (bacow et al., 2012; bolliger & wasilik, 2009; betts & heaston, 2014). data from several previous studies indicated that teachers had to face various challenges during their online teaching. while keeton (2004) identified teachers' positive attitudes towards virtual learning, prestridge (2012) and wei et al. (2016) raised their concerns about the teachers' lack of technology competence to teach online effectively. during the covid19 pandemic with lockdown situation and school closure, it has been clear that the education system is prone to external dangers (bozkurt & sharma, 2020). for ribeiro (2020), this digital transition of teaching delivery came with certain logistic challenges and attitudinal modifications. serhan (2020) presented the students' negative attitudes towards zoom application. moreover, students’ challenge of no internet access during this pandemic was demonstrated in the research by fishbane and tomer (2020), which implied that students at low economic contexts are most exposed to fall behind to interact with others online learning. while biswas (2020) argued about skulmowski (2020) in terms of students' obstacles in technical operation, he revealed in his findings that students have challenges in the lack of a good learning attitude, motivation, or good learning environment during this time. besides, completely online teaching would require critical planning and investments from all stakeholders. even though many institutions had plans for applying online learning during the pandemic, there has been only applied predominantly on smaller cases than a worldwide crisis as covid19 pandemic. it raises the question of the purposes and strategies of institutions in the agreement of online teaching transformation. for teachers, the doer of this shifting, there exist many problematic issues concerning their transforming teaching approaches to the extents of their attitudes, experiences, and competencies. however, it is apparently believed that this must be the teachers' duty and responsibility even the teachers had challenges on their network connections, technology competence, students' performance, and institutions' support (lestiyanawati & widyantoro, 2020; mishra, 2020; basilaia et al., 2020; adedoyin & soykan, 2020; bao, 2020; akyıldız’s, 2020). therefore, there has been a shortage of research on teachers' challenges in this urgent transition, which drives this research's significant contribution. 2.4. vocational education and training among all types of the education system, vocational education and training (vet) have been an important subset for decades since the need for new skills expanding in the labor market after the industrial revolution could not be satisfied by the traditional education system (benovat, 1983; grubb, 1985). vet has been operated besides academic and general education to implement school tracking practices and curriculum differentiation. in recent years, vet has been favored as the sole choice of low-performing students to study at the lower level of educations than universities and academies (brunello, 2004; hanushek, schwerdt, woessman, & zhang, 2017; hanushek & woessmann, 2006). the fact that students and teachers at the vet system have been considered as much more acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 62 difficult to adapt or apply innovations than academic education is based on the school tracking practices of different ages, school preferences, and theoretical programs. vet has turned into a type of education that has been paid less attention and investment than other academic and general education. during the crisis of the covid19 pandemic, like all kinds of education types, vet also has to face with challenges of retaining continuous learning, and the shifting into online learning would become the ultimate solution for them at this time. during the transition, the teachers at vet would also encounter challenges for implementing effectively. therefore, the research would be conducted to explore the teachers' attitudes and their challenges on this transition from traditional face-to-face classrooms to virtual ones. 2.5. research questions to fulfill the purpose of the study, two following research questions would be addressed in this paper: a) what are the vocational english teachers' attitudes towards the shifting to online teaching during the covid19 pandemic? b) what are the challenges the vocational english teachers faced during their shifting to online teaching? 3. methods 3.1 pedagogical setting & participants this research subjects were 45 english teachers at five different vocational colleges in the north of vietnam. due to the limitation of time, resources, and lockdown situation, our research questionnaire was distributed randomly to english teachers at five colleges based on the respondents' convenience. the participants in our survey consist of 18 english teachers at hanoi college of economy and technology, eight teachers from vietnamhungary industrial university, six teachers at sao do vocational college, nine teachers at hanoi college of commerce, economy, and technology, four teachers at viet tri-college of foods and industry. these vocational colleges were in the same context settings. they are public colleges in and around the capital of vietnam, providing both technical and economic courses for students after high school graduation. the size of these colleges is between 1000 and 2000 students. all of the colleges have been operated for more than ten years. before the covid19 pandemic, these colleges were reported as using traditional face-to-face teaching pedagogy. hardly did the teachers apply icts into their teaching. however, due to the status of school closure for spread restrictions of coronaviruses, these colleges have been forced to implement the night shift of the teaching delivery mode into completely online teaching, which has surely put their teachers under pressure and challenges. all of the 45 teachers participating in the survey are full-time english teachers among the ages of 25-50 with at least three years of teaching experience. it was surprising that 19 of them (42,2%) had been applying icts in their teaching before the covid19 pandemic to some extent. among 45 participants, the number of female teachers is 39, accounting for 86,7%. only 6 teachers (13,3%) are male, which supports the trend that it is more popular for the female than male to get involved in teacher education course (ricohermoso, abequibel, & alieto, 2019; alieto, devanadera, & buslon, 2020; torres & medriano, 2020). besides, nine of the surveyed teachers engaging in the interviewing part were selected randomly from the survey questionnaire participants. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 63 3.2 design of the study this study aims to investigate the vocational english teachers' attitudes and their challenges in teaching through online mode of delivery shifting from traditional face-to-face during the covid19 pandemic in vietnam. this study was conducted based on quantitative and qualitative methods. the priority was given to the quantitative method with a statistic survey research design and supported by the qualitative method's interview results. data collected from the questionnaire delivery to 45 vocational english teachers were analyzed with spss software. there were 23 items in the questionnaire formulated using the 5-point-likert-scale to express the degree of agreement and disagreement from strongly disagree to agree strongly. the questionnaire comprised 21 multiple choice questions together with two short-answer questions divided into three parts. part 1 consisted of five questions to find out the respondents' background information. meanwhile, part 2 with 15 questions was formed to explore the teachers' attitudes and challenges on shifting to online teaching. two short-answer questions in part 3 aimed to figure out the teachers' own experience on online teaching and their willingness to use online teaching after the covid19 pandemic. the questionnaire was arranged based on the literature relevant to the purpose of the research. the questionnaire was formed on the platform of google forms and distributed through its link to participants. in order to obtain more precise results, the questionnaire was written in vietnamese to make sure of the respondents’ clear understanding. a short but concise explanation about the nature of the study was also given at the beginning of the questionnaire. the responses were analyzed quantitatively using percentages of those who responded. also, to ensure that surveyed respondents provided honest answers, we conducted the survey anonymously and did not seek names and other information that may reveal respondents’ identities. the collected responses in vietnamese were later translated into english by one of our researchers. interviews are used to gain more detailed information about personal feelings, attitudes, and opinions of the participants that questionnaires cannot elicit (opdenakker, 2006). the interviewees in this research were selected randomly. all the questions used in the interviews were to support the information achieved from surveys. 3.3 data collection & analysis the online survey on google forms was uploaded and sent on july 31, and the researchers received 45 responses by august 30 when the link was closed. a total of 45 responses were valid. for interviews, due to the covid19 pandemic, each interview was carried out via phones or internet–based applications like zalo, facebook messenger, and zoom separately. before answering the interview questions, the purpose of the study was carefully explained. these in-deep interviews were conducted in vietnamese – the interviewees’ native languageand recorded. then, the recordings were transcribed and analyzed thematically with the help of the researchers’ colleagues who had great language competence of ielts 8.0. data collected from the online survey were coded and analyzed with spss software for descriptive and inferential analysis. once the questionnaire data were computerized, the findings were tabled as frequencies of responses and percentages. meanwhile, the interviews were qualitatively analyzed to figure out the teachers' perspectives towards their shifting to online teaching as well as deeply scrutinize their detailed challenges in their transition. 4. results/findings and discussion this section presents the results of the analysis data collected from survey questionnaires and interviews concerning the vocational english teachers' attitudes and challenges on their shifting from traditional face-to-face teaching to online teaching due to the covid19 pandemic, together with the discussion with the view to answer two research questions. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 64 4.1. teachers’ attitudes towards shifting to online teaching the responses from the first five questionnaire items in part 2 were coded and analyzed from the spreadsheet. table 1 presents the descriptive analysis of the data. table 1 respondents’ attitudes towards the shifting to online teaching delivery variables sd d n a sa 6 i like using online teaching during the covid19 pandemic. 0 (0%) 2 (4,45%) 2 (4,45%) 33 (73,3%) 8 (17,8%) 7 i generally have positive attitudes towards online teaching. 0 (0%) 2 (4,45%) 2 (4,45%) 37 (82,2%) 4 (8,9%) 8 i think that online teaching is useful for my teaching. 3 (6,7%) 2 (4,45%) 2 (4,45%) 34 (75,5%) 4 (8,9%) 9 i am required to shift to teach online. 0 (0%) 3 (6,7%) 3 (6,7%) 30 (66,6%) 9 (20%) 10 i am willing to use online teaching 1 (2,2%) 3 (6,7%) 1 (2,2%) 33 (73,3%) 7 (15,6%) as shown in table 1, 91,1% (accounting for 41 respondents) showed their agreements and strong agreements on their favor of using online teaching during the covid19 pandemic. the number of teachers confirming their positive attitudes towards teaching online was more than 90 percent. this result showed the same findings as to the results in keeton (2004) about participants' moderately favorable attitude toward virtual teaching. this result would be implied in keeton (2004)'s explanation that teachers' positive attitude towards online teaching will support building a positive online classroom and motivate students beneficially in their online learning. in addition, in terms of the usefulness of online teaching, 38 respondents (84,4%) reported their agreement that online teaching is useful for their teaching. besides, for their compulsory shifting, 39 respondents (86,6%) expressed that they were required to transfer their mode of delivery into online teaching mode when three of them (6,7%) disagreed that it was compulsory to change their teaching mode. meanwhile, the number of investigated teachers confirmed their willingness to use online teaching was 40, accounting for 88,9%, and four of them (8,9%) showed disagreement about their willingness to apply online teaching. this finding is consistent with that of mishra (2020) within the same context during the covid19 phase, the online teaching mode of education is useful from teachers' perspectives. therefore, it can be managed as a transition mechanism. when being interviewed, the interviewees disclosed that they deeply understood the transition to online teaching was somewhat unavoidable and necessary during a hard time of lockdown situation. “i myself believe that online teaching during the school closure time due to lockdown situation was really helpful and necessary. i think this is the only and foremost way to keep students learning and teachers working with the feeling of mentally balanced and safe” (t#4) "i know that online learning is very useful to students and teachers, but i haven't had a chance to apply it. now, i have to do it as a requirement, and i am willing to do it." (t#7) acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 65 these positive attitudes towards the online teaching model showed that most of the vocational english teachers were fully aware of the usefulness of online teaching during the lockdown period. most of them agreed that online teaching would be the ultimate solution for teachers as great support. 4.2. teachers’ challenges on their implementation of shifting to online teaching even though the investigated teachers showed their positive attitudes towards the transition to online teaching, there have been plenteous challenges that teachers had to face during their shifting to teaching online revealed from the findings of this research. they ranged from teachers' intrinsic challenges to the extrinsic challenges from students and institutions as listed in the issues of teachers' willingness, teachers' technological competence, their experience, the students' technological competence and support, students' motivations, institutional purposes, and strategies in the online learning transition. all of these aspects will be reported and discussed specifically below. 4.2.1 teachers’ intrinsic challenges the challenges arisen from teachers themselves were reported as in table 2 below. table 2 respondents of teachers’ challenges to online teaching transition variables d n a m 11 i can teach online effectively. 11 7 27 3.4 12 i am good at using technology in my teaching. 26 12 7 2.3 13 i have a good internet connection for my online teaching. 23 5 17 2.7 14 i can manage my virtual classrooms well. 25 7 13 2.6 15 i don’t have much workload with online teaching. 30 3 12 2.4 table 2 provides the results obtained from the survey questionnaire's descriptive analysis from item 11 to item 15. this table is quite revealing in several ways. firstly, regarding teachers' self-reports about their confidence in effective online teaching, while 27 (60%) of the respondents indicated their agreement and strong agreement that they could teach online effectively, a minority of the participants (24,4%) showed that they were not confident in their teaching online and 7(15,6%) reported their honest thought to their teaching online effectively or not. this finding was relevant to the interview results when the respondents were asked about how they were confident in their teaching online. five of them commented that at first, they were not confident at all because they were required to shift to online teaching right after one week, but later, when they engaged in teaching online, they not only became confident in online teaching but also developed their teaching online more effectively. secondly, in terms of technology competence, the majority of 26 participants (57,8%) indicated that they did not have good technology competence while only a minority of 7 teachers (15,6%) believed in their good technology competence. the result is significant at the number of teachers uncertain about this issue which accounted for more than one-fourth of investigated teachers. strong evidence of this finding was found in the interview part when t#2 revealed: "since we were required to use icts, some applications, some tools in our online teaching but actually, we didn't know how to operate them properly and how to match them well in our lesson plan. we know, but it doesn't mean we use it well. hence, i don't think my technology competence is fairly good". this result revealed acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 66 the significant challenge for teachers was the technology competence, which was in a strong relationship with the findings in prestridge (2012) and wei et al. (2016). as mentioned in the literature review part, one of the core challenges was the infrastructure, the physical facilities to implement the transition to online teaching, which could refer to the internet connection. the finding reported that more than half of respondents (52%) confirmed they did not have a stable internet connection during their online teaching, while 17 of them (37,7%) showed their safe feelings about this issue. one main reason for unstable network connection was described in the interview: if the online meeting of more than 30 students was synchronous, the teachers had to spend much time handling the in-and-out loggings suddenly of the students and teachers themselves. besides, they were so annoyed when they couldn't interact with their students due to pausing or flickering, or buzzing problems. teachers also commented that if they wanted to upload videos or audios for their students to practice, they had to wait for such a long time. and during the lockdown period, it was difficult for them to get out and find somewhere with a more stable internet connection. this result supports evidence from the findings in mishra (2020) that unstable network connection was the core challenge to online teaching. in addition, the significant finding also resulted in the finding of virtual classroom management. only 13 (28,8%) of the teachers found that they could manage their virtual classrooms, while more than a half of them (55,5%) find this management towards disagreement. with the reason of unstable internet connection and not good at technology competence, teachers found themselves struggling in managing their virtual classrooms. i really find it difficult to read the face and mood of my students through the screen of my laptop. even i gave the requirement of turning their cameras and voices on during my online classes, many of the students only did it when i reminded them again and in a short time. this really made me annoyed and did not know how to control my students' attendance" (t#8) this finding was unexpected and suggests that there would be clear guidance and instructions for teachers in the way they monitor the classroom virtually, and students' conditions would be improved for them to learn online. finally, one of the intrinsic challenges noted for teachers was the heavy workload they had to face during online teaching. while one-third of the investigated teachers indicated that they had much work to do with online teaching, only 12 of them (18,8%) thought the online teaching did not concern about their workload much. this finding was specifically explained in the interview when most of the informants claimed they had to do much more work with online teaching than face-to-face teachings, such as redesigning exercises, activities, and assignments to upload them to the virtual classrooms, preparing much more online resources and materials for their students, giving comments on the students' assignments, guiding and supporting students in their doing exercises, online interactions, and even technical support. this result was found to be completely different from the benefits of online teaching in reducing workload for teachers with the support of technology as mentioned in anderson (2011) and basilaia et al. (2020). 4.2.2. teachers’ challenges from students and institutions besides struggling with their own challenges of technology competence, virtual classroom management, more workload, unstable network connection, teachers had to overcome other remarkable challenges risen from students and institutions, as specifically mentioned below as students' attitudes and motivations to learn online, students' technology competence, institutional purposes, and strategies of online teaching. table 3 showed descriptive data about these aspects. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 67 table 3 respondents of teachers’ challenges to online teaching transition variables d n a m 16 my students are motivated to learn online. 5 4 36 3.9 17 my students like learning online more than face-to-face. 20 3 22 2.8 18 my students are good at technology. 16 5 24 3.3 19 my students get technical support from technicians and teachers. 25 7 13 2.6 20 my institution announces the purposes and strategies of online teaching. 4 1 40 3.4 21 my institution has a clear guideline of shifting to online teaching for teachers. 20 3 22 3.5 regarding students' online learning, several prior studies noted the importance of their positive attitudes, underlying motivation, technical competencies (mishra, 2020; adedoyin & soykan, 2020; bao, 2020; akyıldız's, 2020). in this study, as can be seen in table 3, approximately 80% of the investigated teachers confirmed that their students were believed to obtain motivation on their learning online. the interviews also revealed that the students told their teachers that they found learning online more motivated and flexible than face-to-face classes as they could attend their classes anywhere, anytime. it was really a good choice for students to enrich their knowledge and resources to learn online. this finding is contrary to previous studies of akyıldız's (2020), which claimed isolation, less motivation, and online learning engagement among students. this finding also went beyond stakeholders' expectations of students at the vet education system as vet students were considered less motivated than academic education. moreover, the number of respondent teachers who claimed their students' preferring to learn online was slightly more than the number of disagreements on this issue with 48,8% and 40%, respectively. meanwhile, more than half of surveyed teachers (53,3%) showed their belief in students' good technology competence, while 35.5% of them thought that their students were not good at technology. besides, the technical support for students was reported as less than 55.5% of the respondents believed that their students did not obtain technology competence. much more information was disclosed in the interviewing part. most of the interviewees (seven out of nine) shared their ideas that their students were a really challenging factor in their online teaching implementation when they had to stop their lectures from dealing with much of the students' interruptions due to their lack of knowledge of technology and skills. even the teachers had to explain and provided the course code number time by time for students. additionally, students were reported that they could get only support from their teachers when they had any obstacles with technology. there was hardly any support from a technician or other departments in their colleges. this can be referred that the interaction and communication between teachers and students were ultimate and close. however, preparation for shifting education outside of traditional face-to-face classrooms in response to the covid19 outbreak requires thought, coordination, and careful decision making (simamora, 2020). the two questions of the questionnaire were adopted to figure out the institutional supports for online teaching. in the aspect of a formal announcement, most of the teachers (88,9%) clarified that they were announced about their institution's acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 68 purposes and strategies for online teaching transition. specifically, almost all the teachers interviewed expressed their increasing awareness of purposes and strategies for continuous learning among moet's institutions. however, to some extent, nearly half of them (49,3%) can get clear guidance about the shifting plan, and 44,4% confirmed there were little guidance and support from the institutional level. when being asked about this challenge, six out of nine informants confessed their expectation that they would be provided more training workshops on how to teach in an online environment effectively, what kinds of icts they should use for their teaching, assessing, and even monitoring their virtual classes before transferring to online teaching. they admitted that actually, they had to research the answers to the problems by themselves while they were teaching online. this may explain their not confidence in teaching online effectively. this result further supports the idea of johnson et al. (2020) in terms of giving the suggestion that should identify a need for assistance related to students' support and guidance for working from home. two last questions of the questionnaire were raised to explore the teachers' experience of online teaching and their willingness to use online teaching after the covid19 pandemic. it was surprising when all the respondents (100%) confirmed that they had never applied online teaching before the lockdown situation due to their facilities and existing traditional pedagogies in their institution. they had no idea of changing their teaching mode from faceto-face teaching to online one. over half of those surveyed reported that they would consider applying online teaching after this crisis period with some sharing as follows. "oh, yes. after this school closure time, i will apply online teaching because some of my online activities have been performed better online than face-to-face. so, if i apply it in my classroom later, my students can be more motivated and eager in my lessons." (t#9) in this time, i learn how to use many ict applications and tools such as google classroom, quizizz, kahoot!, mentimeter,… which i think will surely benefit my teaching later, whether it is online or face-toface. besides, i can use these tools again and again for other classes to practice. (t#1) 5. conclusion in summary, most of the results of this research were consistent with previous studies in the literature on vocational english teachers’ attitudes and challenges they are facing while shifting their teaching mode of delivery into online teaching, including the teachers’ technology competence, their virtual classroom management, heavy workload, students’ motivations in online learning, students’ technology competence and technical support, together with the institution’s purposes and strategies of online teaching implementation. specifically, there are similarities of positive attitudes towards online teaching between this research and those prior studies of keeton (2004) and mishra (2020), even though this research revealed amazingly that teachers were under the compulsory circumstance to shift their teaching delivery to online mode. this result may explain the relatively good awareness and understanding of these investigated teachers during the outbreak of covid19 and the closures of schools. moreover, the internal challenges discovered in this research were in accordance with recent studies indicating that during the online teaching transition, teachers had obstacles to technology competence, virtual classroom management. however, it is surprising that the challenge of heavy workload found out in this research has not been before described as the challenge in online teaching. this inconsistency may be due to the immediate transition requirement, making teachers confused and unprepared for their teaching transfer. this finding has important implications for developing teachers' professional skills, especially in technology competence, so that they can be accustomed to any unexpected situations. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 69 in the meantime, this study supports evidence from previous observations (mishra, 2020; adedoyin & soykan, 2020;) in terms of challenges related to students' technology competence, students' perspective towards online learning, and technical support that students gained during their learning. these findings suggest that to shift to online teaching effectively, the teachers should pay attention to the students' technology competence and encourage and support students with their technical problems in time. in contrast to early findings, however, hardly any challenge of students' motivation for online learning was detected. this result may be explained by the fact that students find themselves flexible and enjoyed their new mode of learning, which permits them to learn anywhere, anytime. this would support the students to get the balance between learning and staying safe during the crisis of covid19. on the other hand, the decision-makers are always between supportive and challenging to the doers. it could be an extreme lack if the research did not mention the institutional roles in transferring the delivery mode of teaching and learning. the finding of this research revealed that most institutions issued their announcement about online teaching, their purposes, and strategies to all the teachers but only nearly half of them attached their guidance for this online teaching transition with little support provided for teachers. a possible explanation for these results may be the lack of adequate time and effort in an attempt to calculate and prepare all the issues that arise in the shifting period. it is, therefore, likely that teachers would expect to be provided with more specific guidance and timely support for the effectiveness of their shifting. organizing training workshops and seminars would be considered reasonable solutions for teachers who are updating new ict and practicing their technology competence. on the other hand, several limitations of the present study point to the need for further research on this topic. firstly, because the study was conducted with a limited number of participants in only vet contexts, the challenges may not be generalizable to various academic or general education system settings. secondly, the research relied mainly on the participants' self-reported data regarding their attitudes and challenges in shifting to online teaching. other stakeholders were not examined. therefore, future research would be implemented to explore the other stakeholders' perspectives and challenges during the shifting period. further, due to time constraints, the present study only concentrated on determining the challenges that teachers faced during their online teaching transition. further research should be undertaken to investigate the performances of the teachers during their online teaching implementation. in conclusion, the present study contributes to our understanding of teachers' attitudes and challenges in transferring to online teaching in the vocational education system in vietnam during the covid19 pandemic. besides, obtaining data on the challenges of online teaching during the sudden covid19 outbreak would also be valuable for teachers and institutions who are seeking to plan and prepare for future crises. references adedoyin, o. b., & soykan, e. (2020). covid-19 pandemic and online learning: the challenges and opportunities. interactive learning environments, 1-13. akyıldız, s. t. (2020). college students’ views on the pandemic distance education: a focus group discussion. international journal of technology in education and science, 4(4), 322-334. alieto, e., devanadera, a., & buslon, j. (2020). women of k-12: exploring teachers’ cognition in language policy implementation. available at ssrn 3588029. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 70 aliyyah, r. r., rachmadtullah, r., samsudin, a., syaodih, e., nurtanto, m., & tambunan, a. r. s. (2020). the perceptions of primary school teachers of online learning during the covid-19 pandemic period: a case study in indonesia. journal of ethnic and cultural studies, 7(2), 90-109. aydın ch, & tasci d. (2005). measuring readiness for e-learning: reflections from an emerging country. journal of educational technology & society, 8(4), 244-257 bacow, l., bowen, w., guthrie, k., lack, k., & long, m. (2012). barriers to adoption of online learning systems in u.s. higher education. ithaka s+r consulting. retrieved from http://www.sr.ithaka.org/researchpublications/barriers-adoption-online-learningsystems-us-higher-education bao, w. (2020). covid‐19 and online teaching in higher education: a case study of peking university. human behavior and emerging technologies, 2(2), 113–115. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.191 basilaia, g., & kvavadze, d. (2020). transition to online education in schools during a sars-cov-2 coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic in georgia. pedagogical research, 5(4), 1-9. benovat, a. (1983). the rise and decline of vocational education. sociology of education, 56(2), 63–76. betts, k., & heaston, a. (2014). build it but will they teach? strategies for increasing faculty participation and retention in online and blended education. online journal of distance learning administration, 17(2). retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/summer172/betts_heaston172.html bilyalova, a. (2017). ict in teaching a foreign language in high school. procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 237, 175-181. biswas, p. (2020). worldwide scenario of unplanned transition to e-learning in the time of covid-19 and students perception: a review. bolliger, d., & wasilik, o. (2009). factors influencing faculty satisfaction with online teaching and learning in higher education. distance education, 30(1), 103-116. doi:10.1080/01587910902845949 borotis s, & poulymenakou a. (2004). e-learning readiness components: key issues to consider before adopting e-learning interventions. in: association for the advancement of computing in education (aace). in elearn: world conference on e-learning in corporate, government, healthcare, and higher education (pp.1622-1629). bozkurt, a., & sharma, r. c. (2020). emergency remote teaching in a time of global crisis due to corona virus pandemic. asian journal of distance education, 15(1), i–iv. brunello, g. (2004). stratified or comprehensive? some economic considerations on the design of secondary education. cesifo dice report, 2(4), 7-10. carr s. (2000). as distance education comes of age, the challenge is keeping the students. chronicle of higher education, 46(23), 39-41. de laat, m., lally, v., lipponen, l., & simons, r. j. (2007). investigating patterns of interaction in networked learning and computer-supported collaborative learning: a role for social network analysis. international journal of computer-supported collaborative learning, 2(1), 87-103. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 71 duraku, z. h., & hoxha, l. (2020). the impact of covid-19 on education and on the well-being of teachers, parents, and students: challenges related to remote (online) learning and opportunities for advancing the quality of education. retrieved online from https://www. researchgate. net/publication/341297812. fishbane, l., & tomer, a. (2020, march 20). as classes move online during covid-19, what are disconnected students to do? brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/03/20/as-classes-moveonline-during-covid-19-whatare-disconnected-students-to-do/ graham, c. r. (2013). emerging practice and research in blended learning. handbook of distance education, 3, 333-350. grubb, w. n. (1985). the convergence of educational systems and the role of vocationalism. comparative education review, 29(4), 526-548. hanushek, e. a., schwerdt, g., woessmann, l., & zhang, l. (2017). general education, vocational education, and labor-market outcomes over the lifecycle. journal of human resources, 52(1), 48-87. hasan, m. s., rahman, r. a., abdillah, s. f. h. b. t., & omar, n. (2015). perception and awareness of young internet users towards cybercrime: evidence from malaysia. journal of social sciences, 11(4), 395. hoang, n. t. (2015). efl teachers' perceptions and experiences of blended learning in a vietnamese university (doctoral dissertation, queensland university of technology). hodges, c., moore, s., lockee, b., trust, t., & bond, a. (2020). the difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning. educause review, 27. honey, m., pearson, g., & schweingruber, h. a. (eds.). (2014). stem integration in k-12 education: status, prospects, and an agenda for research (vol. 500). washington, dc: national academies press. huber, s. g., & helm, c. (2020). covid-19 and schooling: evaluation, assessment and accountability in times of crises—reacting quickly to explore key issues for policy, practice and research with the school barometer. educational assessment, evaluation and accountability, 1-34. hunter, l., & st pierre, l. (2016). online learning: report to the legislature. washington office of superintendent of public instruction. inoue, y. (ed.). (2007). online education for lifelong learning. igi global. johnson, n., veletsianos, g., & seaman, j. (2020). us faculty and administrators' experiences and approaches in the early weeks of the covid-19 pandemic. online learning, 24(2), 6-21. keeton, m.t. (2004). best online instructional practices: report of phase i of an ongoing study, journal of asynchronous learning networks, 8, (2), 75 -100. ko, s., & rossen, s. (2010). teaching online: a practical guide (3rd ed.). new york, ny: routledge. lestiyanawati, r., & widyantoro, a. (2020). strategies and problems faced by indonesian teachers in conducting e-learning system during covid-19 outbreak. journal of culture, literature, linguistic and english teaching, 2(1), 71–82. liebenberg, h., chetty, y., & prinsloo, p. (2012). student access to and skills in using technology in an open and distance learning context. international review of research in open and distributed learning, 13(4), 250-268. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 72 littlefield, j. (2018). the difference between synchronous and asynchronous distance learning. maltby, j. r., & whittle, j. (2000). learning programming online: student perceptions and performance. in proceedings of the ascilite 2000 conference. mcbrien, j. l., cheng, r., & jones, p. (2009). virtual spaces: employing a synchronous online classroom to facilitate student engagement in online learning. international review of research in open and distributed learning, 10(3). mcfarlane, a. e. (2019). devices and desires: competing visions of a good education in the digital age. british journal of educational technology, 50(3), 1125-1136. mishra, l., gupta, t., & shree, a. (2020). online teaching-learning in higher education during lockdown period of covid-19 pandemic. international journal of educational research open, 1, 100012. moet. (2020b). the information and communications going along with education and training in the preventing covid-19. (publication no. 02/04/2020) https://en.moet.gov.vn/news/pages/ events.aspx?itemid=3933 nhu, p. t. t., keong, t. c., & wah, l. k. (2018). exploring teaching english using ict in vietnam: the lens of activity theory. international journal of modern trends in social sciences, 1(3), 15-29. opdenakker, r. (2006, september). advantages and disadvantages of four interview techniques in qualitative research. in forum qualitative sozialforschung/forum: qualitative social research (vol. 7, no. 4). papachristos, n. m., vrellis, i., natsis, a., & mikropoulos, t. a. (2014). the role of environment design in an educational multi‐u ser virtual environment. british journal of educational technology, 45(4), 636646. prestridge, s. (2012). the beliefs behind the teacher that influences their ict practices. computers & education, 58(1), 449-458. raman, k., & yamat, h. (2014). barriers teachers face in integrating ict during english lessons: a case study. malaysian online journal of educational technology, 2(3), 11-19. ribeiro, r. (2020, april 14). how university faculty embraced the remote learning shift. edtech magazine. https:// edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2020/04/how-university-faculty-embraced-remote-learning-shift auger, k. a., shah, s. s., richardson, t., hartley, d., hall, m., warniment, a., ... & thomson, j. e. (2020). association between statewide school closure and covid-19 incidence and mortality in the us. jama, 324(9), 859-870. ricohermoso, c., abequibel, b., & alieto, e. (2019). attitude towards english and filipino as correlates of cognition toward mother tongue: an analysis among would-be language teachers. asian efl journal, 26(6.1), 5-22. serhan, d. (2020). transitioning from face-to-face to remote learning: students’ attitudes and perceptions of using zoom during covid-19 pandemic. international journal of technology in education and science, 4(4), 335-342. https://doi.org/10.46328/ijtes.v4i4.148 shulman, l. (1987). knowledge and teaching: foundations of the new reform. harvard educational review, 57(1), 1-23. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 73 simamora, r. m. (2020). the challenges of online learning during the covid-19 pandemic: an essay analysis of performing arts education students. studies in learning and teaching, 1(2), 86-103. singh, v., & thurman, a. (2019). how many ways can we define online learning? a systematic literature review of definitions of online learning (1988-2018). american journal of distance education, 33(4), 289-306. skulmowski, a., & rey, g. d. (2020). subjective cognitive load surveys lead to divergent results for interactive learning media. human behavior and emerging technologies, 2, 149157. sturm, e., & quaynor, l. (2020). a window, mirror, and wall: how educators use twitter for professional learning. research in social sciences and technology, 5(1), 22-44. tarman, b. (2020). editorial: reflecting in the shade of pandemic. research in social sciences and technology, 5(2), i-iv. https://doi.org/10.46303/ressat.05.02.ed torres, j. m., & medriano jr, r. (2020). rhetorical organization of ilocano and tagalog pre-service teachers in their argumentative essays. online submission. united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization. (2020). covid-19 impact on education. https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse usun, s. (2009). information and communications technologies (ict) in teacher education (ite) programs in the world and turkey:(a comparative review). procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 1(1), 331-334. wei, l. m., piaw, c. y., kannan, s., & moulod, s. a. (2016). relationship between teacher ict competency and teacher acceptance and use of school management system (sms). malaysian online journal of educational technology, 4(4), 36-52. world health organisation. (2020). coronavirus. https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus#tab=tab-1 biodata first author: dr. hoang ngoc tue dr. hoang ngoc tue is the dean of the faculty of foreign languages, hanoi university of industry, vietnam. he has been working as an english teacher and an educational administrator for more than 15 years. he has conducted many studies and projects to improve the quality of english language education at tertiary level. he received his doctor of education degree from queensland university of technology, australia in 2015. his research interests include ict in education, blended learning, english for occupational purposes, and teacher professional development. corresponding author: ms. le duc hanh ms. le duc hanh has been working as an english lecturer at the faculty of foreign languages, hanoi university of industry, vietnam since 2007. she currently works as a team leader of designing eap blended materials. she also takes responsibilities of designing, teaching eop blended program for technical students. her areas of professional interest include emi and blended learning. she can be reached at leduchanh.haui@gmail.com. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no.1 october 2009 cécile gabarre and serge gabarre 67 turning a multimedia language lab into a powerful learner-centred tool cécile gabarre cecile@fbmk.upm.edu.my, universiti putra malaysia, malaysia serge gabarre serge@fmbk.upm.edu.my universiti putra malaysia, malaysia abstract: in a learner-centred approach, lecturers constantly adapt their teaching methods to better suit their students‟ goals and needs. ideally, the gathering of information relies on three channels: questionnaires and surveys, learners‟ log book and course evaluation. however, these methods can be time consuming or even impossible considering the nature and size of the class or even the constraints of limited contact hours. keywords: computer assisted language learning, individualisation in this paper, we will describe and analyse how a multimedia language lab proved to be a powerful and enjoyable investigation and teaching tool (stepp-greany, 2002). the experiment was conducted with a multi-ethnic group of 21 learners in their second semester of a b.a. french degree. how could we assess learners‟ progress, strategies, motivation and inhibitions as well as provide suitable individual learning solutions in just 42 contact hours? with these objectives in mind, we used the technology provided to create a virtual space within the course where each individual, learners and lecturers could interact. the project relied on five components: french as the language of communication, internet access for support resources, the dokeos e-learning platform, sanako lab 300 and media assistant solo. the answers to the earlier questions were obtained through students‟ feedback during their participation in forums and lab discussions. these findings were further consolidated with interviews and data. turning a multimedia language lab into a powerful learner-centred tool ideal versus real in a learner-centred approach, lecturers constantly adapt their teaching methods to better suit their students‟ goals and needs. therefore, one of the keys to a successful learner-centred pedagogy is data collection as investigating learners‟ expectations, inhibitions and achievements throughout the learning process provides guidelines and constant feedback on the popularity and efficiency of courses. to remain consistent with this pedagogy, learners should ideally be guided during a preliminary interview or questionnaire enabling both the institution and the learner to determine which methods and environments would be the most suitable. they would subsequently be oriented towards a successful and fulfilling learning experience. “offering learners a chance to introduce themselves and voice their priorities and concerns would also encourage them to take an active part in the learning process from the beginning” (conrad & donaldson, 2004). the perfect enrolment would offer every pedagogical combination and media at the disposal of learners and lecturers. in an ideal world, one would not suffer from lack of budget, equipment or staff and goodwill would be as natural as motivation and dedication. so, how do we, language lecturers living in the real world, cope with our complex situations for better learning? this article could not and does not mailto:cecile@fbmk.upm.edu.my mailto:serge@fmbk.upm.edu.my asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no.1 october 2009 cécile gabarre and serge gabarre 68 intend to find a solution to all limitations lecturers or learners may be facing but rather give an example of how technology, namely a computer lab and forums, can help alleviate some difficulties. our reality in our case, we conducted an experiment with a multiethnic group of 21 learners in their second semester of a b.a. french degree. among other requirements, they had to attend a 10-hour per week intensive language course based on connexion 1 over 14 weeks. we were to teach this course 3 hours a week in partnership with two other lecturers. it was our first contact as lecturers with this study group and we wished to enter or establish a learning community (conrad & donaldson, 2004; white, 2003): a crucial step known to facilitate language exposure and skills. at this stage, students were in a transitional academic phase which prompted them to reflect on their learning experience and objectives. after two semesters, the system allows students to drop out of the french program and to enroll in another major if their results are not satisfactory, a situation which, on average, concerns two learners out of a maximum of 25 per intake. it is also at that time that learners have to choose a minor program. this represents a turning point forcing all learners to reflect on what they have learned so far and on how this knowledge may help them in their lifetime. which field combined with their skills in french would prove to be worthwhile in the job market? furthermore, starting from the third semester, more content and specialty french courses are added to the curriculum. from our experience, we could not help but notice a strong anxiety towards these new courses which needed to be addressed if not completely solved. since learners were all thinking about their achievements we could not miss this opportunity to investigate and share their ideas and concerns. the strategy adopted was to initiate a dialogue among and with learners which could enlighten us on their learning perceptions while assessing and developing language skills merging both piaget‟s and vygotsky‟s perspectives. our objectives through the creation of this environment were to assess learners‟ progress, strategies, motivation and inhibitions as well as provide suitable individual or collective learning solutions. could we manage this ambitious goal in 42 hours and stay in line with the course learning outcome? (bennet, marsh, & killen, 2008; conrad & donaldson, 2004)? the digital language lab: our limited face-to-face hours naturally led us to seek a virtual environment in a blended learning framework where all learners and lecturers could meet and interact at any time to discuss the course content or any topic they wished to develop. it was agreed that learners would have access to the course e-learning platform for one hour once a week in a multimedia language lab. the e-learning environment would probably be new to learners and this experience would also provide opportunities for its discovery with both in-class and distance tutorials (conrad & donaldson, 2004). the project relied on five components: french as the language of instruction, internet access for support resources, the dokeos e-learning platform, sanako lab 300 and media assistant solo. the multimedia language lab consisted of the teacher‟s master-computer along with 28 student stations all equipped with a computer connected to the internet and with microsoft office 2007. students‟ stations were arranged in seven oval tables of four. because the sanako lab 300‟s program connected all computers and acted as an internal network, activities or programs could be launched and monitored from the teacher‟s desk using an active window graphically representing the classroom (figure1). coupled with sanako media assistant solo (figure 2), a sophisticated laboratory program installed on all computers and headsets with microphones, learning configurations were endless. individual or collaborative learning either through pair or group discussions or telephone conversations could be carried out with learners being partially or completely controlled, guided or let free to complete an activity. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no.1 october 2009 cécile gabarre and serge gabarre 69 figure 1 http://www.logikelectronic.com figure 2 http://www.its-educational.biz for this project, we also relied on the dokeos e-learning platform; managed by the faculty‟s ict centre. the platform featured course description, links to external sites, document sharing, tests, forums, chat, as well as access monitoring tools. the on-line course was configured to be in french. forums were chosen for their interaction-friendly environment and their popularity among learners (gerbic, 2005; tu, 2001). selfsupport resources such as online dictionaries, translators or the reviewing tools of the word processor were also made available to learners, thus acting as a safety net in which the lecturer would also synchronously tutor the learners‟ message postings during lab contact hours (conrad & donaldson, 2004). the initiation of a dialogue in the target language about issues such as the language itself or the learning process combined with the introduction of selflearning tools would, so we hope, lead to more active and resourceful learners. we were also seeking learners‟ perceptions toward learning french. what in their opinion was difficult? which questions did they have concerning their future courses, career prospects? data and learners‟ feedback collected during their participation in forums and lab discussions were consolidated with questionnaires distributed at the beginning and at the end of this course as well as with questionnaires and observations obtained during content and specialty courses which the same learners subsequently attended. steps toward interactivity the first step was to verify that learners knew about the e-learning platform managed by the faculty. we launched the project in the first week by showing them the platform‟s home page with the log-in and password fields. surprisingly, they were discovering it. we started with a tour of the features of the online environment showing them its potential for learning and communicating. a rationale explaining what we would be doing and its purpose was given to better associate learners to the learning process (geer & au, 2002). what amazed them the most was the notion that we would upload our teaching documents to the course portfolio. excitement grew even bigger, when we explained that we would use the multimedia language lab to communicate within the forums during the first hour of the thursday class. the novelty and reality of the activity was appealing. they were going to be involved in practicing their french for the first time. this was a new experience due to the scarcity of opportunities to speak the target language in malaysia, especially in the context of learners not confident enough to explore beyond the campus or their learning group (palloff & pratt, 2005). asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no.1 october 2009 cécile gabarre and serge gabarre 70 presentation bonjour, je m'appelle clara. […] j'apprends le francais à l'université. j'apprends le e-learning aujourd'hui. c'est intéressant pour moi. (hello, my name is clara. i learn french at the university. today, i am learning about e-learning. it is interesting for me.) 1 auteur:clara 2008-01-11 11:25 répondez sur ce message the second step was for learners to register on the platform. we guided them by showing each phase using the lcd projector and the interactive whiteboard while they logged in on their own station. even with a face-to-face and synchronous tutorial, registration was not so simple and it was easy to spot learners with technical inhibitions. immediate help from the lecturer or their friends was encouraging. during the course, few technical problems were encountered but none of them prevented the activity to go on. some learners had forgotten their id or password to log in and when no reply came from platform administrators, learners simply created a new account to the platform and to the course. sometimes documents would not open directly from the site so learners had to download them on their desktop prior to accessing them. most questions related to inserting french accents, internet links or pictures were addressed by the lecturer. re: valérie madame, je ne sais pas comment télécharger l'image dans ici. t___t (i don’t know how to download the picture here.) auteur: valérie 2008-01-17 10:33 répondez sur ce message learners managed fairly well with the lab learners‟ interface. the lecturer would launch all computers from his or her desk and the learner‟s lab assistant program would automatically open. once learners had understood how to navigate within the course on the platform and how to use the help provided such as internet websites with on-line dictionaries, translators, self-grammar learning drills and lessons or the language reviewing tools of the word processor, they simply called the lecturer whenever they needed by pressing one button. the lecturer could assist them by speaking using the headset and also by controlling their keyboard and mouse to point to specific parts of their written production. learners are usually afraid to speak in front of the whole group. they are shy to express themselves in the target language or they are afraid to ask questions pertaining to specific material taught because they dare not be seen as criticising the lecturer or slowing down the group (liu & jackson, 2008; macintyre, 2007; gerbic, 2005; hu, 2002; chan, 1999). in the lab, learners gradually built confidence with one-toone discussions with the lecturer or during group discussions. the third step was the launching of the forum activity. two forums had previously been created, “présentations” where learners had to post a self introduction message and “questions” where they could ask any questions about the course. later on, toward the end of the course “coqalane”, a recreational forum where everyone could discuss about anything was also launched. the lecturer always posted the first messages in each forum acting as sample messages to initiate and trigger interactions, encouraging learners to follow the path created (holmes & gardner, 2006; white, 2003; geer & au, 2002). in the “présentations” forum, learners had to introduce themselves by creating a new thread using their names in the title. they could also reply under someone else‟s presentation. this was the most successful forum in terms of interactivity and learner-centred data collection. the forum analysis provided us with 1 english translations and notes whenever necessary were added to learners’ messages in the forums for the purpose of this article. http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=15&forum=2&parentid=19 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=16&forum=2&parentid=68 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=19&topic=15&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=19&topic=15&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=68&topic=16&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=68&topic=16&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=19&topic=15&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=19&topic=15&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=68&topic=16&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=68&topic=16&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=19&topic=15&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=19&topic=15&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=68&topic=16&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=68&topic=16&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=19&topic=15&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=19&topic=15&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=68&topic=16&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=68&topic=16&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no.1 october 2009 cécile gabarre and serge gabarre 71 valuable information pertaining to learners‟ level, progress, feelings of joy or distress as well as concerns. it allowed us to reach the group and each individual establishing a unique relation of proximity with learners which led to accurate guidance whether they needed help, advices, and revisions or to be pushed forward. we synthesised 335 messages over 14 hours into three research perspectives: perceptions of learners about the creation of a virtual community in french, knowledge gains in terms of language and cultural acquisition and finally an insight on the building mechanism leading to their anxiety. potential of a virtual community the perception of roles in the malaysian academic learning environment tends to isolate the lecturer by placing him or her on the knowledge pedestal. hence, learners would not utter a word unless encouraged to do so. this attitude can be misleading and is often distressful for a native lecturer (tweed & lehman, 2002). language teaching and learning methodologies are embedded within cultural behaviours. in our case, we were in the murky waters of an estuary where a western turbulent river met the eastern sea of wisdom. on one hand, the lecturer wanted learners to speak, to voice their opinion, to be able to play any simulation for the sake of competence-driven language teaching as described by the european framework for languages (cefr). furthermore, in western thinking, one learns from one‟s mistakes. this is what we, as lecturers are here for, to guide learners‟ steps and make them stronger. on the other hand, our audience will tactfully utter a comment only once they are completely sure of the answer in order not to disappoint the lecturer but also out of respect. the first contact hour is disorientating for both sides. this is when the lecturer meets 21 pairs of eyes following his or her every move, listening and recording his or her every word when all he or she craves for is a word. this is the time to create a community of knowledge where all cultural barriers can be lowered to allow interactions based on understanding each other‟s difficulty in adapting to this new context. learners need to accept being destabilised for the sake of learning the target language because speaking a language is based on cultural codes. we wanted to see if participating in a virtual community would accelerate the transitional phase process. since learners felt more comfortable with writing we decided to instigate interactivity through forums (gerbic, 2005; meskill & anthony, 2005; tu, 2001). results were amazing. the first messages were carefully prepared using the spelling checkers or on-line translators with learners seldom asking for direct help from the lecturer. every week, improvement on speed and on spontaneity could be observed as if learners were getting carried away and forgot about the class context. they would post messages to their friends and to others in the class whom they did not know very well, seeking new relationships or teasing each other. the lecturer would reply with a few lines under each presentation asking questions or precisions to keep the discussion going following the learners‟ interests and progress. learners would also directly communicate with the lecturer by sending messages to his or her presentation thread. popularity grew because interaction never ceased and because the lecturer would always reply immediately during or right after class. during the week, the lecturer would also have to check for late or additional messages. learners expressed themselves freely even if the environment was public to everyone in the course. in the following message, isabelle explains how her timidity prevented her from saying hello to her lecturer outside of the class. she would have enjoyed meeting her lecturer and deeply regrets her fear. bonjour,madame madame, je vous ai vus avec monsieur aux mines vendredi dernier où je suis allé voir le film avec mes amis. j'étais timide pour vous saluer. (madam, i saw you at mines shopping mall last friday where i went to the cinema with my friends. i was too shy to say hello.) auteur: isabelle2008-03-06 10:33 répondez sur ce message http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=47&forum=2&parentid=427 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no.1 october 2009 cécile gabarre and serge gabarre 72 learners who seemed out of reach and totally absent or left out from the class appeared on the forums as active as the rest. when we took the course we had been informed about two learners experiencing difficulties and being on the borderline. as it turned out these students appeared very competent and their participation certainly did not reflect their previous marks. had forums succeeded where traditional teaching and assessment had failed? forums tend to encourage silent learners and give everyone an equal opportunity to participate (tu, 2001). after a month, as early as the fourth class, learners felt so confident and at ease that they were using the course “présentations” forum to communicate freely among themselves. they would send memos and reminders to each other regarding college or campus activities. the real world completely entered the virtual world transforming what could have remained a simulation into a full potential communication tool (yang & chen, 2007; montada, 1999). the following exchange occurred on the 14 th of february and involved message posting about the organisation of a university show between learners involved in the event. stéphanie sent a reminder to clara who then contacted clément about the meeting. the time gap between interactions can be explained with learners being also busy sending valentine‟s day messages. re: macaz meeting clara reçois-tu le mémo aujourd'hui? (clara, have you received today‟s memo?) auteur: stéphanie 2008-02-14 10:33 répondez sur ce message cc peux j'avoir une discussion avec vous avant notre réunion ce soir? (can i see you before tonight meeting?) auteur: clara 2008-02-14 10:43 répondez sur ce message re: cc d'accord... mais apres réunion avec soon ... environ 11 heures de la nuit... d'accord? çava? (ok. but after the meeting with soon… around 11 pm. ok?) auteur: clément 2008-02-14 11:03 répondez sur ce message re: re: cc non..comment 10h à front kiosk? d‟accord? (no, how about 10 pm in front of the kiosk?) auteur: clara 2008-02-14 11:27 répondez sur ce message re: re: re: cc non parce que il y a une réunion avec soon à 10 heures dans aspirasi za'ba... (no because we are meeting with soon at 10 pm in aspirasi za‟ba.) this discussion clearly shows learners wishing to use french on a daily basis thus increasing their exposure to the language. in this conversation, learners are able to pass information, to make an appointment and to negotiate in the target language in line with the cefr recommendations. learners’ perception of language and cultural acquisition everything being in french, exposure to the target language was greater than during a traditional language class (nissen, 2007; cha & myint, 2006; meskill & anthony, 2005; germain & netten, 2004; blignaut & trollip, 2003; atlan, 2000). learners were pushed to write as well as to read in french. interactions with the lecturer through the headsets also involved oral skills. discussions rapidly moved from self introduction towards broader topics such as language and cultural differences. learners really got involved and took an active part in discussions. they were curious and dared to ask many questions (hung & chen, 2001). http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=15&forum=2&parentid=287 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=24&forum=2&parentid=313 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=24&forum=2&parentid=325 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=24&forum=2&parentid=329 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=325&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=325&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=329&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=329&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=325&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=325&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=329&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=329&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=325&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=325&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=329&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=329&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=325&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=325&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=329&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=329&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=325&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=325&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=329&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=329&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=325&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=325&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=329&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=329&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no.1 october 2009 cécile gabarre and serge gabarre 73 re: re: re: malaysia pourquoi les français aiment-ils manger du pain ? et parler du temps ? (why do french people eat bread and speak about the weather?) auteur: kevin 2008-03-06 10:23 répondez sur ce message bonjour madame, comment vous allez? bonjour madame, c'est bien apprendre français avec vous...ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...... […] je suis étudiant et j'apprends le français. je le prends parce-que je veux apprendre un autre langage. je l'aime beaucoup. madame, j'ai question pour vous... -comment augmenter mon français?? (hello. i like learning french with you…my name is alex. i am a student and i am learning french. i took french because i want to learn another language. i like it a lot. madam, i have a question. how can i improve my french?) auteur: alex 2008-01-11 11:30 répondez sur ce message re: oh là là je ne peux pas me prononcer comme le tigre gémissant des mots comme quatre, anniversaire. je confonds avec la prononciation française qui joint les mots beaucoup, c‟est difficile….(i cannot pronounce words like a crying tiger such as “quatre”, “anniversaire”. i am confused with the french pronunciation which links words, it’s difficult.” auteur: andrée 2008-01-17 10:41 répondez sur ce message re: valérie bonjour madame! comment améliorer le français pour écouter? je peux à peine comprendre ce qu'il a dit. ma compétence écoutante est très mauvaise. quelle voie peut améliorer la compétence écoutante et la compétence à l‟oral? merci madame. =) (how can i improve my listening comprehension? my listening skills are bad. which way can i improve my listening and oral skills?) auteur: valérie 2008-02-21 10:11 répondez sur ce message they also asked for help regarding learning strategies. most requests pertained to pronunciation and grammar. learners were more concerned about perfectionism than communication, a tendency which reflected the high grammatical content of the french 1 and 2 courses. even though the textbook was of the communicative trend, tests and exams were still almost solely assessing grammar with tricky exercises focusing on the main points studied. competence in communication only accounted for 30%. because of lack of contextual practice, learners tended to rely on memorization when they could not understand notions. a 10-hour course a week is intensive and it is easy to become confused. as a result, learners felt they could not cope with grammar. apprendre le français efficacement? comment apprendre le français efficacement ? mon français très faible particulièrement ma grammaire l (how can i learn french efficiently? my french is weak particularly my grammar.) auteur: lydie 2008-01-31 10:36 répondez sur ce message vacances... bonjour madame.... je suis allé à hadyai, surat thani, had rin, sri thanu and thong sala. avez-vous été à bali? madame, je suis très lent dans l'étude du français et oublie toujours la grammaire, avez-vous une idée en étude de http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=45&forum=2&parentid=414 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=19&forum=2&parentid=24 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=21&forum=2&parentid=73 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=16&forum=2&parentid=346 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=27&forum=2&parentid=195 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=24&topic=19&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=24&topic=19&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=73&topic=21&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=73&topic=21&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=346&topic=16&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=346&topic=16&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=195&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=195&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=24&topic=19&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=24&topic=19&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=73&topic=21&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=73&topic=21&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=346&topic=16&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=346&topic=16&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=195&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=195&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=24&topic=19&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=24&topic=19&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=73&topic=21&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=73&topic=21&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=346&topic=16&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=346&topic=16&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=195&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=195&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=24&topic=19&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=24&topic=19&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=73&topic=21&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=73&topic=21&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=346&topic=16&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=346&topic=16&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=195&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=195&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=24&topic=19&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=24&topic=19&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=73&topic=21&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=73&topic=21&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=346&topic=16&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=346&topic=16&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=195&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=195&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=24&topic=19&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=24&topic=19&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=73&topic=21&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=73&topic=21&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=346&topic=16&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=346&topic=16&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=195&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=195&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=24&topic=19&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=24&topic=19&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=73&topic=21&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=73&topic=21&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=346&topic=16&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=346&topic=16&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=195&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=195&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=24&topic=19&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=24&topic=19&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=73&topic=21&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=73&topic=21&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=346&topic=16&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=346&topic=16&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=195&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=195&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no.1 october 2009 cécile gabarre and serge gabarre 74 cela vite? et comment parler couramment français ? j‟espère vraiment que je peux parler le français. (i went to….. have you been to bali? madam, i am slow to study french and i always forget the grammar, do you know how i could study this faster? how can i speak french fluently? i really hope to be able to speak french?) auteur: lydie 2008-02-28 10:27 répondez sur ce message the grammar content of these messages was very good for the course‟s level; however lydie was obsessed with her grammar. other learners expressed the same inhibition toward grammar but lydie‟s case was different. others would successfully memorize grammar points and logically come up with the correct answers in test exercises whereas lydie would make some mistakes. in a communicative context, lydie would have done very well as demonstrated in the forums. her test results did not correspond to the quality of her participation in class. she thus felt somehow frustrated and blamed her inability to master the grammar. through forums, she became more confident and asked focused questions whenever she could not understand something in the course and tried to practice within the forums. in the message below, lydie summarised how she understood the system of tense formation and applied it in some sample sentences. expliquez moi ..madame bonjour madame… structurer une phrase pour présent: je vais aller à cinéma. je conjugue seulement vais, c'est correct ? structurer une phrase pour passé composé: nous avons fait du vélo à melaka. je conjugue avons et fait. structurer une phrase pour futur : j‟irai à penang le mois suivant. je conjugue seulement irai ? je ne suis toujours pas vraiment sûre pour le conjuguer. auteur: lydie 2008-03-27 10:30 répondez sur ce message forums encouraged learners to use structures and vocabulary studied in the textbook by sending messages about related topics. the lecturer‟s presentation and postings would follow the course synopsis and be adapted to each learner‟s interests so as to trigger messages where key notions would be used (nissen, 2007; meskill & anthony, 2005; germain & netten, 2004; atlan, 2000). for example, conversation about holidays or malaysia would bring learners to use space related prepositions and pronouns. expressing themselves about what they liked or hated would enable the lecturer to verify that the infinitive was being correctly used. questions on what they did during the weekend or what they would be doing for chinese new year would imply conjugating verbs with the right tenses. correcting methods differed according to learners. some learners clearly asked to be systematically corrected. bonjour... bonjour… je‟mappelle lydie. […] j‟aime manger des speghatties à la bolognaise, la cuisine japonise, la cuisine coreen et la cuisine de mon père . j‟aime le français  mais ce difficile. je n‟aime pas les chat, mais….j‟ai un chat, il s‟appelle paco . p/s: mme cécile, correct ma grammaire et ma phrase, s‟sil vout plaît.  merci…(madam, please correct my grammar, thank you.) http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=27&forum=2&parentid=379 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=27&forum=2&parentid=520 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=379&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=379&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=520&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=520&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=379&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=379&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=520&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=520&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=379&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=379&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=520&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=520&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=379&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=379&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=520&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=520&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no.1 october 2009 cécile gabarre and serge gabarre 75 auteur: lydie 2008-01-17 10:25 répondez sur ce message re: bonjour... j'aime beaucoup ta présentation. ton français est bien. voici les corrections. si tu ne comprends pas, pose-moi des questions. (i really enjoyed your presentation. your french is good. here are the corrections. if you do not understand, ask me questions.) je‟mappelle (m'appelle) lydie. […] j‟aime manger des speghatties (spaghettis) à la bolognaise, la cuisine japonise (japonaise), la cuisine coreen (coréenne) et la cuisine de mon père . j‟aime le français  mais ce c'est difficile. je n‟aime pas les chat(s), mais….j‟ai un chat, il s‟appelle paco . p/s: mme, corrigez ma grammaire et ma phrase, s‟il vous plaît.  merci… quelles sont les spécialités de ton papa? (the lecturer finishes with a question related to the learner’s message to keep the conversation going and not to end up with corrections.) bonjour!! bonjour. mon prenom français est clément. j' habite à klang, selangor. j' ai vingt ans. je suis chinoise de malaisie. auteur: clément 2008-01-11 11:52 répondez sur ce message bonjour clément! […] tu es chinois (chinoise, c'est pour les filles). (chinois… chinoise is for ladies). auteur: cécile gabarre 2008-01-11 13:09 répondez sur ce message others preferred to be indirectly guided. the lecturer would then reuse the same structures or words in the correct way. tutorial was also given by guiding learners with headsets and by controlling their mouse or keyboard. for learners with pronunciation inhibitions, the lab was the perfect tool as they could directly ask the lecturer whenever they had any doubt or needed practice. links to self on-line help addressing grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation were also uploaded to the platform which learners could access anytime. games or karaoke dictations were particularly appreciated. huhaha bonjour à tous...je m'appelle océane..[…] j'aime manger le chocolate. [..] ma mére est une ménagère. auteur: océane 2008-01-11 11:21 répondez sur ce message bonjour! je mange beaucoup de chocolat. quel est ton chocolat préféré? j'aime le chocolat noir avec beaucoup de chocolat par exemple 70% ou 75%. quand tu dis que ta maman est ménagère, tu veux dire qu'elle est femme au foyer? (housewife?) auteur: cécile gabarre 2008-01-11 13:38 répondez sur ce message at the end of the course, learners were more confident and could interact on the various topics required by the curriculum. they could also use what they had studied in other contexts and demonstrated more autonomy. they were still relying on the lecturer for advice to find some learning materials but could manage on their own to communicate with others using translators, dictionaries or correctors (germain & netten, 2004; atlan, 2000). http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=27&forum=2&parentid=59 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=24&forum=2&parentid=39 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=24&forum=2&parentid=40 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=13&forum=2&parentid=17 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=13&forum=2&parentid=45 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=59&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=59&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=39&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=39&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=17&topic=13&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=17&topic=13&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=45&topic=13&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=45&topic=13&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=59&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=59&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=39&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=39&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=17&topic=13&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=17&topic=13&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=45&topic=13&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=45&topic=13&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=59&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=59&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=39&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=39&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=17&topic=13&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=17&topic=13&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=45&topic=13&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=45&topic=13&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=59&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=59&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=39&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=39&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=17&topic=13&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=17&topic=13&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=45&topic=13&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=45&topic=13&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=59&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=59&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=39&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=39&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=17&topic=13&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=17&topic=13&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=45&topic=13&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=45&topic=13&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=59&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=59&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=39&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=39&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=17&topic=13&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=17&topic=13&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=45&topic=13&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=45&topic=13&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=59&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=59&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=39&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=39&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=17&topic=13&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=17&topic=13&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=45&topic=13&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=45&topic=13&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=59&topic=27&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=59&topic=27&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=39&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=39&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=17&topic=13&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=17&topic=13&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=45&topic=13&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=45&topic=13&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no.1 october 2009 cécile gabarre and serge gabarre 76 when interacting on forums, learners seldom mechanically copied and pasted content from the internet. instead, they would rather adapt the content to their situation. copying complete web pages is a common observed practice for assignments such as powerpoint presentations. this could be interpreted as a sign that learners were not scared or stressed in forums interactions to lose points because of their mistakes which is encouraging in terms of anxiety management. anxiety’s building mechanisms we have already mentioned some academic inhibitions regarding language acquisition. simply being asked about their fears already helped learners to feel better. as for lecturers, they could redesign their approach to address most of the problems. a few lines on learning strategies or materials, such as how to improve reading or listening skills were sufficient in most cases. yet, for some learners, their fear of being scolded for making a mistake prevents them from taking part in class activities. motivation tends to proportionally decrease as they become left out of the group. these satellite learners because they learn outside the group, trying to manage on their own did quite well in the forum activity. it gave them an opportunity to start afresh with a new lecturer and through a new project. unfortunately, affective and practical inhibitions (liu & jackson, 2008; white, 2003) were too great and they did not continue with the program. however, we do hope that they gained in self-esteem realizing they could communicate in french and thus, that they had not lost a year as they did manage to learn a new language. the message below illustrates perfectly the dilemma for learners with low marks. should they try harder or should they give up in favour of a more strategic program where they could obtain better grades? malaysia pour votre avis quels sont les avantages si nous, des malais apprenons la langue française ? pouvez-vous dire que les occasions nous attendent-elles si nous avons étudié la langue française dans ce pays? (according to you, what are the advantages for us to learn french? do we have opportunities in this country?) auteur: kevin2008-03-21 10:24 répondez sur ce message re: re: malaysia mais j'a entendu dire que la plupart des sociétés se déplacent à d'autres pays comme la thaïlande et le viêt-nam. quel est votre commentaire de cela ? (i heard that most companies were moving to other countries like thailand or vietnam? what is your opinion regarding this matter?) auteur: kevin2008-03-26 15:41 répondez sur ce message the bulk of anxious messages were about learners‟ fear before and after exams. in fact, the majority of learners are terrified by exams. they are exhausted with all the memorization and during examination periods, they suffer from practical inhibitions. they cannot cope with their academic duties such as exams, college activities and personal life as illustrated in the following messages. re: je vais aller mourir!!!! […] je ne vais pas bien, parce-que je n'ai pas le temps de finir mes devoirs...... j'ai beaucoup d‟activities dans cette semaine et je suis tellement fatigué.... alors, j'ai dormi toujours dans la classe...... save moi!!!!!!!! je suis tension..... (i am not feeling well because i don’t have time to finish my homework. i have a lot of activities this week and i am so tired… so i always sleep in class. save me. i am stressed.) auteur: alex 2008-01-24 10:23 répondez sur ce message http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=45&forum=2&parentid=481 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=45&forum=2&parentid=487 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=26&forum=2&parentid=143 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=481&topic=45&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=481&topic=45&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=143&topic=26&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=143&topic=26&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=481&topic=45&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=481&topic=45&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=143&topic=26&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=143&topic=26&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=481&topic=45&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=481&topic=45&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=143&topic=26&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=143&topic=26&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=481&topic=45&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=481&topic=45&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=143&topic=26&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=143&topic=26&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=481&topic=45&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=481&topic=45&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=143&topic=26&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=143&topic=26&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=481&topic=45&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=481&topic=45&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=313&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=143&topic=26&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=143&topic=26&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no.1 october 2009 cécile gabarre and serge gabarre 77 re: haiz..... madame, comment vous vous résoudez le stress? je suis stresse récemment parce que il y a beaucoup d‟ animation dans ma résidence... aujoud'hui est le jour de valentine, je ne célébre pas parce que j'ai beaucoup de cours et aussi animation dans ma résidence... :(... c'est mon premier jour de valentine... mais bon... (madam, how do you manage stress? i have a lot of activities in my college. today is valentine’s day but i cannot celebrate because i have a lot of classes and activities in my college. it is my first valentine...but well...) auteur: clément 2008-02-14 10:29 répondez sur ce message learners keep building stress once the exam is over waiting for results afraid of low marks and of disappointing their lecturers. je m'appelle géraldine bonjour. […] j‟ai horreur les examens mais j' espère pouvoir obtenir „„„1e bon résultant dans l' examen. (hi, i hate exams but i hope i can have good results.) auteur: géraldine 2008-01-11 11:39 répondez sur ce message re: re: oh là là! je ne sais pas le résultat d‟examen encore mais je pense que ce n‟est pas bon. (i don’t have the results yet but i think it is not good.) auteur: gabrielle 2008-03-06 10:39 répondez sur ce message initially learners were anxious about the new specialty and content courses. answering their questions and explaining what they would learn and achieve reassured them. those courses were designed in accordance with their level of french and they would gain the required skills progressively. showing them sample material or the manual also helped. open discussion alleviated their stress and questionnaires distributed at the beginning of these courses showed no sign of anxiety. learners were also quite calm before the final exams compared to their seniors. having initiated this dialog and knowing the better learners did have a positive impact of the preparation of the course planning on several aspects such as the choice of approach, materials and methods of assessment. consequently, learners felt prepared and ready. as can be seen in the following examples, almost all learners asked the lecturer for advice regarding their minor courses. re: madame je ne sais pas le résultat parce qu‟il est ne parait pas…madame, est-ce que français du tourisme et de l'hôtellerie et aussi français pour les sciences et techniques sont difficiles ? j‟ai peur de tout. (i do not have my results yet. madam, are french for hospitality and french for sciences difficult? i am scared of everything) auteur: stéphanie 2008-03-06 10:34 répondez sur ce message re: océane alors, c'est la fin du semestre. merci madame pour des leçons intéressantes. si vous voulez me parler pendant les vacances, vous pouvez m‟appeler .=d a semestre prochain ;d (so it is the end of the semester. if you want to talk to me during the holydays you can call me. see you next semester.) http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=24&forum=2&parentid=280 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=20&forum=2&parentid=27 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=8&forum=2&parentid=433 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=22&forum=2&parentid=428 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=280&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=280&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=27&topic=20&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=27&topic=20&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=433&topic=8&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=433&topic=8&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=428&topic=22&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=428&topic=22&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=280&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=280&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=27&topic=20&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=27&topic=20&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=433&topic=8&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=433&topic=8&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=428&topic=22&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=428&topic=22&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=280&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=280&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=27&topic=20&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=27&topic=20&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=433&topic=8&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=433&topic=8&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=428&topic=22&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=428&topic=22&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=280&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=280&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=27&topic=20&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=27&topic=20&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=433&topic=8&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=433&topic=8&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=428&topic=22&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=428&topic=22&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=280&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=280&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=27&topic=20&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=27&topic=20&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=433&topic=8&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=433&topic=8&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=428&topic=22&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=428&topic=22&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=280&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=280&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=27&topic=20&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=27&topic=20&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=433&topic=8&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=433&topic=8&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=428&topic=22&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=428&topic=22&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=280&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=280&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=27&topic=20&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=27&topic=20&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=433&topic=8&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=433&topic=8&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=428&topic=22&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=428&topic=22&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=280&topic=24&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=280&topic=24&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=27&topic=20&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=27&topic=20&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=433&topic=8&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=433&topic=8&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=428&topic=22&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=428&topic=22&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no.1 october 2009 cécile gabarre and serge gabarre 78 auteur: océane 2008-04-16 11:15 répondez sur ce message re: re: re: bonjour! […] madame, j'ai une question. après nous graduate, quel travail nous pouvons faire? je suis inquiéte. hehe.... (i have a question. what job can we do after we graduate? i am worried.) auteur: véronique 2008-01-24 10:24 répondez sur ce message competence is today‟s keyword meaning knowledge is no longer measured in terms of memory capacity but rather in terms of adaptability to new situations and environments. thus, the ability to speak a language would be determined by the accuracy and speed an individual might demonstrate in a given situation. therefore, assessment should follow the trend and offer real task-solving where learners could use their thinking and planning skills as well as their cultural and language skills. as some learners pointed out, the lab activity taught them how to use forums, platforms and computer software. incorporating ict in the curriculum gave learners the experience of real communications in the target language which would definitely be useful in the working world. they have done it for 14 weeks so they could do the same in a working environment. hopefully, all these strategies combined with real practice will contribute to better prepare them for the job market. questionnaires pertaining to the learners‟ appreciation and knowledge of french language were given before and after the course. they were asked to rate their appreciation on a scale of 1 to 4, where 4 represents a high understanding and 1 a low one. the pre-course score was 3.3, while the post-course score was 3.5 which shows only a small increase, as the students already had an above average liking of the language. regarding their knowledge of the language, using the same scale, a score of 2.6 was obtained prior to the course while a score of 3.1 was reached after the 14 weeks of instruction which denotes a marked increase. learners gained assurance in their knowledge in french which is a crucial step towards autonomy as confident learners tend to hesitate less and engage more readily in active learning. conclusion the objectives of this research have been met. learners‟ progress, strategies, motivation and inhibitions were indeed assessed from the first week onwards. this combination of on-line forum discussions and digital lab face-to-face tutorial allowed lecturers to evaluate learners‟ levels, strategies and inhibitions without any anxiety or work overload as compared to a test or a log book. data was also immediately available and the statistical tools of the platform provided immediate feedback. hence, adjustments for each individual were rapidly made according to their interests, level and learning strategies. motivation was enhanced by the popularity of ict and by learners‟ willingness to communicate with each other. learners were also happier to finally be able to talk to the lecturer. they felt more motivated to learn and developed communicative skills in the target language. this research was carried out in a fully equipped digital language lab. however, the same experience can be conducted in a regular computer lab connected to the internet. courses and forums can be created freely with open source cms providers such as moodle. tutorials can be provided on-line through forums and face-to-face interaction, with the lecturer assisting learners in a traditional way. in a blended learning mode, tutorials during lab hours and forum moderation could also be carried out by senior learners. http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=13&forum=2&parentid=558 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/reply.php?topic=11&forum=2&parentid=145 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=558&topic=13&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=558&topic=13&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=145&topic=11&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=145&topic=11&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=558&topic=13&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=558&topic=13&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=145&topic=11&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=145&topic=11&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=558&topic=13&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=558&topic=13&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=145&topic=11&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=145&topic=11&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=558&topic=13&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=558&topic=13&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=145&topic=11&forum=2 http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/ccms/claroline/phpbb/editpost.php?post_id=145&topic=11&forum=2&delete=on&submit=1 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no.1 october 2009 cécile gabarre and serge gabarre 79 finally, one may wonder what happened to the forums once the course was over. well, with the end of the semester, all learners went back home where most of them did not have any internet access. the community was a learning community and from previous research we did observe that learning stopped during the holidays (gabarre & gabarre, 2007). the element keeping forums alive was the fact that interactions happened face-to-face when learners were in the lab. once learners had left the campus, only one learner continued to send messages to the lecturer. the positive side is that 19 of them came back all eager to start the new semester and ready to study for their new content and specialty courses with an open mind, confidence and no fear. references atlan, j. (2000). l‟utilisation des stratégies d‟apprentissage d'une langue dans un environnement des tice. alsic , 3 (1), 109-123. bennet, s., marsh, d., & killen, c. (2008). handbook on online education. continuum international publishing group. blignaut, s. a., & trollip, s. r. (2003, july/august). measuring faculty participation in asynchrounous discussion forums. journal of education for business , 347-353. cha, i. c., & myint, s. k. (2006). an analysis of interaction and participation patterns in online community. educational technology & society , 9 (1), 250-261. chan, s. (1999). the chinese learnera question of style. education + training , 41 (6/7), 294-304. conrad, r.-m., & donaldson, j. a. (2004). engaging the online learner. san francisco: jossey-bass. geer, r., & au, w. (2002). the online learning community: strategies, problems and issues. international conference on computers in education (icce’02). ieee computer society. gerbic, p. (2005). chinese learners and computer mediated communication: balancing culture, technology, and pedagogy. ascilite 2005, (pp. 241-251). germain, c., & netten, j. (2004). facteurs de développement de l'autonomie langagière en fle / fls. alsic , 7, 55-69. holmes, b., & gardner, j. (2006). e-learning concepts and practice. london: sage. hu, g. (2002). potential cultural resistance to pedagogical imports: the case of communicative language teaching in china. language, culture and curriculum , 15 (2), 93-105. hung, d. w., & chen, d.-t. (2001). situated cognition, vygotskian thought and learning from the communities of practice perspective: implications for the design of web-based e-learning. education media international , 38 (1), 3-12. liu, m., & jackson, j. (2008). an exploration of chinese efl learners'unwillingness to communicate and foreign language anxiety. the modern language journal , 92, 71-86. macintyre, p. d. (2007). willingness to communicate in the second language: understanding the decision to speak as a volitional process. the modern language journal , 91 (4), 564-576. meskill, c., & anthony, n. (2005). foreign language learning with cmc: forms of online instructional discourse in a hybrid russian class. system , 33, 89-105. montada, l. (1999). formes de séquentialité dans les courriels et les forums de discussion. alsic , 2 (1), 3-25. nissen, e. (2007). quelles aides les formations hybrides en langues proposent-elles à l'apprenant pour favoriser son autonomie. alsic , 10 (1), 129-144. palloff, r. m., & pratt, k. (2005). collaborating online learning together in community. san francisco: jossey-bass. stepp-greany, j. (2002). student perceptions on language learning in a technological environment: implications for the new millenium. language learning & technology , 6 (1), 165-180. tu, h.-h. (2001). how chinese perceive social presence: an examination of social interaction in on-line learning environment. emi , 45-60. tweed, r. r., & lehman, d. r. (2002, february). learning considered within a cultural context confucian and socratic approaches. american psychologist , 89-99. white, c. (2003). language learning in distance education. cambridge: cambridge university press. yang, s. c., & chen, y.-j. (2007). technology-enhanced language learning: a case study. computers in human behavior , 23, 860-879. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no.1 october 2009 cécile gabarre and serge gabarre 80 image sources: http://www.its-educational.biz/sitebuilder/images/solo_screen-186x242.jpg http://www.logikelectronic.com/lab%20300%20functionalities.pdf teachers’ acceptance level in using technology in the classroom anuratha kanniah asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a27 teachers’ acceptance level in using technology in the c lassroom anuratha kanniah asia pacific university of technology and innovation, malaysia anuratha412@gmail.com submitted 17 february, 2014; accepted in final form 24 june, 2014 abstract the success rate on implementation of ict in the education system is pre-determined by the school teachers’ acceptance in applying technology in the teaching and learning process. it is important to find out the readiness of the drivers of ict usage at schools to ensure successful transformation in implementing the ict policy in the malaysian education system. thus, the aim of the present research was to find out the readiness level of the government schoo l teachers in integrating technology in teaching. a quantitative research design was employed in responding to the research questions. data were randomly collected from 50 student teachers who teach at schools in kuala lumpur and klang valley, malaysia. a questionnaire survey was used to collect data pertinent to the technology acceptance model (tam) containing questions related to demographic profile and likert scale measuring variables on behavior intention (bi) and behavior usage (bu) and perceived ease of use (peou). the spss findings for this research demonstrated a significant relationship between pu, bu and peou. recommendations such as trainings to be provided and digitised materials to be designed have been emphasised. this research contributes to e-learning literature, as well as to content developers. furthermore, the research also has shed light onto many opportunities for future research. keywords: technology acceptance model (tam), behavior intention (bi), behavior usage (bu) , perceived ease of use (peou) introduction with the advent of technology, change is so conspicuous and abrupt in the realm of education. the teaching and learning processes have been redefined due to the influence and value of technology which has become immense in andragogy. the reciprocal relationship that technology has with education has led educators to comprehend and leverage it in the classroom. many policy makers embed elements of technology in curriculum planning, intentionally to connect students with outside world. education conserves the potential energy for a radical transformation to bridge the demands of the outside world. educators have long ago started embedding technological tools in formal education based on how the world approaches socialization, interaction and connectivity. however, the undeniable fact is that technology-supported teaching differs from one country to another. in malaysia, the introduction of computers in primary and secondary education differs in terms of location. malaysia’s effort to provide quality education is a multifaceted process. as part of efforts to introduce e-learning, in 1997, the malaysian smart school project was launched with the intention to produce productivity-driven citizens who are technologically literate. this project was set as the catalyst for massive transformation in malaysia’s national curriculum. the concept of smart school involves appropriate combinations of learning styles to foster interactive classroom environment. classrooms are equipped with multimedia courseware, presentation facilities and groupware to enhance collaborative learning skills. by 2003, the government spent approximately usd285,000 to create 1,494 courseware titles (bismillah khatoon, 2007). in terms of learning resources, the learners have access to a database centre to explore various multimedia courseware to facilitate learning. the smart schools are also mailto:anuratha412@gmail.com teachers’ acceptance level in using technology in the classroom anuratha kanniah asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a28 equipped with advanced computer laboratories which have readily accessible multimedia and audiovisual equipment. generally, the smart school subscribes to the constructivist learning approach that encourages the learners to actively construct knowledge; providing the teachers formulate the right learning environment. teachers often face challenges due to continual changes in policies. as technology grows in the realm of education, teachers’ role also changes to suit the new climate. integration of technology in the curriculum does not have a linear relationship with the outcome (florian-gaviria, glahn & fabregat, 2013). in other words, the benefit of the new idea can be attained only if the teachers know how to approach the innovative idea technically and pedagogically. this imperatively spells out that technology is not automatic, but requires the facilitation of an instructor. many educational institutions have invested a lot of money with predetermined positive outcomes that learning quality will ascend with the introduction of sophisticated technology. however, there is a great misconception as teachers are the driving force behind any innovative ideas related to curriculum. the absence of teachers’ involvement at the preamble stage of any fresh attempts to renew the curriculum may result in failure (oloruntegbe, 2011). an understanding of teachers’ acceptance toward usage of technology is important to determine usage behaviors in order to proactively advocate technology in classroom. the technology acceptance model (tam) developed by davis, 1989, is widely used to predict users’ acceptance behaviour. the purpose behind its wide usage is due to its simplicity and strength (venkatesh & bala, 2008). tam believes that the success of a system can be predicted by user acceptance of the proposed system and this can be measured by three factors: perceived usefulness (pu), perceived ease of use (peou), and attitude towards usage (atu) of the system (davis, 1989). besides tam, the theory of reasoned action (tra) (fishbein, 2008), the theory of planned behaviour (tpb) (george, 2004) and innovation diffusion theory (ritu agarwal & jayesh prasad, 1997) are also widely used in studying user acceptance. the mentioned theories will be dealt with in detail at a later stage in the present study. previous research indicates that elements of technology have been hindered despite large investments due to limited user acceptance. purpose of the study the general purpose of this study was to find out the malaysian school teachers’ acceptance level of the integration of technology in the classroom. the following encapsulates the specific aims of the present research. 1. to find out the government school teachers’ intention in using technology in classroom (behavior intention, bi) 2. to investigate to what extent the government school teachers believe that technology can improve their performance (perceived usefulness, pu) 3. to study if technology is seen as a factor that may reduce the effort of school teachers (perceived ease of use) the significance of this research is to enlighten the policy makers on the implementation of ict policy in malaysia. the findings of the research can shed light into the next course of action to be considered in effectively implementing the ict policy. furthermore, course coordinators from education faculties can also gain some insights in terms of module designing. courses offered at the teachers’ training colleges and education faculties should meet the demand of today’s education industry. teachers’ acceptance level in using technology in the classroom anuratha kanniah asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a29 literature review ict policy in malaysian education malaysia as a rapidly developing country has considered education as an important element in the growth of the country. in line with the priority given to the education sector, the ministry of education (moe) has decided to instill ict elements in the school curriculum. the ict policy started off with the introduction of the smart school. as mentioned earlier, the smart school is a learning institution that is governed by the use of technology. the implementation of the smart school has been divided into four phases which are known as wave 1, wave 2, wave 3 and wave 4. wave 1 (1999-2002), constitutes the pilot test stage whereby 88 schools were selected to be transformed as smart schools. after that, was the post-pilot phase, which represented wave 2 (2003-2005). at this phase, the concentration was on the building of computer laboratories, teaching of science and mathemathics in english and development of courseware. under wave 3 (2006-2010), great effort was made in turning all schools into smart schools. lastly, under wave 4 (2010-2020), the smart school leapt into a stage where the application of ict elements in education becomes insidious. at this phase, technology becomes an integral part of the pedagogical implications. now, the national curriculum focuses on digital age proficiency and technology awareness that intends to produce productive workforce. currently, the workforce has infused elements of ict widely that even general workers are expected to possess some knowledge of ict. hence, the pedagogy at school is expected to include ict tools at an optimum level. delivery of knowledge with the aid of ict tools requires it savvy workforce at schools. failure in training the teachers on how to use the ict tools or understanding teachers’ acceptance towards the implementation of the ict policy can result in failure of achieving the tangible outcomes. theoretical models in technology acceptance and usage; theory of reasoned action (tra) theory of reasoned action (tra) is a widely studied model by ajzen and fishbein from social psychology perspective to examine individuals’ consciously intended behavior (fishbein, 2008). three core elements of tra are attitude (a), behavioral intention (bi) and subjective norm (sn). attitude submits to an individual’s belief about the impact of intention to perform a behavior, whereas bi is the individual’s strength and voluntariness to perform the behavior (fishbein & ajzen, 1975). sn on the other hand refers to the individual’s elaborative thought on others’ perception (hsu, 2012). this social influence includes expectations of friends, family and other members in the society who controls the performance of the recommended planned behaviour. tra believes that an individual’s attitude to perform a behavior is volatious and influenced by other referents that determine the acceptance and rejection in terms of intention (bi = a + sn). to summarise the definition into simple logic: if a person intends to perform a behavior, then there is a high probability that the individual will do it. however, it can be inferred that attitude and norm may not be weighted equally as both the variables can have different effects in an individual; (a≠sn). this equation is sensible because an individual who is less attenuated by others’ perception will implicate reduced weight for sn. attitude subjective norm behavioral intention volitional behavior teachers’ acceptance level in using technology in the classroom anuratha kanniah asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a30 figure 1: causal diagram of basic components of the theory of reasoned action, source: madden et al. (1992, p.4) figure 1 translates the equation into a causal model that posits volitional behaviors as the direct influencing factor of behavioral intentions that modify both attitudes and subjective norms. the target points suggest that performance of volitional behavior could be embraced by aiming at intentions, attitudes or subjective norms. for example, a persuasive message could aim to prevent people from smoking, influence people’s attitude towards smoking and shed lights about how others perceive smokers, or some combinations of these three elements. in a nutshell, tra suggests that usage behavior is determined by the individual’s intention and also concerned with the likelihood of others. the predictor could also be a cross product of both the individual and society as tra does not specify the beliefs that are operative for a particular behavior. it is also important to understand that tra succumbs to prediction, rather than outcome of behaviors. intention can be seen as the cognitive representation of an individual’s preparedness to perform the expected behavior. a common understanding in tra is, the greater the attitude and the subjective norm are, the stronger should be the individual’s preference in performing the behavior. for accuracy in making the prediction, the interval between the measure of behavior and observation of behavior should be quite short as intentions change over time. the contention of tra is the ambiguity between norms and attitudes because attitudes can also be related to norms and vice versa. besides that, intention cannot be seen as the sole variable that influences performance of behavior as it is governed by limitations like ability, time, and organisational limit, environmental and unconscious habit. in other words, tra is only successful in a condition where volitional control is high. to resolve this limitation, the theory of planned behavior (tpb) was introduced. theory of planned behaviour (tpb) tpb was proposed by icek ajzen in 1985 as an extension of tra which was conceptualized by ajzen and his collaborator, martin fishbein. tpb is a widely studied model from a social psychology perspective to evaluate a newly introduced component which is “perceived behavioral control” that consorts non-volitional behaviors in the prediction of behavioral intention and actual behavior. in brief, tra consolidates three elements: beliefs about the significance of the behavior (behavioral beliefs), beliefs about the normative expectations of others (normative beliefs) and beliefs about the presence of variables that may motivate or impede performance of the behavior (control beliefs). in their respective components, behavioral beliefs produce a supportive or unsupportive attitude toward the behavior; normative beliefs influence perceived social pressure (subjective norm); and control beliefs give rise to perceived behavioral control (hsu, 2012). in its simplest form, tpb can be represented by the following equation. bi = (wı)ab[(b)+(e)] + (w₂)sn[(n)+(m)] + (w₃)pbc[(c) + (p)] bi: behavioral intention; ab: attitude toward behavior; (b): the strength of each belief; (e): the evaluation of the outcome or attribute; sn: subjective norms; (n): the strength of each normative belief; (m): the motivation to comply with the referent; pbc: perceived behavioral control; (c): the strength of each control belief; (p): the perceived power of the control factor; w: empirically derived weight/coefficient teachers’ acceptance level in using technology in the classroom anuratha kanniah asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a31 the equation clearly delineates that bi is a joint function of several correlated conditions; the greater the intentions and subjective norm, the higher the probability of performing the intended behavior. in addition to it, the presence of actual behavioral control that refers to support and opportunities available in performing the behavior will also dictate the likelihood of behavioral achievement. perceived behavioral control posits as a pivotal component in tpb. according to montano & kasprzyk (2002), perceived behavioral control is related to bandura’s self efficacy concept. self-efficacy theory (set) bandura proposed set in 1977, which has similarity with perceived behavioral control. self-efficacy explains that an individual is able to accomplish the targeted result if there is adequate outcome expectancy (bandura, 1993). self refers to the individual characteristics while efficacy is defined as the power to generate an impact (merriam-webster’s online dictionary). the combined meaning of these two words implies human’s consciousness in producing productivity. on the other hand, outcome expectancy refers to an individual’s confidence in attaining the outcome if adequate support and motivation are provided (bandura, 1997). in short, set believes that an individual’s expected performance is influenced by internal forces such as self decision making and efforts, and at the same time, controlled by other variables such as fate and luck. utilisation of cognitive and affective attributes is important in achieving the desired goal, which is often associated with internal locus of control. individuals with high level of efficacy tend to ambitiously set higher goals to face challenges, thus bandura argues that human behavior is governed by cognized goals (bandura, 1989). potential negative repercussions are often disregarded as the aim is to achieve the desired outcome. this implies that individuals with high self-efficacy will endeavor to accomplish those goals. in terms of affective factor, the emotional reactions determine the predicted performance of behavior. every individual exhibits different degrees of ability in handling stress in a challenging situation. individuals who believe in being able to manage stress can lower their anxiety and exercise control over behavior. on the other hand, the internal locus of control refers to an individual’s belief in being able to perform a task. according to bandura (1997), a high level of self-efficacy in an individual will lead to utilization of cognitive and affective processes. besides that, social experiences too determine self-efficacy. for example, an individual who has gained adequate skills and experience relevant to the expected performing task will produce a higher level of efficacy. in contrast, an individual who has experienced failure in retrospective with the accomplishment of the task will exhibit a low level of self-efficacy. in short, confidence can be perceived as a prerequisite to try a new task. figure 2: theory of planned behavior model, source: ajzen (1991), p. 182 teachers’ acceptance level in using technology in the classroom anuratha kanniah asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a32 even figure 2 encapsulates that intention is the nucleus in tpb. intention portrays an individual’s motivational force to perform the intended behavior. motivational actions are self-determined and can be wholly volitionally as it is one’s sense of self (ryan, richard & deci, 2000), whereas actions can be influenced by various factors such as persuasion by some interpersonal force. in other words, a person can perceive the locus of causality as internal where behavior is self-determined, or it can also be considered external, whereby behavior is controlled. the important point here is that either it is self-determined behavior or controlled behavior, both attributes postulate energisation issues that address motivation to perform a given behavior. the general rule is, the stronger the intention, the more likely that an individual will perform the behavior. besides intention, behavioral attitude too determines one’s motivation or ability to perform a task (khlood, 2010). as mentioned earlier, behavioral attitude is concerned with one’s perception of the level of difficulty of performing a behavior which is influenced by some facilitating factors. the facilitating factors are being referred to as opportunity that has an effect on the performing behavior of an individual. in addition to that, subjective norm which considers the customary codes of behavior of other people too manipulates the behavior of an individual. it simply means that approval from significant people of the behavior will likely ensure that an individual will perform the behavior. technology acceptance model (tam) the technology acceptance model (tam) is one of the most widely used models to investigate an individual’s attitude towards technology. tam was adapted by davis from the tra model (see figure 1) in 1986. tra’s two significant tenets are subjective norm and attitude towards that behavior, whereas tam posits two key areas which are perceived usefulness (pu) and perceived ease of usefulness (peou). pu is defined as an individual’s perception of the significance of the technology in improving job performance. peou on the other hand explains an individual’s belief in the ability of the technology to reduce effort or workload. figure 3 illustrates the tam designed by davis in 1989. the initial stage of tam, similar to tra, bi (prediction of behavior performance) was considered. beliefs of the behavior performance were deduced from the target users for a specific context, and then the belief is weighed by the value determined by the attributed behavior. this idea is criticized by many researchers because tam could not go beyond measuring perceived ease of use or perceived usefulness variables, and the focus was primarily on volatile attitude. in addition, tam is also unable to explain the reasons for which an individual would prefer to perform the behavior. at the initial stage, many researchers have agreed that tam is suitable to study intended behavior in the usage of technology for various contexts. consequently, many researchers have tried incorporating external factors to the original model and davis himself has collaborated with vengkatesh to enhance the model by adding additional external variables perceived usefulness perceived ease of use attitude towards using behavioural intention to use actual system use figure 3: technology acceptance model (davis et al., 1989, p.985) teachers’ acceptance level in using technology in the classroom anuratha kanniah asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a33 characteristics. this can be seen as an attempt to overcome the limitation of the original model as it did not consider social influences on usage behavior. the following encapsulates the revised model, which is known as tma 2. figure 4: technology acceptance model 2 (venkatesh & davis, 2000: 188) the model above was published in 2000. the additional values in the above revised models include social influence processes (subjective norm, volunteerism and image). in addition to that, aspects pertinent to cognitive instrumental processes such as job relevance, output quality, result demonstrability, and perceived ease of use have been embedded in tma 2 to enlighten deeper understanding on user acceptance. as mentioned earlier in the predecessor tam, the revised model contains subjective norm (sn) and plays a similar role which is to find out the perception of an individual on the consequences of performing the behavior. voluntariness (v) too inherits the same explanation which is to measure an individual’s participation in a non-mandatory situation. innovations in the new model encompass image (img), experience (exp), job relevance (jr), output quality (oq) and result demonstrability (rd). experience (exp) represents the previous knowledge seized by an individual toward the new system. exp is proven to be correlated (vengkatesh et al. 2000) as it has impact on sn, pu and bi. for instance, possession of experience acquired from previous knowledge can foster one’s confidence level and increase the quality of being independent. jr explains an individual’s perception of the extent to which the target technology is applicable to his or her job. oq examines the impact of using the target technology in terms of output. rd reflects the formulation of positive perception upon significant outcome achieved when compared between usage and targeted outcome. generally, the successor model includes the social factors that were absent in tam, but, however, did not fill up gaps such as time, organizational, ability and environmental limitations. to overcome the mentioned limitations, venkatesh and collaborators further expanded the model by developing the unified theory of acceptance and usage theory (utaut) which has considered 32 variables. the current research however has considered tma2 as it meets the aims of the research. methodology given the nature of the question, the researcher analysed the responses collected from the questionnaire using the quantitative strand to synthesise the result. sample the respondents in the current research were undergraduates teaching in public primary schools in malaysia. the teacher graduate programme (known as program pensiswazahan guru-ppg in malay teachers’ acceptance level in using technology in the classroom anuratha kanniah asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a34 language) was launched under the 10th malaysia plan. the malaysia plan is the economic developmental plan launched every 5 years by the government to promote the welfare of citizens and especially living conditions in rural areas. in line with that, scholarships were given to public school teachers with diploma qualifications to elevate their status as degree holders. the teachers are to enrol as distance learning candidates and participate in face-to-face learning sessions for 10 hours in a semester. this study evaluates 50 valid questionnaire responses from data collected over the period of six months. instrument the quantitative research used an online questionnaire as its data collection method. the questionnaire was derived from the technology acceptance model. the dependant variables (dv) used in the instrument are perceived use (pu), perceived ease of use (peou) and self efficacy (se). the questionnaire was designed using google drive and e-mailed to all the participants of the ppg programme. the acceptance of technology aspects were ranked using a 7-point likert scale where responses ranged from 1 (least important) to 5 (most important). out of 67 respondents, valid replies were obtained from only 50 students. the limitations of using questionnaires include honesty of respondents in replying to the questions and the researcher’s control over respondents in completing the questionnaire. research design creswell (2009) explains quantitative research in its simplest way as analysis of numbers. it simply means collecting numerical data to explain a particular phenomenon that can be answered using quantitative methods. the flowchart (figure 5.1) provided the guidance for the researcher to conduct the quantitative research. as indicated in the flowchart, the researcher began with the construction of research questions to reflect the need of the quantitative mode of research. then, permission was obtained from the university to extract a sample from the faculty of education. to shape the quantitative strand of the research, a questionnaire was designed as the instrument for data collection and to further analyze the results using inferential statistics. as for steps 2 and 3, results were interpreted based on group differences. the researcher started with tabulating the statistical data obtained by conducting the questionnaire-survey then interpreted the numerical data. design and implement the quantitative strand  state quantitative research questions and determine the quantitative approach  obtain permissions  identify the quantitative sample  collect close-ended data with instruments  analyze the quantitative data using descriptive statistics, inferential statistics and effect sizes to answer the quantitative research questions and facilitate the selection of participants for the second phase use strategies to follow from the quantitative results  determine which results will be explained, such as significant results, nonsignificant results outliers, or group differences s t e p 1 s t e p 2 teachers’ acceptance level in using technology in the classroom anuratha kanniah asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a35 figure 5: flowchart of the basic procedures in implementing a quantitative research results this section is divided into parts; first it presents the anova statistical findings of the quantitative research and latter discusses data gained from qualitative research design. the intent of this analysis was to specify a variance model of the acceptance of the school teachers towards using technology. the results of the analysis of variance also identify the parameters of interest by ensuring that the anova statistics is congruent with the normal linear regression. to ensure mutual orthogonality, analysis of variance was run multiple times in progression to determine if an additional covariate contributed more to the explained variance. if the additional variate did not reduce the unexplained variance, then there was no necessity to add an additional covariate in the existing model. the table below encapsulates the statistical findings of the acceptance level of the teachers in using technology in the classroom. table 1: factor analysis of acceptance on technology usage based on technology acceptance model (tam) strands in tam user acceptance criterion average factor loadings behavioral intention (bi) q1 i intend to use technology in the delivery of my lessons 5.02 0.484 q2 i intend to use technology to enhance my subject matter knowledge 5.44 0.888 q3 i intend to use technology to enhance my teaching skills 5.4 0.899 q4 i intend to contact my students via e-mail 5.32 0.922 q5 i intend to use the internet for downloading research material for my own research knowlege 5.2 0.883 q6 assuming i have access to the internet, i intend to use it in my homework preparation for class 6.36 0.735 q7 assuming i have access to the internet, i intend to use it in my non-academic tasks with students 4 0.743 q8 whenever it will be possible to me, i plan to use the internet in assessment 2.9 0.18 q9 i intend to provide online consultation to my students 4.28 0.828 q10 i intend to request my students to submit homework online 3.84 0.198 q 11 i predict that learning will be more interactive via usage of technology 6.34 0.495 interpret the connected results  summarize and interpret the quantitative results  discuss to what extent and in what ways the quantitative results explain the phenomena s t e p 3 teachers’ acceptance level in using technology in the classroom anuratha kanniah asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a36 q 12 i intend to foster interaction via online forum 5.96 0.788 perceived usefulness (pu) q1 using technology enables me to accomplish my teaching quickly. 5.36 0.855 q2 using technology improves the quality of my research. 5.5 0.892 q3 using technology enriches my teaching resources 5.56 0.901 q4 using technology enhances my research effectiveness for classroom preparation 5.48 0.886 q5 using technology gives me greater control over my delivery in class 5.8 0.78 q6 use of technology will generally increase my productivity as a teacher 6.6 0.551 q7 use of technology will allow more time for revision before examination 5.08 0.56 q8 use of technology has the potential to enhance students’ performances 5.78 0.552 q9 instructions can be understood easily with the presence of technology 6.54 0.836 q 10 abstract concepts can be explained clearly with the aid of technology 5.54 0.156 q 11 interactive lessons using technology can make my lessons interesting 6.42 0.493 perceived ease of use (peou) q1 usage of technology to support my teaching is clear 4.98 0.718 q2 obtaining teaching materials can be easy when using technology to support my teaching 5.1 0.823 q3 time spent on marking homework scripts can be reduced with the intervention of technology 4.8 0.660 q4 time spent on marking exam scripts can be reduced with the intervention of technology 5.16 0.632 q5 dissemination of homework is easier with the presence of the internet 5.3 0.872 q6 time spent on face to face feedback can be reduced with the introduction of online feedback systems 5.28 0.868 q7 online practices can reduce my effort to prepare additional teaching materials 5.56 0.548 q8 monitoring students’ performance will be easier if technology is introduced 5.14 0.762 q9 remedial classes conducted online can reduce effort 5.06 0.785 q10 virtual classrooms can reduce my effort 5.16 0.825 q11 online homework submission is easier than the conventional method 5.3 0.825 teachers’ acceptance level in using technology in the classroom anuratha kanniah asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a37 q 12 conducting online assessment is easier than the conventional method 4.5 0.015 note: rotated loadings of 0.400 and greater are in boldface and underlined. ratings of importance were based on a seven-point scale where 7=most accepted and 1=least accepted. table 1 encompasses the average and variance scores of the preferences of the teachers in using technology in classroom for the three main strands which are behavioral intention (bi), perceived usefulness (pu) and perceived ease of use (peou). for achieving the objectives of the research, a hypothetical chain relation was proposed: {h1a: bi --> pu; h1b: bi --> peou} {h2a: peou --> bi; h2b: peou --> pu} in order to test the acceptance of behavior in using technology, a rotated factor matrix was used to examine if each variable had a substantial loading in a factor. the current study considered substantial loading which is 0.50 or higher as the sample is below than 100. according to johnson, et al. (2003), if the sample size is below 100, loading above a significance of 0.5 is sufficient. substantial loading from each component was selected based on its highest value. the outcome of the factor analysis for the present study did not exemplify any complex variables, so there was was no need to eliminate any factor. the table provides empirical evidence that all the three variables (bi, pu and peou) establish a significant relationship. in accordance with previous literature (bandura, 1992), it is found that the findings are similar whereby the total effect of bi, pu and peou has a significant relationship. these findings are relevant to the current context of investigation, which exhibit that an individual will only perceive the performing behavior as useful and believe that it can reduce effort if there is intention to perform the behavior. a possible explanation for these significant results is the tam itself which suggests that an increased intention to accept a behavior will result in strong direct significance of pu and peou. using factor loadings as the yardstick, generally for bi the intention to contact students via e-mail had the largest effect on intent to use technology (0.922), followed by preference to use the internet to augment teaching skills (0.899) and enhance subject matter knowledge (0.888). besides that, intention to use the internet for downloading research materials is quite significant (0.883). the respondents are also driven to conduct online consultation to the students (0.828). it also appears that the teachers intend to initiate online forum (0.788), access the internet to communicate with the students to discuss on non-academic tasks (0.743) and for homework preparation for class (0.735). the significance of predicting that learning will be more interactive with the use of technology also obtained a significant factor loading (0.495) followed by intending to use technology to deliver lessons in the classroom (0.484). the significance of using the internet for homework submission and assessment received less attention with factor loadings 0.198 and 1.8 respectively. as for pu, table 1 presents that 11 out of 12 of the factor loadings have eigen values greater than 4. these findings primarily indicate a high probability of usage intention on the basis of its usefulness among the potential adopters. “using technology enriches my teaching resources” accounted for 0.901 loading value, then entailed by intention to use technology to improve the quality of research (0.892). the third factor that was extracted corresponds to using technology to enhance effectiveness of research for classroom preparation (0.886). the other two loadings above 0.8 are for performance expectancy to accomplish teaching quickly (0.855) and positive effect of giving instructions via technology (0.836). the only loading above eigenvalue of 0.7 is for the belief that technology could provide greater control in classroom for teachers (0.78). three components were detected to have an eigenvalue greater than 0.5; belief that more time for revision sessions can be allotted before examination (0.56), overall perception teachers’ acceptance level in using technology in the classroom anuratha kanniah asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a38 that technology can enhance performance of students (0.552) and lastly confidence that technology can increase productivity of teachers (0.551). the only factor above the eigenvalue of 0.4 is the certainty that technology can inspire interactive lessons which can excite students (0.493). the only factor with a weak loading was “the belief” that abstract concepts can be explained clearly with the aid of technology” (0.156). finally, for peou, the findings resulted in 5 out of 12 components with eigenvalue greater than 0.8. the highest factor represents a value of 0.872, suggests that dissemination of homework can reduce teachers’ effort. consistent with this belief, the respondents also predict that online feedback systems can reduce teachers’ effort (0.868). two components with similar factor loadings (0.825) are perceived: effort expectancy on virtual classroom and online homework submission which have great potential in adopting the usage behavior. the respondents also strongly believe that technology can ease their burden in searching for teaching materials (0.823). the three loadings with eigenvalue of above 0.7 are components related to reduction of effort in terms of remedial classes (0.785), monitoring of students performance (0.762) and finally general support obtained in teaching (0.718). components pertinent to relief from marking homework and feeling of great distress from assessing exam scripts have respectively attained factor loadings of 0.660 and 0.632. the empirical statistics also reveal that the prospective adoptive users believe that online practices can reduce required effort in the preparation of additional teaching materials (0.548). the weakest score for the peou strand is the belief that technology can reduce teachers’ effort if online assessment is introduced (0.015). table 2: anova output for behavioral intention (bi) source of variation ss df ms f p-value f-crit between groups 151.8026 11 13.80024 38.58051 5.14e-45 1.833178 within groups 77.26316 216 0.3577 total 229.0658 227 table 3: anova output for perceived usefulness (pu) source of variation ss df ms f p-value f-crit between groups 48.36364 10 4.836364 11.66308 1.09e-15 1.878767 within groups 82.10526 198 0.414673 total 130.4689 208 table 4: anova output for perceived ease of use (peou) source of variation ss df ms f p-value f-crit between groups 33.05263 11 3.004785 4.870315 1.01e-06 1.833178 within groups 133.2632 216 0.616959 total 166.3158 227 to ensure the results of calculations is trustworthy, 25 subjects were randomly selected. the overall f ratio for the anova output for bi, pu and peou are insignificant as the f-ratio for bi is f(11, 216) = 38.58 (f) > 1.83 (fcv). similarly, the hypothesis-testing for pu too does not exhibit a normal distribution as the output is f(10, 198) = 11.66, 38.58 (f) > 1.83 (fcv) . finally, the f ratio for peou is f(11, 216) = 4.87 (f) > 1.83 (fcv). the null hypotheses for all the three strands are rejected since every group has a mean score of p ≤ α, which explains that the overall mean score is significantly different from each other. thus, the alternative hypothesis is: teachers’ acceptance level in using technology in the classroom anuratha kanniah asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a39 ha: at least one mean pressure is not statistically equal for bi, the variation between groups is relatively larger than within group. this explains that the mean of the samples is not equally distributed, probably due to its heterogenous sample consisting of females and males from various age groups. as revealed in previous studies (oloruntegbe, 2011), some females are quite hesitant towards the acceptance of e-learning. on the other hand, males think that e-learning is valuable as it allows more time to perform other tasks to meet life demands. besides that, a wide range of age group could have contributed to the disparity in the variance. gen-y has the capability to understand and apply complicated technical knowledge pertinent to technology. such ability to cope with new change foreshadows samples from this particular age group to become early adopters of technology. in other words, their perception towards the usage of technology could be higher as compared to respondents who are older. the older generation is proven to be among the last adopters of technology due to high resistance towards changes. discussion generally, the factor loadings exhibit a consistent varimax rotation score for all the three strands; bi, pu and peou. in terms of the average value, each strand represented 5.05 (bi), 5.79 (pu) and 5.11 (peou). the average value for pu is the highest then entailed by peou and bi. this briefly explains that the expectation of rewards out of performance is greater than the influence of performance on intention or the belief that usage behavior could free one from effort. the variance between the average scores is however steady, indicating significant relationship among the variables. this is contradicting some of the previous studies (abbasi, irani & chandio, 2010). the current study generally hypothesised that bi, pu and peou share a quasi-similar total effect on performance of behavior; however to a certain extent, bi and peou could be evoked by pu, as an increased perception of usefulness is noticeable. behavioral intention (bi) in average, respondents scored 5.05 on a 7-point likert scale. the significance of this score is in contradiction with tam (pai & huang, 2011; venkatesh, morris & ackerman, 2000) that the total effect of bi is greater than pu and peou. this is not something unusual as previous studies have obtained similar results (mccoy, everard & jones, 2005). intention explains the disposition to respond positively or negatively towards the usage behavior. in the present study, the respondents appeared to be interested in providing online consultation to students. providing online consultation to students is not formalized in the education system. the positive response for this aspect could be due to the respondents’ acquired experience as candidates in distance learning. distance learning by its nature operates most the processes virtually, which includes consultation. thus, the intention of the respondents who are from a traditional background (public school) to provide online consultation to students can be interpreted as a complex amalgam derived from their experience. this socially or cognitively acquired disposition can be seen as a subconcious process that is open to change. in short, the meaningful engagement of the respondents with online consultation could have stimulated the surface attitude towards online consultation to be introduced in the current conservative school setting. besides that, the intention to adopt the usage behavior is also noticeable and it could be due to awareness of it skills. the ministry of education in malaysia has recognized the importance of ict in schools, thus empowerment of technology in education began in 1999. the integration of technology in curriculum has provided opportunity for teachers at school to acquire ict skills. it is undeniable that the young generation is demanding it, hence some teachers do take the effort to provide the desired exposure by integrating elements of technology to deliver an interesting lesson. the inspiration from the ict policy, somewhat has provided school teachers with sufficient ict knowledge that includes the usage of the teachers’ acceptance level in using technology in the classroom anuratha kanniah asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a40 internet. this could be a significant predictor for adopting technology as the statistics do reflect the teachers’ intention to use the internet to disseminate homework, initiate e-forums and vastly use it as a teaching tool. the lowest factor loading for bi is the aspect related to assessment. the respondents’ degree of conscious intention to perform e-assessment in classroom is generally low. the weak specified future behavior could be due to the current challenges faced by the school teachers with the introduction of school-based assessment. the school-based assessment aspires to evaluate the students throughout the learning process instead of evaluating the students at the end of the year. in this system, teachers will conduct formative assessments in order to make necessary improvements or changes in teaching approach to bridge the gaps among students. upon conducting the assessments, the teachers are required to key in the marks in the system and this is reported to be a challenging task for the teachers. the star newspaper highlighted that school teachers are facing great difficulties to key in the data (zuhrin azam, 2014) in the system. frequently mentioned complaints are congestion of the system and server issues. the teachers are frequently unable to meet the deadline, so they have to work late at night to key in the marks in the system to escape from the congested system. perceived usefulness (pu) the average score for pu is 5.79, which is the highest scoring strand. a similar finding was attained by (khlood, 2010) when investigating the adoption of e-learning by students of saudi arabia. the findings of the present study delineate that the respondents perceive the achievement of the usage behavior as extrinsic motivation to integrate technology in classroom. technology is perceived as a tool to achieve the learning outcomes and make learning become meaningful. the statistical findings exhibit that teachers believe that technology will improve their performance in terms of enriched teaching resources and increased productivity in classroom delivery. besides that, the teachers also believe that integration of technology will enhance the performance of students. the majority of the respondents believe that technology can elevate their performance in the classroom. technology is seen as a mass power that enables the teachers to foster the students’ engagement in class. interactive lessons via technology are seen as an enabler to provide meaningful learning opportunities to students. most of the young generation are skilled and exposed to variety of technology applications, thus they are able to handle the technological aspect independently. the strong scores attained on the belief that students’ performance can be harnessed mirrors the respondents’ ready acceptance of technological innovations. confidence in the ability to achieve learning outcomes can be interpreted to provide the impetus for teachers to plan and prepare teaching materials using technology which includes the internet. therefore, it is not surprising that the teachers predict that their performance and productivity can be increased with the presence of technology. perceived ease of use (peou) concretely, the statistics reported a significantly positive response that technology can reduce the effort of the prospective behavior performers. there is a remarkable degree of agreement that introduction of technology would reduce teachers’ effort for marking homework and exam scripts. this emphasizes a positive attitude towards the introduction of online practices where technology can act as a supplementary tool to enhance the learning process. with the presence of mobile technology especially, students have a great amount of flexibility in terms of time, pace and place of study (anuratha, 20). upon completion of the practices, the system will be able to automatically produce the outcome. this concept of autonomous learning is not only helping the students, but also teachers’ required effort to assess the assignments. thus, in the present study, peou has strong direct significance with bi and pu as all the three traits somewhat teachers’ acceptance level in using technology in the classroom anuratha kanniah asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a41 lead to the connotation that technology can function as a layer of support to the students’ learning experience. in addition, e-assessments could also provide similar impact in terms of assessing the end product. this will definitely be a great relief for the teachers as at most of the public schools, classroom sizes are huge with classes sometimes exceeding 40 students. moreover, the respondents too prefer providing online consultation to students as it is expected to reduce time spent on face to face sessions. again this conception could have been formulated from their personal experience as a blended learning candidate. online feedback systems can be operated personally or collectively. online chat forums can also be used as a supportive system for feedback to be given. this can be perceived as scaffolding rather than online tutoring and all the participants of the chat forum can gain from the interaction. a system such as this can also lead to the construction of collaborative learning spaces where other members of the forum can contribute to the scaffolding process. limitations and directions for future research the methodology employed in the present study needs to be enhanced. it is important to consider mixedmode research design as it has the potential to provide greater insights from the respondents’ point of view especially on low factorial loadings. therefore, the research should be replicated by involving a larger sample size for the generalization of the findings. besides that, future research can also consider conducting a comparative study between student-teachers who are involved in blended learning and practicing teachers to further understand the underlying variables that influence behavior factors. furthermore, more independent variables should be included for more dynamic findings in gaining insights from the prospective users. a discrepancy was identified in the f-test, but had minimal impact with data as the factor loadings were mostly consistent. to further investigate the weak significance in the f-test, future research should consider conducting a manova analysis by studying the correlations between gender and age against preferences. conclusion despite the limited technological tools in public schools, the potential users of technology have shown a positive interest towards usage behavior. this is a positive sign for transforming education as high significance is identified among bi, pu and peou among the respondents. if the teachers who are the enablers of ict in education themselves are ready, then there is a great potential for enhancing the education system to significantly elevate student outcomes. besides that, the study also alerts to the need for effort to be taken in manipulating the teachers’ perception about e-assessment. generally, the respondents are hesitant with e-assessment and this has been inferred to be related to the introduction of school-based assessment; however further investigation is required to validate this assumption. in a nutshell, the present study highlights the intention and belief that behavior usage is rewarding and has great value in dealing with an inflexible situation. thus, the government should consider providing adequate training to enable the outstanding performance of educators. references abbasi, m.s., irani, z. & chandio, f.h. (2010). determinants of social and institutional beliefs about internet acceptance within developing country’s context: a structural evaluation of higher education systems in pakistan. emcis2010. retrieved from: http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/4304. anuratha kanniah & pramela krish. (2010). collaborative learning skills used in weblog. call-ej online, 11(2). retrieved from: http://callej.org/journal/11-2/kanniah_krish.html. ajzen, i. (1991). the theory of planned bahavior. organizational behavior and human decision processes, 50, p. 179-211. bandura, a. (1997). self-efficacy: the exercise of control. worth publishers: new york. http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/4304 http://callej.org/journal/11-2/kanniah_krish.html teachers’ acceptance level in using technology in the classroom anuratha kanniah asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a42 bandura, a. 1993. perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development and functioning. journal of educational psychologist, 28(2), p. 117-148. bandura, a. (1989). social cognitive theory in international encyclopedia of communications, (ed.) e. barnouw. oxford university press: new york, p. 92-96. bismillah khatoon binti abdul. (2007). malaysia’s experience in training teachers to use ict. unseco bangkok: asia-pacific programme of educational innovation for development. p. 10-22. retrieved from: http://www2.unescobkk.org/elib/publications/151_152/ict_in_teacher_education.pdf cresswell, j., w. (2009). research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches . 3rd ed. los angeles: sage publications davis, f., d. (1989). perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. mis quarterly, vol. 13, 3, p.319-340 davis, f., bagozzi, r. & warshaw, p. (1989). user acceptance of computer technology: a comparison of two theoretical models. management science, 38(8), p. 982-1003 fishbein, m. (2008). a reasoned action approach to health promotion. medical decision making: sage publications. retrieved from mdm.sagepub.com/content/28/6/834.long fishbein, m. & ajzen, i., (1975). belief, attitude, intention, and behaviour: an introduction to theory and research. reading, ma: addison-wesly florian-gaviria, b., glahn, v., & fabregat, r. (2013). a software suite for efficient use of the european qualifications framework in online and blended courses. ieee transactions on learning technologies (tlt). p. 1-14 george, j., f. (2004). the theory of planned behaviour and internet purchasing. internet research, 14(3), 198-212 hsu, ming-shan. (2012). a study of internship attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, and career planning of hospitality vocational college students. journal of hospitality, leisure, sport & tourism education, 11(1), p.5-11 johnson, w.o., lung su, c., gardner, a., & christensen, r. (2003). sample size calculations for surveys to substantiate freedom of populations from infectious agents. biometrics, 60, p. 165-171 khlood al-siraihi al-harbi. (2011). e-learning in the saudi tertiary education: potential and challenges. journal of applied computing and informatics, 9(1), p.31-46 madden, t.j., ellen, p.s., & ajzen, i., (1992). a comparison of the theory of planned behaviour and the theory of reasoned action. personality and social psychology bulletin , 8, p.3-9 mccoy, s., everard, a., & jones, b.m. (2005). an examination of the technology acceptance model in uruguay and the us: a focus on culture. journal of global information technology management, 8(2), 27-45. montano, d., e., & kasprzyk, d, (2002). the theory of reasoned action and the theory of planned behaviour. in: glanz, k., lewis, f., m. & rimer, b., k., ed. health behaviour and health education: theory, research and practice. 3rd ed. san francisco: john wiley & sons. oloruntegbe, k., o. (2011). teachers’ involvement, commitment and innovativeness in curiculum development and implementation. journals of emerging technologies in educational research and policy studies (jeteraps), 2(6), 443-449. pai, f.-y., & huang, k,-i. (2011). applying the technology acceptance model to the introduction of healthcare information technologies. journal of decision sciences: information systems, operations & supply chain management, 28(3), 557-582. ritu agarwal & jayesh prasad. (2007). the role of innovation characteristics and perceived voluntariness in the acceptance of information technologies. journal of decision sciences: information systems, operations & supply chain management, 28(3), 557-582. ryan, richard, m., & deci., e. d., (2000). self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. american psychologist, 55, 68-78 http://www2.unescobkk.org/elib/publications/151_152/ict_in_teacher_education.pdf teachers’ acceptance level in using technology in the classroom anuratha kanniah asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a43 [self-efficacy]. (n.d). in merriam webster online, retrieved: october 10, 2013, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/citation venkatesh, v. & bala, h. (2008). technology acceptance model 3 and a research agenda on interventions. journal of decision sciences: information systems, operations & supply chain management, 39(2), 273-315. venkatesh, v., morris, m.g., & ackerman, p.l. (2000). a longitudinal field investigation of gender differences in individual technology adoption decision-making processes. organisational behavior and human decision processes, 83(1), 33-60. venkatesh, v. & davis, f.d. (2000). a theoretical extension of the technology acceptance model: four longitudinal field studies. management science, 46, 186-204. zuhrin azam ahmad. (2014, february 11). muhyiddin: govt reviewing school-based assessment. the star. retrieved from: http://www.thestar.com.my/ http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/citation http://www.thestar.com.my/ citation asiacall online journal received: 20/09/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 19/10/2021 vol. 12, no.5, 2021 accepted: 20/10/2021 pp. 77-99 online: 21/10/2021 citation | miyashita, h. (2021). successive action research to develop the higher order thinking of efl learners through discussion forums. asiacall online journal, 12(5), 77-99. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.006 successive action research to develop the higher order thinking of efl learners through discussion forums hiroshi miyashita tokyo metropolitan showa high school, japan correspondence: hiroshi miyashita, tokyo metropolitan showa high school, japan. e-mail: moana38ffy@gmail.com eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.006 abstract classrooms of english as a foreign language (efl) in japan tend to lack learning activities to develop higher order thinking due to the test-oriented practices. the purpose of this successive action research is to explore discussion forums embedded in extracurricular blended learning programs created to develop the higher order thinking of efl learners at a public high school in japan, drawing on the construct of mediation from sociocultural theory. in the first program, fifteen participants engaged in online synchronous and asynchronous activities with english as a medium of instruction and communication while being supported by face-to-face sessions conducted in japanese. data were collected through three methods: discussion forums to obtain written texts from participants, surveys, and the researchers’ observations. participants’ interactions posted in discussion forums are transformed into quantitative data using the interaction analysis model. then, the quantitative data are triangulated with qualitative data derived from surveys and observations. the findings of the trial program showed that participants found collaborative constructivist learning meaningful and exhibited higher order thinking development to varying degrees. however, learner-learner interaction was not so activated as expected. based on the researcher’s reflection, the second intervention was redesigned and implemented in the cyclical process of successive action research. the last section presents the projected benefits of successive action research and suggestions for efl educators to make informed decisions about how discussion forums can be effectively used in education. keywords: discussion forums, blended learning, english as a foreign language (efl), dynamic assessment, higher order thinking 1. introduction one of the major challenges in the field of teaching english as a foreign language (efl) at high schools in japan is that english classrooms tend to lack learning activities to develop higher order thinking. i conducted action research in summer 2020 with a co-researcher to explore an extracurricular blended learning (bl) program created as an intervention to develop the higher https://asiacall.info/acoj http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.006 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 78 order thinking of efl learners at a public high school in japan. this study was guided by two research questions: (a) to what extent can higher order thinking be improved among efl learners at a high school in japan by engaging in online asynchronous forums embedded in the bl program? and (b) what factors of the bl program facilitated or inhibited the presence of higher order thinking? in the bl program, the participants engaged in online synchronous and asynchronous activities with english as a medium of instruction and communication while being supported by face-to-face (f2f) sessions conducted in japanese. data were collected through three methods: (a) asynchronous forums to obtain participants’ written text, (b) preand postsurveys with open-ended questions, and (c) researchers’ observations recorded in a research journal. the details of the study will be described in section 2. i developed the first action research into my doctoral project. the second intervention, which i designed after reflecting on the findings of the trial program in 2020, was implemented in summer 2021 as part of my doctoral project. i will describe the reflection process in which i redesigned the second action research in section 3. in the last section, i will present the projected benefits of successive action research and suggestions for efl educators to make informed decisions about how discussion forums can be effective, making use of both affordances that the in-person face-to-face and online components of the blended learning design provides. 2. the first action research: a trial program in summer 2020 2. 1 problem and background technologies can be a catalyst for educational transformation to increase the quality of learning experiences (garrison & anderson, 2003). while we have to be careful about the non-neutrality that technologies might entail in and of themselves, the rationale underpinning the belief rests on the assumption that technologies provide the inherent potential to facilitate higher levels of learning (kanuka, 2008). in that sense, technology is only a tool, and what matters is what we can do with the tool. in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020, we are still encountering online learning programs that seem to be little more than a direct translation of traditional correspondence courses or traditional f2f classes on lecture formats. in contrast, online learning has developed in the past few decades as a new method of technology-mediated learning to replace the concept of self-study in traditional distance education and knowledge transmission common to f2f institutions with the concept of knowledge construction through interaction in collaborative communities of learners. the focus on collaborative constructivist approaches in online learning in the past few decades rests on the belief that these approaches can lead learners to higher order thinking. it is said that the educational systems concentrated on providing students with the basic skills for working in an industrial economy in the past and that now the focus has shifted to higher order thinking skills that are needed in the knowledge-based economy (morrison, 2007). the implication here is that educational institutions have critical responsibilities to provide learning environments conducive to the development of capable and creative minds ready for the challenges of this complex world. https://asiacall.info/acoj hiroshi miyashita vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 79 in high school settings (grade 10 to 12 in the k-12 system) in japan, efl classrooms tend to lack learning activities to develop higher order thinking due to test-oriented practices that are based on cognitive-behavioral theory (nishino & watanabe, 2008). despite initiatives led by japan’s ministry of education, culture, sports, science and technology (mext) to promote instructional reform, including its decision to include the goal of realizing proactive, interactive, and authentic learning in the new government course guidelines revised in 2018 (mext, 2018), the change on the ground in that direction has been slow and sporadic. related to this problem, in japan, where technological advancement has been at the forefront of the world, the infrastructure and use of technology in both secondary and post-secondary education is far behind, as has been revealed by the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 (aoki, 2010; kittaka, 2020). to better understand the reasons why efl classrooms in japan tend to lack learning activities to develop higher order thinking, we need to explore the social and political background of the country. in the field of teaching english to speakers of other languages (tesol), japan is categorized not as an english-as-an-additional-language (eal) setting but as an english-as-aforeign-language (efl) setting. efl settings are those where students living in a non-english speaking country learn english as a school subject. in other words, most people in japan do not have to use english in their everyday lives. english as a school subject is a crucial part of university entrance examinations in japan. english is included in almost all university entrance examinations, including the largest-scale national test, which is administered by an independent administrative institution called the national center for university entrance examinations (national center for university entrance examinations, 2020). the english portion of university entrance examinations in japan tends to require students to answer questions as fast as possible only by using decoding skills. in this reality, it might be more accurate to suggest that the focus only be on test-solving skills in classrooms. another reason for efl classrooms dominated by test-oriented practices is related to english education policies driven by neoliberalism, which is generally defined as a revisionist approach to transform the welfare state into a post-welfare state that relegates every aspect of society to the wisdom of the market. neoliberalism has permeated into the area of education, especially english education, in the past few decades. some researchers call english education driven by neoliberalism linguistic instrumentalism (barrett & miyashita, 2015; guo, 2012; kubota, 2011; wee, 2010). linguistic instrumentalism can be defined as an ideology that emphasizes the utilitarianism of learning english for sustaining economic development as a society and for mobility obtained by an individual. linguistic instrumentalism tends to promote competition rather than cooperation. the discourse of developing human resources, which is often observed in english education policies in japan, emphasizes fierce competition on the global stage and implies that students should serve the nation as a resource. this discourse tends to encourage students to study english harder to enter prestigious universities. a closer examination of the reasons might be necessary and profitable, but such an examination is out of the scope of this study. this action research was intended to mitigate problems observed on the ground practically. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 80 2. 2 purpose of the study the purpose of this study was to investigate a bl program created as an intervention to improve higher order thinking of efl learners at a public high school in japan. by adopting an action research approach with a pragmatic paradigm, the intervention was designed to mitigate problems observed in the classroom while drawing on the concept of praxis, a dialectical unity of theory and practice with reflective thought (lantolf & poehner, 2011). 2. 3 background literature this literature review is an analysis of the empirical and theoretical research that bears directly on the purposes of this study. 2. 3. 1 higher order thinking despite the popularity and importance of the concept of higher order thinking in education, there is no clear definition of the term. a framework that is often mentioned when higher order thinking is defined or considered is bloom’s taxonomy (1956). forty-five years after bloom’s taxonomy was published, anderson et al. (2001) introduced the revision of the original framework. there were two explicit changes in the revision. first, the new knowledge dimension contains four subcategories instead of three in the original scheme. the one added to the new framework is metacognitive knowledge, which was not widely recognized at the time the original version was developed. the other explicit change is in the overall structure of the cognitive process dimension. the six major categories in the new scheme are: (1) remember, (2) understand, (3) apply, (4) analyze, (5), evaluate, and (6) create. the russian psychologist l. s. vygotsky introduced the concept of lower mental functions (lmfs) and higher mental functions (hmfs) to reconcile his claim that human mental functions are social in origin with the other contradicting fact that newborn infants already possess certain mental functions (vygotsky & rieber, 1997). vygotsky viewed the development of human mental functions as their transition from the original lmfs into hmfs. lmfs are genetically inherited in terms of origins, unmediated in terms of structure, involuntary in terms of the way of functioning, and isolated in terms of the relation to other mental functioning. hmfs are socially acquired, mediated, voluntarily controlled, and linked to a broader system of other functions. in this study, higher order thinking is defined using anderson et al.’s (2001) revised taxonomy of educational objectives and vygotsky’s concept of lmfs and hmfs (vygotsky & rieber, 1997); higher order thinking represents the cognitive mental functions of understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating knowledge that is voluntarily controlled and facilitated through interaction. recently, developing students' higher order thinking has been a widely shared goal in both secondary and post-secondary education. in the next section, i explore how higher order thinking can be developed in formal education. 2. 3. 2 online asynchronous forums one way of developing higher order thinking that has been adopted in many institutions is online learning, or to be more specific, asynchronous forums. the term asynchronous forums, which is sometimes referred to as computer-mediated conferencing or discussion boards, is defined in this https://asiacall.info/acoj hiroshi miyashita vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 81 study as a learning activity where participants interact with written language asynchronously. the focus on collaborative constructivist approaches in online learning in the past few decades rests on the belief that these educational approaches can lead learners to higher order thinking (morrison, 2007). different scholars have introduced different perspectives on constructivism. two major strands are cognitive constructivism and social constructivism (powell & kalina, 2009). others include radical constructivism (glasersfeld, 1995), holistic constructivism (scheer et al., 2012), and ecological constructivism (hoven & palalas, 2016). in asynchronous forums, which is one major form of collaborative constructivist approach, the act of writing leads students to deeper thinking (conrad and openo, 2018; garrison, 2016). reflection is another practice that can be incorporated in asynchronous forums to develop higher order thinking (conrad & openo, 2018; garrison, 2016; hoven, 2019; rose, 2013). time available in engaging in asynchronous forums enables participants to reflect, while in f2f or synchronous communication, participants are usually forced to respond immediately with no time available for deeper thinking. a theoretical basis is needed for teachers’ effective facilitation in constructivist-based asynchronous forums to develop students’ higher order thinking. in the next section, i will examine how sociocultural theory and dynamic assessment, an assessment and teaching approach derived from sociocultural theory, can be applied to asynchronous forums for more effective facilitation. 2. 3. 3 dynamic assessment as a pedagogical approach in this study, sociocultural theory (sct) refers to a vygotsky-inspired theory. the central tenet of the theory is that human thinking is symbolically mediated (lantolf, 2013). sociocultural in this context means that language, by which thinking is mediated, is a social, cultural, and historical artifact. a method that is emerging in sct, especially in sct-based second-language research, is dynamic assessment (da). da, where mediation is given intentionally, is a procedure that unites the goals of better understanding a learner’s potential through structured sets of interactions and fostering development through those interactions (lantolf, 2011). as the name shows, da is an approach to assessment, but it is also an approach to teaching. in da, teachers are expected to provide learners with ongoing intervention attuned to learner development based on vygotsky's concept of the zone of proximal development (zpd). rather than waiting for individuals to become developmentally ready to learn, in da, instructions are given intentionally to prepare learners for more complex concepts (lantolf, 2013). da links ongoing assessment to the provision of instructions that are appropriate mediation for development. lantolf (2011) noted that research on da within group-wide zpds is an important area for future research. as a group develops, the individuals comprising the group also develop, which is an important notion with regard to zpds in education (lantolf & poehner, 2011). da or any other form of formative assessment tends to be intuitive on the part of teachers rather than guided by principles of learning theories (lantolf & poehner, 2004). in the next section, i review the literature on content analysis, which is expected to measure the effects produced by asynchronous forums with da-based mediation. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 82 2. 3. 4 the interaction analysis model: an instrument for content analysis content analysis has been established as an effective method for analyzing asynchronous communication and is widely used in the field of online and blended learning (de wever et al., 2006; hall, 2014; lucas et al., 2013). in general, the goal of content analysis is to reveal information that is not observed at the surface level of the transcripts. among many content analysis instruments, the interaction analysis model (iam), which was developed by gunawardena et al. (1997), was chosen for this study. the iam is an established instrument (lucas et al., 2013; hall, 2014), and it is an instrument that fits the purposes of this action research. jonassen et al. (1994) stated that constructivist learning outcomes should be evaluated using evaluation methods that are sensitive to the goals of constructivist learning. gunawardena et al. (1997) noted that knowledge construction necessitates higher order thinking and that the iam begins with what could be described as lower mental functions to higher mental functions in vygotsky's terms. research that used the iam to examine the knowledge construction in asynchronous forums revealed several challenges that this learning activity often entails. wang et al. (2009) reported that many students did not know how to behave in the environment, which suggests that participants need a phase where they practice the unfamiliar way of learning before entering the program. hou et al. (2009) reported that knowledge construction was inhibited due to participants' lack of skills to use the technology adopted in the program and that interaction among participants was not activated when they had no obligation to participate. some of these challenges might be addressed by adopting a blended learning (bl) approach. bl environments can offer different affordances that allow for meaningful learning experiences to take place (graham, 2006). in the next section, i will explore blended learning systems. 2. 3. 5 blended learning systems bl is expected to emerge as a predominant system and become more common in secondary and post-secondary education than either fully online or fully f2f instruction in brick and mortal institutions (graham, 2019; halverson et al., 2017; watson, 2008). despite the increasing popularity, theories that are specific to bl have not yet developed (graham, 2019; halverson, 2017). while the definition of bl is not fixed, i define bl in this study as the integration of classroom f2f learning experiences and online learning experiences within a thoughtful course design. in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020, bl practice and research not only in higher education but also secondary education have been increasing (ndoricimpa & barad, 2021; thi thanh tran, 2021), but bl research in k-12 settings focusing on constructivist learning is still scarce especially in japan. learners in secondary education often need direct instruction and careful scaffolding. considering increasing bl practice and the difficulty of implementing learner-centered activities in secondary education, more bl research focusing on secondary education is expected. bl design might be a possible solution to make constructivist online learning more effective in k-12 settings. https://asiacall.info/acoj hiroshi miyashita vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 83 2. 4 methodological approach this research used an action research approach. action research can take many forms, but typically it is “a small-scale intervention in the functioning of the ‘real’ world and a systematic, close examination, monitoring and review of the effects of such an intervention, combining action and reflection to improve practice” (cohen et al., 2018, p. 441). while different scholars have introduced different sets of principles, the consensus is that action research is a cyclical process (bargal, 2006; kemmis & mctaggart, 2014). in each cyclical procedure, the link between action and reflection on action is readily apparent. at the same time, throughout the procedure, theories are as an essential tool to provide teachers and researchers with the understanding necessary to take effective action. 2. 4. 1 overview of the intervention the bl program created as an intervention for this action research is an extracurricular program, which means that the program is not part of regular classes that require official grading needed for participants’ graduation but is rather a supplemental course in which students participated voluntarily. in the bl program, fifteen efl students engaged in online synchronous and asynchronous activities with english as a medium of instruction and communication while being supported by face-to-face sessions conducted in japanese (see figure 1). the online component of the program consists of two five-day asynchronous forums and two ninety-minute synchronous meetings. concerning the f2f component, two ninety-minute meetings are placed: at the beginning and at the end of the program. this study focused on online asynchronous forums, where instructors draw on the construct of mediation from sct, or especially from da, to lead the participants to higher order thinking by engaging them in student-teacher and studentstudent interaction in the content-based efl learning program. figure 1. the structure of the trial program phase 1: face-to-face meeting i (1.5 hours) the aims of the program and how to operate technology in use were explained in japanese, emphasizing how and why student-student interaction can be a meaningful educational experience. also, participants were asked to submit a pre-survey by the following day. phase 2: asynchronous forum i (5 days) this is one of the two main asynchronous forums in this program. participants read materials and discussed a given theme, which was chosen to build a foundation for the next asynchronous forum. phase 3: synchronous meeting i (1.5 hours) two synchronous meetings are prepared to integrate the four skills for english proficiency (i.e., reading, writing, listening, and speaking). the main goal of synchronous meeting i is to acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 84 break the ice with no cognitively demanding topics. phase 4: asynchronous forum ii (5 days) in asynchronous forum ii, participants read materials, watched two short video clips, and discussed more complicated issues on a given theme based on their foundation in the previous forum. phase 5: synchronous meeting ii (1.5 hours) in synchronous meeting ii, participants were required to give a three-minute individual presentation on a given topic. the topic was related to what they discussed in the previous two asynchronous forums. phase 6: face-to-face meeting ii (1.5 hours) participants shared what they learned in the whole process of the program. also, participants were asked to submit a post-survey within five days. 2. 4. 2 goals of online and f2f components both synchronous and asynchronous activities in the online component were designed to be places where students engage in constructivist learning. two meetings in the f2f component were opportunities to provide students with direct instructions about the procedure, contents, and technologies in use. k-12 students tend to need direct instruction due to a lack of independent learning abilities. that is why a bl design was adopted in this study so that the instructor can provide participants with the needed direct instruction in the f2f component to guide them in the online component. 2. 4. 3 roles of researchers i am a full-time efl teacher working at a public high school in tokyo. i invited one external researcher, an adjunct professor working at two universities in the united states of america. both of us took on the roles of researcher, program designer, and instructor in the bl program. i focused on higher order thinking while the external researcher focused on language development in his study. 2. 4. 4 description of the teaching context the site of this study, s high school, is one of 186 public senior high schools in tokyo. s high school is designated by the tokyo metropolitan board of education as an “advanced school,” which is expected to show high achievement in university entrance examinations. s high school has about 960 students, with approximately 320 students in each grade. https://asiacall.info/acoj hiroshi miyashita vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 85 2. 4. 5 participants student participation in the bl program was totally voluntary. the program was advertised to all the students at the school. students who were interested in the program applied to the program. the number of participants was limited to a maximum of fifteen to ensure the quality of the program. eleven students first applied, and later four more students were recruited. they were all advanced efl learners who had already acquired the basics of english grammar and vocabulary. in that sense, this bl program was a value-added option for higher achieving students. 2. 4. 6 instructional design this program took inquiry-based instruction as the main instructional method. according to laurillard (2012), the inquiry "is a term that expresses the value to the learner of being in control of their own knowledge and skills development, in contrast with the teacher-led form of learning through acquisition" (p. 140). seen from the perspective of tesol, the teaching method used in this program is categorized as content-based instruction and cooperative language learning (richards and rodgers, 2001). instructors refrained from giving immediate grammatical feedback due to our focus on facilitating students’ thinking. 2. 4. 7 course topic in the individual presentation required in synchronous meeting ii, participants tried to answer this question: how can learning english be meaningful to me and to the world? two asynchronous forums were designed for participants to deepen their thought to answer this question. many japanese students are made to believe that english is necessary for their future success under the social and political climate; thus, the topic was chosen to lead the participants to think about why they learn english from broader perspectives in a metacognitive way. 2. 5 data collection and analysis in this study, qualitative data were gathered through three methods: (1) asynchronous forums to obtain textual data, (2) researchers’ observation during the whole process of the program recorded in a research journal, and (3) preand post-surveys to obtain qualitative data through the open-ended questions. participants' transcripts stored in asynchronous forums were converted into quantitative data through the iam. then, the quantitative data were triangulated with qualitative data derived from the researcher's observation and surveys. 2. 6 findings and discussions 2. 6. 1 findings from the iam i used the iam to explore the first research question: to what extent can higher order thinking be improved among efl learners at a high school in japan by engaging in online asynchronous forums embedded in the bl program? i scrupulously read the transcript, divided the transcript into messages, and assigned each message to one or multiple phases according to the phases described in the iam (see figure 2). acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 86 figure 2. interaction analysis model for examining social construction of knowledge in computer conferencing phase i: sharing/comparing of information a. statement of observation or opinion b. statement of agreement from one or more other participants c. corroborating examples provided by one or more participants d. asking and answering questions to clarify details of statements e. definition, description, or identification of a problem phase ii: the discovery and exploration of dissonance or inconsistency among ideas, concepts, or statements a. identifying and stating areas of disagreement b. asking and answering questions to clarify the source and extent of disagreement c. restating the participant's position and possibly advancing arguments or considerations in its support by references to the participant's experience, literature, formal data collected, or proposal of relevant metaphor or analogy to illustrate the point of view phase iii: negotiation of meaning/co-construction of knowledge a. negotiation or clarification of the meaning of terms b. negotiation of the relative weight to be assigned to types of arguments c. identification of areas of agreement or overlap among conflicting concepts d. proposal and negotiation of new statements embodying compromise, co-construction e. proposal of integrating or accommodating metaphors or analogies phase iv: testing and modification of proposed synthesis or co-construction a. testing the proposed synthesis against ‘received fact’ as shared by the participants and/or their culture b. testing against the existing cognitive schema c. testing against personal experience d. testing against formal data collected e. testing against contradictory testimony in the literature phase v: agreement statements(s)/application of newly-constructed meaning https://asiacall.info/acoj hiroshi miyashita vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 87 a. summarization of agreement(s) b. applications of new knowledge c. metacognitive statements by the participants illustrating their understanding that their knowledge or ways of thinking (cognitive schema) have changed as a result of the conference interaction table 1 provides the number of posts, messages, and total words that each student submitted. the total number of posts was 45 in forum i and 43 in forum ii. comparing asynchronous forum i and ii, while the number of posts is close, the number of messages in forum i is larger than in forum ii. the reason is that in forum i, participants were asked to answer three questions listed in the prompt i that the i created; thus, most of the students' first responses were divided into three messages. table 1. the number of posts, messages, and total words in asynchronous forums s1 s2 s3 s4 s5 s6 s7 s8 s9 s10 s11 s12 s13 totals forum i posts 3 3 2 1 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 45 messages 6 5 3 3 7 1 2 3 3 4 3 3 0 43 total words 341 328 228 200 442 96 110 168 90 222 143 94 0 2462 forum ii posts 3 2 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 0 1 43 messages 3 2 3 2 4 1 1 2 1 2 2 0 1 24 total words 262 212 192 105 340 74 54 187 109 220 145 0 77 1977 table 2 provides the total numbers of messages coded at each phase in the iam. according to gunawardena et al. (1997), phase i and ii are considered to represent the lower mental functions while phase iii to v represent the higher mental functions. comparing forum i and ii, the ratio of phase iii in forum ii is larger than in forum i, and this is because the question in prompt ii that the i created was the one that encouraged participants to think about both advantages and disadvantages of english as a global language. in the pre-survey, no student identified negative aspects of english as a global language; thus, many of the students had to interact with the reading material and video clips provided by the instructors before presenting their statements, acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 88 many of which were products derived from negotiation with these materials. findings from the iam provide evidence to suggest that the participants were capable of the co-construction of knowledge, although to a limited extent. table 2. iam coding results for asynchronous forums iam phase phase i phase ii phase iii phase iv phase v totals forum i 91 (85.0%) 5 (4.7%) 11 (10.3%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 107 (100%) forum ii 22 (56.4%) 0 (0%) 16 (41.0%) 0 (0%)) 1 (2.6%) 39 (100%) 2. 6. 2 closer examination of knowledge co-construction in asynchronous forum i although almost all the participants replied to questions described in the prompts and instructors’ postings in both forums, learner-learner interactions were scarce. the number of posts that were directed to other participants was 1 in forum i and 4 in forum ii. table 3 provides a string that drew learner-learner interaction at the end (turn 6) in forum i, which also illustrates the instructors’ da-based mediation. table 3. an example of knowledge co-construction in asynchronous forum i turn post 1 s2 … certainly, english is necessary to make connections with people and countries. but, we must not forget "respect of native languages," which is one of the great features of each country. people also should use native language positively … [phase iii/d] 2 t1 [to s2] you have brought up a very important topic: our mother tongue. our mother tongue is important in many way … first, our mother tongue is important to develop our thinking system … second, language is a culture as you wrote. this is a popular example, but other languages do not have a word for mottainai in japanese. japanese have the word mottainai, so japanese people have the feeling. 3 s2 … but i now find it is only "feeling" and also that i have the feeling when i speak japanese. "feeling" is so vague thing, and words are so clear thing. however, i think they have deep relations. what do you think about this, everybody? [phase iii/d] 4 t2 [to s2] yes language allows us to experience 'deep' feelings, and it is part of our personal 'existential' experience. on the one hand, my language, the words i https://asiacall.info/acoj hiroshi miyashita vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 89 speak are mine from my soul, and on the other hand, my words are the words i learned from others because they shared their language with me and language was given to me … bakhtin suggested, language is half mine and half yours and when we communicate we meet in the middle. 5 s2 … needless to say, culture and language vary from country to country. i think it is better than not. if countries all over the world had the same culture and language, we would not have interests each other. not knowing each other, we will mutually try to know. so, these differences are what we should focus on every time … [phase iii/d] 6 s5 [to s2] i agree with you. they will have deep relation. i think that it's our experience, nare in japanese. at first, our feeling for a language is almost nothing because we don't have any experiences. however, if we get many experiences by talking with foreigners or writing sentences, we will be able to get the feeling and english skills, too. certainly, the feeling is vague. however, our experience can improve it … [phase i/b and iii/d] turn 1 is part of s2’s first post in this forum. s2 negotiated with the reading material in prompt i and presented an idea of “respect of [sic] native languages” while thinking about why people learn english. turn 2 is instructor 1’s response to turn 1. complimenting s2’s statement, instructor 1 provided two specific reasons why our mother tongue is important. throughout the forums, the instructors refrained from pushing participants to reply to instructors; thus, instructor 1 ended the post without adding further questions. turn 3 is s2’s reply to turn 2. s2 presented his thought about relationships or differences between feelings and words. s2 is thought to have further considered why our mother tongue is important after reading turn 2. turn 4 is instructor 2’s response to turn 3. instructor 2 extended the discussion about relationships or differences between feelings and words by providing a philosophical discourse, which was intended to further stretch s2’s thought. turn 5 is s2’s reply to turn 4. this message is close to phase v of the iam in that s2 pondered not only about himself but about relationships among different cultures from a broader perspective. in the end, however, the i coded this message as phase iii/d because the metacognitive aspect is not so explicit in this message. nevertheless, it is evident throughout this string that s2’s cognitive functions developed from turn 1 to turn 3 and 5. turn 6 is the sole post in this forum that is categorized as learner-learner interaction. s5 replied to turn 3, s2’s post. after showing her agreement to s2’s statement, s5 presented a related concept, experience, through which she thinks feelings can be connected to words. 2. 6. 3 challenges identified in the analysis of the trial program i triangulated data derived from the iam with observational data and qualitative data obtained from preand post-surveys to answer the second research question: what factors of the bl program facilitated or inhibited the presence of higher order thinking? while almost every participant found collaborative constructivist learning to be meaningful, the most explicit challenge was the lack of learner-learner interaction, which resulted in the lack of messages coded as phase iii to v in the iam, representing higher mental functions (gunawardena et al., acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 90 1997). interaction is divided into three categories: learner-content, learner-instructor, and learnerlearner, each of which should be facilitated for effective knowledge co-construction (anderson, 2003; moore, 1989). i identified four reasons why learner-learner interaction was not activated. first, to students who are usually given direct face-to-face instruction, online instruction might have been unclear. although instructors provided guidance for participants’ online participation, it might not have been enough. secondly, the participants needed more time to get accustomed to the new learning environment. several students wrote in the post-survey that they hesitated to express their own opinions and reply to other participants. thirdly, some participants had difficulty using the online platform adopted for the asynchronous forums. most of them found no technical problems, but the instructors should have provided more guidance, especially to those who were not familiar with the technology. finally, english proficiency was a factor to inhibit interaction for some participants. although all the participants were thought to be advanced efl students, some of them wrote in the post-survey that they needed more time to decode messages from other students and the instructors and to write their own posts in english. 3. the second action research: a doctoral project in summer 2021 based on the outcomes from the trial program described in the previous section, i designed a new bl program by making modifications to the trial program. i implemented it at the same high school in summer 2021. this bl program was conducted as an intervention in my doctoral project. the purpose and the methodological approach are the same as the ones established in the trial program. in this section, i will describe the modifications, introduce revised research questions, and briefly discuss the ethical requirements. 3. 1 modifications after analyzing the data taken from the trial program, i concluded that the participants found collaborative constructivist learning meaningful and exhibited higher order thinking development to varying degrees. however, learner-learner interaction in asynchronous forums was not so activated as i expected, which might have contributed to the limited development of higher order thinking identified in the analysis of participant interactions. i identified two possible ways to overcome this challenge. to increase learner-learner interaction in asynchronous forums, i first decided to make use of affordances that the in-person f2f component of the bl programs provides. in the case of the intervention, the participants were high school students who were not familiar with computer-mediated collaborative constructivist learning. also, most of them still lacked the ability to manage their learning independently. therefore, i gave them more careful direct instruction, answering their questions so that the students could understand the purposes and procedures of collaborative constructivist learning more clearly. secondly, to increase learner-learner interaction in asynchronous forums, i provided participants with more opportunities to practice this new way of learning with easier tasks in order for them to get accustomed to the new way of learning and technology employed in the proposed program. https://asiacall.info/acoj hiroshi miyashita vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 91 although there are certainly various ways to increase the presence of higher order thinking in asynchronous forums, and the need to carefully and purposefully design materials to fit the program may seem obvious, the data underscored the importance of carefully designing materials and tasks in the program. also, many participants illustrated metacognitive aspects in their responses to two questions listed in the post-survey: what did you learn in this bl program?; and how was the virtual classroom experience? thus, i added an explicit reflection phase at the end of the proposed program, where participants were encouraged to reflect more deeply on what they learned, guided by the questions in a post-survey, and share their reflections within the cohort. based on my reflection on the trial program, i added three phases to the trial program: (1) one asynchronous forum for practice before the main program, (2) one in-person f2f meeting in the middle, and (3) a phase for the final reflection at the end of the program. the intervention consists of nine phases instead of six in the trial program. figure 3 illustrates the flow of the intervention. figure 3. the flow of the blended learning program acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 92 3. 2 subsequent actions action research is a cyclical process, and therefore modification is always necessary. i will describe the procedure for these modifications in the following three stages. 3. 2. 1 after the trial program in 2020 as described above, i added three phases to the trial program. also, i re-designed the learning materials and learning tasks in the intervention to fit the aims of the intervention, carefully considering the skills and abilities of the expected participants. 3. 2. 2 during the implementation of the proposed intervention scheduled in 2021 this study drew on the construct of mediation from sociocultural theory (sct), especially dynamic assessment (da), a method for better mediation that is emerging in sct. in da, teachers are expected to provide learners with ongoing intervention attuned to learner development based on zpd (lantolf & poehner, 2004). in that sense, i made constant modifications in my mediation throughout the program. also, after each phase in the proposed intervention, i reflected on the process and students’ achievements at each stage to make modifications diligently for the next phase. 3. 2. 3 after the implementation of the doctoral project in summer 2021 i have plans to implement a similar bl program again in summer 2022. the findings of the proposed study and my reflection on the intervention will be utilized in both the design and the implementation phase of the next bl program. in addition, the findings of the successive action research may be used to improve not only extracurricular programs but also regular classes by partly applying constructivist and/or blended learning perspectives into regular classes that are currently dominated by test-oriented practices based on cognitive-behavioral theory. figure 4 illustrates the development of the cyclical process in this action research study in a longer term. https://asiacall.info/acoj hiroshi miyashita vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 93 figure 4. the development of this action research in a longer term 1. a problem in the classroom in japan, efl classrooms tend to lack learning activities to develop higher order thinking due to test-oriented practices based on cognitive-behavioral theory. 2. the trial program in summer 2020 a bl program that consists of six phases, including two asynchronous forums and two inperson f2f meetings. 3. findings of the trial program the participants exhibited higher order thinking development to some extent, but learnerlearner interaction was not so activated as i expected. 4. modifications to the trial program one asynchronous forum for practice, one in-person f2f meeting in the middle, and a phase for reflection at the end of the program were added. 5. the doctral project in summer 2021 a bl program that consists of nine phases, including three asynchronous forums, three f2f meetings, and a phase for reflection at the end of the program. 6. modifications to the doctoral project modifications will be added for the third bl program in summer 2022. in addition, the findings of the proposed intervention may be used to improve regular efl classes by partly applying the findings of this doctoral study. 3. 3 main research questions i established three main questions below to guide this doctoral project. a) to what extent can higher order thinking be improved among participants in asynchronous online forums? b) what factors in students’ engagement in asynchronous online forums may contribute to the development of higher order thinking, if any? c) what factors in blended learning design may contribute to the development of higher order acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 94 thinking, if any? i used the same data collection and analysis procedures as the ones adopted in the trial program. in brief, i used the record of participants’ interactions posted in the two asynchronous forums as data to examine the first main research question. i will triangulate the results with data derived from preand post-surveys and my observation recorded in a research journal to examine the second and third questions. 3. 4 ethical requirements ethical considerations are critical in research (cohen et al., 2018). in preparation for this doctoral project, i completed the required tcps2 core tutorial to develop my understanding of the ethical treatment of human participants. before this action research study was carried out, my proposal was approved by the research ethics board at athabasca university. participation was totally voluntary. the principal of s high school, the site of this study, gave me permission in a written form. the age of the participants ranged from sixteen to seventeen years; thus, i created an informed consent form for both the participants and their parents/caregivers. i took enough time for them to understand the aims, risks, and benefits of the program before they signed the form. 4. conclusion and recommendations 4. 1 cyclical process of action research as socially engaged applied research these successive interventions in summer 2020 and 2021 are motivated by a desire to improve practice through a cyclical action research process. as i described in section 1, the problem that i identified is that efl classrooms tend to lack learning activities to develop higher order thinking due to test-oriented practices that are based on cognitive-behavioral theory in high school settings in japan. adopting an action research approach with a pragmatic paradigm, i designed interventions to mitigate problems observed on the ground, drawing on the concept of praxis, a dialectical and ecological unity of theory and practice that is realized through reflective thought (sanchez vasquez, 1977). according to kemmis (1997), there are two camps in the field of action research: the reflective practitioners and the critical theorists. these two camps are two ends of a continuum with no clear distinction, but for the former, action research is an improvement in professional practice at the local level, and for the latter, action research is part of a broader agenda of changing education and changing society. in this study, i took elements from both sides. as a reflective practitioner, i designed the bl program as an alternative or a supplemental way of teaching to the current test-oriented practices. as a critical theorist, i designed a bl program that can be inspirational to our colleagues and try to disseminate the findings to encourage instructional diversification in society. https://asiacall.info/acoj hiroshi miyashita vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 95 4. 2 delimitations and limitations the focus of this successive action research was to describe qualitative and quantitative dimensions of the presence or absence of higher order thinking development only in asynchronous forums embedded in the bl program and analyzed what factors were responsible for the development. this study was not designed to examine whether or how participants’ efl proficiency was improved. four main limitations are identified. first, this study used an action research approach in a particular context with a limited number of participants; thus, the conclusions derived are not generalizable. however, efforts were made to make the conclusions transferable by providing a thick description of the research site, course design, and procedures. secondly, while the content analysis instrument that was adopted in this study is widely recognized, what can be captured by any instrument is only a part of the participants’ actual thoughts. i used observational data and data taken from surveys in addition to the transcript analysis to describe a more nuanced picture of the participants’ higher order thinking development. thirdly, while the focus of this study is on the development of higher order thinking, the language used in the online components of the intervention was english, which is the target language for the participants. participants’ development of higher order thinking might have been restricted by the language in use. finally, the bl program was designed and implemented targeting advanced efl students who already acquired the basics of english grammar and vocabulary; thus, for students struggling with learning efl, another type of intervention will have to be considered. 4. 3 future directions in this paper, i described how a trial program in 2020 was developed into a doctoral project in 2021. findings from the trial program showed that collaborative constructivist learning using discussion forums could be effective for efl learners in high school settings to develop higher order thinking. also, the results suggest that blended learning design can help learners attending online discussion forums by providing needed direct instruction in the face-to-face component when participants are not accustomed to online constructivist learning and are lacking the ability to manage their learning independently. the most explicit challenge identified in the trial program was the lack of learner-learner interaction. to overcome the challenge, the second intervention, a doctoral project in summer 2021, was redesigned and implemented. the findings from the second intervention will be used to further refine the cyclical process of this successive action research. broadly, this study was intended to enable educators to make informed decisions about how technologies can be effectively used in education. to be more specific, the findings of this study might inform efl instructors, course designers, and policymakers in japan and possibly in other countries about an alternative or supplementary way of teaching efl. furthermore, the knowledge and insights gained in this study may help uncover an effective model of bl. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 96 references anderson, t. (2003). getting the mix right again: an updated and theoretical rationale for interaction. international review of research in open and distance learning, 4(2). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v4i2.149 anderson, l. w., krathwohl, d. r., & bloom, b. s. (2001). a taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing. new york longman. aoki, k. (2010). the use of ict and e-learning in higher education in japan. world academy of science, engineering and technology, 42, 854-858. bargal, d. (2006). personal and intellectual influences leading to lewin’s paradigm of action research: towards the 60th anniversary of lewin’s ‘action research and minority problems’ (1946). action research, 4(4), 367–388. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476750306070101 barrett, t., & miyashita, h. (2016). the pervasiveness of the neoliberal agenda and linguistic instrumentalism in japan’s english education policy “english reform plan corresponding to globalization.” journal of english as an international language. 11(1), 50-70. bloom, b. s., & krathwohl, d. r. (1956). taxonomy of educational objectives: the classification of educational goals. in handbook i: cognitive domain. cohen, l., lawrence, m., & morrison, k. (2018). research methods in education. (8th ed.). routledge conrad, d., & openo, j. (2018). assessment strategies for online learning: engagement and authenticity. au press. de wever, b., schellens, t., valcke, m., & van keer, h. (2006). content analysis schemes to analyze transcripts of online asynchronous discussion groups: a review. computers and education. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2005.04.005 drysdale, j. s., graham, c. r., spring, k. j., & halverson, l. r. (2013). an analysis of research trends in dissertations and theses studying blended learning. internet and higher education. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2012.11.003 garrison, d. r. (2016). e-learning in the 21st century: a community of inquiry framework for research and practice (3rd ed.). routledge. garrison, d. r., & anderson, t. (2003). e-learning in the 21st century: a framework for research and practice. routledge. glasersfeld, e. v. (1995). radical constructivism: a way of knowing and learning. routledge. graham, c. r. (2006). blended learning systems: definition, current trends, and future directions. in c. j. bonk & c. r. graham (eds.), handbook of blended learning: global perspectives, local designs (pp. 3-21). pfeiffer publishing. graham, c. r. (2019). current research in blended learning. in m. g. moore & w. c. diehl (eds.), handbook of distance education (4th ed., pp. 173-188). routledge. https://asiacall.info/acoj hiroshi miyashita vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 97 gunawardena, c. n., lowe, c. a., & anderson, t. (1997). analysis of a global online debate and the development of an interaction analysis model for examining social construction of knowledge in computer conferencing. journal of educational computing research. https://doi.org/10.2190/7mqv-x9uj-c7q3-nrag guo, y. (2012). teaching english for economic competitiveness: emerging issues and challenges in english education in china. canadian and international education, 41(2), 28-50. hall, b. m. (2014). in support of the interaction analysis model (iam) for evaluating discourse in a virtual learning community. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261161448_in_support_of_the_interaction_analy sis_model_for_evaluating_discourse_in_a_virtual_learning_community halverson, l. r., spring, k. j., huyett, s., henrie, c. r., & graham, c. r. (2017). blended learning rearch in higher education and k-12 settings. in j. m. spector, b. b. lockee, & m. d. childress (eds.), learning, design, and technology: an international compendium of theory, research, practice, and policy (pp. 1-30). springer international publishing. hou, h. t., chang, k. e., & sung, y. t. (2009). using blogs as a professional development tool for teachers: analysis of interaction behavioral patterns. interactive learning environments. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820903195215 hoven, d. (2019). eportfolios: the role of reflection in graduate online learning and pedagogy. icde/wcol 2019 proceedings volume 1 (pp. 431-442). dublin city university. hoven, d., & palalas, a. (2016). ecological constructivism as a new learning theory for mall: an open system of beliefs, observations, and informed explanations. in a. palalas & m. ally (eds.), the international handbook of mobile-assisted language learning (pp. 113-137). beijing, china: china central radio & tv university press. jonassen, d. h. (1994). thinking technology: toward a constructivist design model. educational technology. kanuka, h. (2008). understanding e-learning technologies-in-practice through philosophies-inpractice. in t. anderson (ed.), the theory and practice of online learning (2nd ed., pp. 91114). au press. kemmis, s. (1997). action research. in j. p. keeves (ed.) educational research, methodology, and measurement: an international handbook (2nd ed., pp. 173-179). elsevier science ltd. kemmis, s., mctaggart, r., & nixon, r. (2014). the action research planner. springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4560-67-2 kittaka, l. g. (2020, april 20). coronavirus crisis offers chance to update japanese schools. the japan times. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2020/04/20/issues/coronaviruscrisis-japanese-schools-online/ kubota, r. (2011). questioning linguistic instrumentalism: english, neoliberalism, and language tests in japan. linguistics and education, 22, 248-260. lantolf, j. p. (2011). the sociocultural approach to second language acquisition. in d. atkinson acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 98 (ed.), alternative approaches to second language acquisition (pp. 24-47). routledge. lantolf, j. p. (2013). sociocultural theory: a dialectical approach to l2 research. in s. m. gass & a. mackey (eds.), the routledge handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 57-72). routledge. lantolf, j. p., & poehner, m. e. (2004). dynamic assessment of l2 development: bringing the past into the future. journal of applied linguistics. https://doi.org/10.1558/japl.v1i1.647 lantolf, j. p., & poehner, m. e. (2011). dynamic assessment in the classroom: vygotskian praxis for second language development. language teaching research. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168810383328 laurillard, d. (2012). teaching as a design science: building pedagogical patterns for learning and technology. routledge. lucas, m., gunawardena, c., & moreira, a. (2014). assessing social construction of knowledge online: a critique of the interaction analysis model. computers in human behavior. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.07.050 ministry of education, culture, sports, science and technology (mext). (2018). 高等学校学 習指導要領 [the government course guidelines for high schools]. https://www.mext.go.jp/sports/content/1384661_6_1_2.pdf moore, m. g. (1989). editorial: three types of interaction. american journal of distance education. https://doi.org/10.1080/08923648909526659 morrison, d. (2007). e-learning in higher education: the need for a new pedagogy. in m. bullen & d. janes (eds.), making the transition to e-learning: strategies and issues (pp. 104-120). idea group inc. national center for university entrance examinations. (2020). 大学入学共通テスト [the common test for university admissions]. https://www.dnc.ac.jp/kyotsu/index.html ndoricimpa, c., & barad, d. p. (2021). does online instruction in discourse conventions of literary analysis affect l2 students’ critical stance in academic writing? a longitudinal study. asiacall online journal, 12(4), 66 87. https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/66 nishino, t., & watanabe, m. (2008). communication-oriented policies versus classroom realities in japan. tesol quarterly, 42(1), 133-138. powell, k. c., & kalina, c. j. (2009). cognitive and social constructivism: developing tools for an effective classroom. education, 130(2), 241-250. richards, j. c., & rodgers, t. s. (2001). approaches and methods in language teaching. cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511667305 rose, e. (2013). on reflection: an essay on technology, education & the status of thought in the twenty-first century. brown bear press. https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/66 https://asiacall.info/acoj hiroshi miyashita vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 99 sanchez vasquez, a. (1997). the philosophy of praxis. merlin press. scheer, a., noweski, c., & meinel, c. (2012). transforming constructivist learning into action: design thinking in education. design and technology education: an international journal, 17(3). 8-19. thi thanh tran, m. (2021). microsoft teams in the context of freshmen elf learning. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 12-23. https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/22 vygotsky, l. s., & rieber, r. w. (ed.). (1997). the collected works of l. s. vygotsky, vol. 4. the history of the development of higher mental functions. (m. j. hall, trans.). plenum press. wang, q., woo, h. l., & zhao, j. (2009). investigating critical thinking and knowledge construction in an interactive learning environment. interactive learning environments. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820701706320 watson, j. (2008). blended learning: the convergence of online and face-to-face education. north american council for online learning. wee, l. (2010). linguistic instrumentalism in singapore. journal of multilingual and multicultural development, 24(3), 211-224. biodata hiroshi miyashita is an efl teacher at a public high school in tokyo. he earned an med in teaching english as an additional language at the university of calgary. he is currently a doctoral candidate at athabasca university. his research interests include online learning, sociocultural theory, and language policy. https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/22 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, gonzález, josé antonio 58 technology and culture in the language class: adding another ingredient to the old dilemma… and a taxonomy and a database structure josé antonio gonzález ja-gonzalez2@wiu.edu western illinois university, united states of america abstract this paper will discuss the problematic relationship between culture and language from the perspective of the second language learning/teaching process. this is not a new problem for the pedagogy of languages and there remains a traditional set of as yet unsolved epistemological questions to be answered. although many of these problems and questions will be part of the reflections involved in this article, its main objective is to reconsider them from the perspective of new teaching philosophies and methods and the inclusion of modern computerized technology into the old already-troubled formula. keywords: second language learning/teaching, technology from a cultural perspective, we could summarize some of the most important questions about the relationship between language and culture in the process of teaching/learning a second language as follows: 1. what is culture? how can one provide a useful definition for this purpose? 2. must culture be taught/learned together with language? (lian 2006) 3. if our culture is instilled into us by our community; should the learning of the new language be infused (at least to a certain degree) with elements of the new culture implicitly attached to the new language? 4. if language is the expression of a certain culture, which is the culture that provides the basis for a dialogue between two non native speakers of a given language which is being used as lingua franca (e. g. english)? (lian 2006) 5. is there a hierarchy in cultural text that could be taken as predetermined syntax? if so, is there an optimal starting point for the study of such a text? 6. should the learning of culture be systematic, haphazard, learner-driven (what do all of these terms mean and how do they get translated into action)? how do we decide what is essential? 7. which level or field, or social sector of a given culture is the right one to teach or learn? in other words: which pieces or elements or levels of culture should be taught as useful communicative tools? 8. how can technology be of use in teaching language and culture? defining culture is a theoretical exercise historically practiced from many different perspectives and, of course, from all kinds of philosophical positions. the concept of culture is crucial in the set of epistemological systems which have become increasingly interdisciplinary in accordance with the practical and theoretical needs of every discipline; e, g, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, history, theory of culture, theory of literature, semiotics, etc. mailto:ja-gonzalez2@wiu.edu asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, gonzález, josé antonio 59 thus, instead of describing the evolution of the concept, it seems more important in our case to focus on considering the contrast between some of the different concepts of culture which might be useful for this paper. russian semiotician jurij lotman (1979) had already studied culture from a discursive perspective. he argued that if culture can be considered as the sum total of all the non-biological information which constitutes the memory of a given community, it is possible to regard culture itself as a certain communicative operation. therefore this operation can be thought of as a set of decipherable codes (p. 41). lotman specifies that he uses the term “memory” in the sense of systematic accumulation and storage of information and defines text as any given communication within a certain system of signs (41). from the point of view of an important anthropologist, not unlike lotman, clifford geertz (1973), offers his ideas about the semiotic nature of culture and the polyphony of cultural texts in his work: the interpretation of cultures (p. 453). for him: “the culture of a people is an ensemble of texts” (452). both lotman’s and geertz’s visions of culture as a text in the form of information are valuable approaches for the matter of learning/teaching a foreign language. geertz’ statement about every society as bearer of its own interpretations and the need for learning how to access this interpretation (p. 453) is also very important in the context of this paper because it is an acknowledgment of the semantic aspect of culture. from our perspective then, culture is essentially discursive in nature as noted in the above arguments. let us now examine more closely the problematic of cultural syntax. one of the epistemological challenges of connecting culture to the language learning/teaching process is how to better organize cultural information in terms of accessibility. the above-mentioned non-biological character of culture draws on the polemical concept of meme as “a unit of cultural information transferrable from one mind to another” (meme 2007); because many of the proponents of this theory suggest that these units evolve in a way which is analogous to that of genetic information. that is the reason why we are inclined to discard the concept of meme as a possible unit of measure for the task at hand. on the other hand, the idea of cultural field, proposed by the french sociologist pierre bourdieu is quite interesting. for bourdieu (2008), the cultural field is “a social arena of struggle over the appropriation of certain species of capital […] structured internally in terms of power relationships” (bourdieu 2008). the reason that makes the idea of field attractive to a contemporary notion of linking culture and language learning lies in the volition of agency that bourdieu attributes to a given cultural field. for him, “agents subscribe to or participate in a particular field not by way of explicit contract, but by their practical acknowledgement of the stakes” (bourdieu 2008). a later consideration of the learner’s volition conditioned by his/her own cognitive interests (stakes) will demonstrate the potential value of the notion of agency in a contemporary approach to the language learning/teaching process. now, let us consider the cultural element as something which provides a certain reassurance and even peace to those who involve themselves in the communication process in a given community. for tentori (1970), knowing what is wrong or right is part of the crucial non linguistic completion of the semiotic act (p. 217). therefore, culture, or at least some of its signs, must be learned/taught together with verbal language. another author who deals with the problems of teaching/learning culture simultaneously with language is simon greenall (2003). he prefers the culturological definition of cultureme as “a single or minimal manifestation of socio-culturally determined behavior, belief, attitude, custom, or tradition” (p. 2). he also amplifies the notion of culture beyond geographic, ethnic or political boundaries to include other referents such as gender, social class or occupation (p. 2). using the cultureme as a meaningful unit in learning/teaching culture with language may be useful. this paper will reconsider later a broader idea about the ranking and categorization of these cultural elements for the process itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/information http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/power_%28sociology%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/interpersonal_relationship asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, gonzález, josé antonio 60 we should now like to weigh up whether the process of learning a language implicates the learner as an authentic bearer of the cultural values of the community which speaks the language and to ask which of these values are to be assimilated by the learner as a requirement for the communication. obviously there is no definitive answer for such a question, because the answer will be casuistic in nature and will depend on the intention and the communicative needs of the learner. in fact, communicative needs and intention, together with the stakes of the learner will be the leading key in many of the epistemological questions addressed here. we now address an interesting problem, which is obvious for some people: that of language and culture as precise expressions of community identity. andrew lian (2006) wonders whether, if language is the expression of a certain culture and provides constraints and contexts for making sense of discourse, then which is the culture which provides the basis for a dialogue between two non native speakers of a given language used as lingua franca (e. g. english)? (p. 26) in seeking an answer to this question, let us remember that the first great travelers and businessmen in history, like the phoenicians or the traders on the “spice routes” were able to engage in a large amount of international dialogue by establishing multicultural rapport that was not necessarily based on the use of common languages. therefore, there is no definitive answer for this either, but to produce a reflection on the communication process like the one above, which in our current global world is less and less hypothetical. the nature of communication itself is based in mutual consensus, in a negotiation of meanings that might be satisfactory for both sides of the semiotic channel. here, vygotsky’s notion that human thought might be constructed in terms of dialogue is useful for approaching intercultural communication (kozulin 1990). thus we could think of the lingua franca as a set of loaned verbal signs used to solve a given problem of mutual human understanding. in the first place, both sides must be aware of some information about the other’s culture, despite the particular language which supports that culture. the rank and category of the above-mentioned cultural information must be based on two key criteria: first, the ability to distinguish what is considered socially acceptable or not in the other’s culture. this is so important that ignoring this distinction could jeopardize the dialogue, potentially leading to what greenall (2003) defines as a “communication breakdown” (p. 3). second, each interlocutor must be aware of which elements of such cultural information could be used to one’s advantage in the dialogue? while this information is valuable, it is not enough to establish a satisfactory communication among third parties using a lingua franca as a verbal code. the missing element is not obviously the culture of this language out of its context as a lingua franca, but some… let us call it “cultura franca,” established in terms of global communication. for this purpose, bourdieu’s (2008) concept of cultural field can be very useful to establish the pragmatics of this notion because the cultural field could be seen as “a system of social positions (e.g. a profession such as the law) structured internally in terms of power relationships” (p. 1). the same is true for other communicative contexts, such as the interpersonal one. consequently, interlocutors using a lingua franca need to be aware of all required specific contextual information in order to function properly in a negotiation, e.g. the nature of business, its jargon, its procedures, etc… that is to say, its whole culture. hence, it will be more valuable for individuals in the french diplomatic world to be more aware of the french diplomatic jargon and the international rules of etiquette rather than the habits of night life in paris. technology wizards from different countries will find it more important in their dealings with one another to have information about state of the art computer terminology and the knowhow of this community (much of it based on american technical english) than being skilful in how to use a fork in philadelphia or to be able to quote noam chomsky or matthew arnold in a social reunion. in reference to the cognitive problem of whether grammar is culturally crucial for this process, and whether we can we believe we must circumscribe it to some extent and then sequence it, let us remember that derrida (2000) disagreed with the notion of grammar as the meta narrative of cultural discourse in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/power_%28sociology%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/interpersonal_relationship asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, gonzález, josé antonio 61 determining the essence of language (p. 396). on the other hand, bourdieu (2008) considers knowledge of grammar as social capital which is crucial in the attaining of what he calls “social mobility” (¶ 2). it is important to distinguish between those two views of “grammar” despite both authors using the same word. to add another dimension to the problem, du bois (2001) considers that grammar: comes to life in discourse, where its pervasive mediating role touches virtually every aspect of social life. goes everywhere. in a given speech community the same grammar promiscuously participates in acts as diverse as intimate persuasion, work, gossip, sanction enforcement, religious speculation, joking, aesthetic play and other symbolic systems in social life. mediates and thus partly organizes knowledge, information, social relations, texts, institutions, interactional practices and more (p. 86). in other words, for du bois (2008) “to study grammar is to study culture” (p. 87). this idea becomes extremely handy if we reconsider it from the point of view of the textual character of culture and if we rethink grammar as no longer functioning as a normative leash for writing, but as a syntactic tool in a virtual reordering of the cultural text. let us now examine the last question to be addressed in this paper. the last three cognitive problems are intrinsically interwoven with one another so that a reflection on any one of them impacts on to the other two. we will begin by considering which level or field, or social sector of a given culture is the appropriate one to be taught/learned with a specific language. in other words: which pieces or elements or levels of culture must be taught as realistic and useful communicative tools? what must be the place in our cultureteaching system of “high” culture e.g. the place of basket weaving in mayan literary works; or “popular culture” e.g. the place of “the price is right” in mexican society as opposed to other forms of culture like “practical culture” e.g. what does it mean when someone from another other culture is invited to a mexican’s house at 1 a.m. for a more contemporary perspective of this hierarchy we have to go back to the point where the essential importance of the subject’s own agency and stakes was established as a motivational engine in the language learning/teaching process. andrew lian argues that learning a language goes beyond the mere acquisition of some codes but to incorporate other synchronic systems which will complete the learner’s set of constitutive meanings that will give sense to his/her individual representation of the world (lian 2004). this learning process is not structured under any epistemologically guided external structure but through what he calls a rhizomatic approach whose hierarchy is founded on self driven will through a mechanism of personal needs and interests (p. 6). as a consequence, if we consider the textual character of culture. it is obvious that in a constructivist process of learning a language, the learner must incorporate into his/her learning of linguistic information, the elements of cultural systems of his/her interest and need in the very same order that the linguistic information is learned and in a tight connection with it. this could solve not only the question of where to start, but also the question of what unit, level or segment of cultural information is important to be learned/taught with the language. the specific cognitive necessities and interests of the learner him/herself may provide a possible answer to this question in each case – and each may well be different asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, gonzález, josé antonio 62 for each learner at every instant of the learning process and therefore not be amenable to pre-determined learning sequences. the usefulness of technology in this context should be obvious, as a set of systems of textual information deeply interrelated with linguistic information. data about culture can and must be fed into the same devices used to learn language. of course doing this now brings out the vagueness and indefinable nature of culture; it is impossible to put in cartesian terms of labeling and of measuring all its components but the rhizomatic process with its multiple dynamic connections and flows and multiple explanations will help students better to construct internal representations of cultural processes at work. despite this vagueness, categorization of some kind is necessary in order for learners to understand. while such categorization may not be pre-determined, it may actually be constructed at the time of need by the student. maybe the rhizomatic process must make this planning grow in new directions, in congruence with new learning needs, and in the case of culture the categorization must occur a little later than this social need but as immediately as possible so as to show new aspects of culture which were considered unimportant or even unknown until that moment. let us now think of a possible computer based implementation approach to our proposal for learning culture. we have already identified a critically important idea for what this paper proposes: the conceptualization of one of several potential taxonomies for systematizing cultural data connected to a specific contextual target language. in turn this contours the following guidelines: we take as point of departure the concept that learners are meaning-making individuals with unique logical and representational systems. this is because human beings make sense of the world only through their own representational and logical experience; through a process of convergence from multi-channel experience and feedback. therefore, setting data in order to provide them with cultural information associated with language must always be based on a consensus of socially negotiated cultural functions. although semantic representation is internal and individual, it is culturally produced at the level of human interaction. learning needs will always be unpredictable because they involve “infinite combinations of mutually reinforcing modalities and are thus very likely to be different from one learner to the other. it is not logically possible to offer a sequenced (or externally scaffolded) intervention strategy capable of simultaneously meeting the needs of all. entry points to solving individual problems are likely to be different from person to person” (lian 2004). therefore there will never be an absolutely sufficient database i.e. a database which will meet every learner’s needs in every conceivable context or situation. on the contrary, all possible taxonomies must be conceptualized in terms of openness and dynamism. there will always be new growing rhizomes, i.e. connections between database items, and in many cases some of the old ones will eventually become socially obsolete. data systems must be abundant and diverse; their content must be useful for very different needs. they must provide a response wider than the specific learner’s query and its interconnectivity must lead in other directions of knowledge. they must also display socially active language in variable contexts because these contexts determine social roles and consequently important nuances of language and cultural behaviors. they must be based on multimedia and offer a combination of textual and audiovisual realia, quasi authentic materials and educational guidance, it means the closer to real life data is the more accurate use of it will be incorporated into the learner’s representational universe. accessibility, flexibility, connectivity speed and independence of methodological approach will be main features. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, gonzález, josé antonio 63 accessibility is crucial in terms of gathering information; the ability to link elements is the essence of the meaning construction process; speed implies efficiency. on the other hand, the uniqueness of the learning process does not allow any imposition of a pre-established order in the approach to knowledge. consequently, learners must have technological skills and train themselves to be self-driven and motivated. it implies a real pedagogical problem in practical terms. it would mean the epitome of the student centered method and would require an almost ideal kind of student, far from the current reality in the majority of the existing educational systems. the question of whether it is possible for an average student to attain, in the short term, the right amount of cognitive independence so as to function properly with this approach is very complex and would be best dealt within the context of another research project. now that we have set the groundwork for this paper, we face the old dilemma of how to categorize the components of culture in order to adapt these categories to our needs. shall we agree on a given minimal unit of cultural data? what should be the criteria for these categorizations? would they be satisfactory? in comparing two different theories about identity, identity theory and social identity the authors hogg, terry and white (1995) have agreed that both theories “address the social nature of self as constituted by society [and] regard the self as multiple identities that reside in circumscribed practices”[ like norms and roles] (p. 255). they point out that the two theories which they compare “place their major theoretical emphasis on a multifaceted and dynamic self that mediates the relationship between social structure and individual behavior” (p. 255). when we think about cultural roles as the set of expectations that a given community places on individuals (as part of the symbolic culture inherent to that community), it becomes clear that these expectations must be fulfilled in terms of certain behaviors (which include language). it is possible to consider approaching a taxonomy of language on the basis of the interaction between the individual role (which defines tints of overlapping circumstantial identity) and these contextual expectations. in other words, and bringing this to the process of language learning, the learner’s interest for a certain piece of cultural information could be triggered by the need for solving a specific communicative situation. this need will act as the motivation for linking multiple pieces of informative data which will provide that student with the communicative tools which, in turn, will empower him/her to function in terms of social communication according to the above mentioned set of cultural expectations. hence, the rhizome will never exist in any database. it will be in the inquiring action of learners. we now face one of the biggest challenges in materializing this approach: how to establish a practical and useful system of information which could enable the achievement of the linking process. first, we must insist on the principle of the impossibility of anticipating the potentially infinite needs of learners in terms of specific cultural/linguistic information. if we plan to construct a database which could eventually serve that purpose, it can be conceived only on the basis of an extremely dynamic and elastic interaction in which those pieces or chunks of information requested by the learners and not yet available to them must be very rapidly gathered and incorporated into the database. let us think, for example, that a certain european business student is particularly interested in how to establish trade connections with some mid size fishing companies on the shores of japan. the student would request not only specific linguistic background about entrepreneurial style of communication but would also seek many other cultural elements at the symbolic level which could be useful for his/her goal (manners and social habits, legal frames, social taboos, terms for addressing people in writing and speaking, etc.). at the same time, a latin american student of anthropology could be interested in artistic work at the level of popular culture in the same geographical area and time. obviously, the latter’s needs in terms of language and culture would be different. this student will play a different role and his/her query will require from the database a very different set of linguistic and cultural information. (e. g. local folklore, oral colloquialisms, musical patterns, mythology, etc.). asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, gonzález, josé antonio 64 in both cases the rhizome would be constructed very differently in their minds, and they might only share some spatial and cultural settings in the database but nothing else. it may be that only part of the information requested would be available in the database at the time of the request. the response in gathering this information must be very rapid and should be made available as soon as possible. ideally, all possible textual and audiovisual data has to be gathered, sorted and put immediately within the learner’s reach. this implies the necessity to have a permanent team for updating the database with an extremely dynamic capacity for responding to the needs of users. the taxonomy ought to be conceived in a manner that data entered at the simple level will be recombined into boolean queries to produce complex linguistic/cultural rhizomes set in terms of specific social roles under specific communicative situations and other constraints. a boolean query is based on the notion of “and” and “or.” such a query might look like this: if the latin american student of anthropology needs to learn how to interact with the people of that area then he/she must learn to talk (orally and bodily) to them and to behave in a proper way according to the local symbolic cultural rules and principles. he/she must gather information in order to learn about specific geographic areas, the colloquial language and gestures and their folklore. for this to happen, the boolean search must include the terms “japan shore in the twenty first century, “colloquial and body language” and “expressions of popular art forms.” putting all of this under the operator “and” the result could be expressed in a venn diagram as follows: and the required information will be found in the area of intersection. the operator” or” would add some alternative choices and the operator not would eliminate the unwanted ones. obviously, boolean logic is the very principle used in internet search practices; and this makes it essentially familiar to the majority of contemporary students. on the other hand, just the mention of an immediate response-updating team brings up a huge management problem, which at the same time will generate many other, very practical, management issues. at this stage, we are still approaching the ideas at the theoretical level. let us say that the management matter is a crucial one in this case. there are obvious things like the impracticability of a central unique database. instead, one would have to construct a distributed network of databases connected by queries and very smart indexing. there is also a theoretical side to other tasks of this hypothetical team (or rather teams), which is not only serving the queries but also assisting learners in their formulation of the queries in order to help them to attain the optimum data response. place and time= japan shore in twenty first century colloquial local japanese language and physical gestures expressions of popular art= music, poetry, painting, etc. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, gonzález, josé antonio 65 some of the variables that could be devised for one possible database taxonomy may be conceived in the following general terms: patterns (community grouping) settings (space and time) individual position (power related) topic (purpose of the roles). patterns are the social constraints which hold together a given number of individuals. group members behave and communicate with each other according to certain rules and social habits. this notion encloses groups of people with the same interests into different kinds social communities; from the idea of a nation and all its citizens to a social class, a professional attachment, being classmates, being of the same age or gender, being inmates in the same prison, being member of any organization, etc. and all the consequent roles implied in these contextual interactions. settings are the spatial and temporal locations of the data. their degree of detail is determined by how sophisticated the sets of cultural patterns and all their nuances are. the role of every individual belonging to a specific pattern is always power related. we could think of it in terms of being empowered, having no power or possessing an equal amount power. power must be seen as the agency for interacting with the group under a favorable use of social patterns. the topic is seen as the purpose of the roles or the purpose of the culture. in seeing culture as a game, sometimes it is possible to perceive the reason for the very existence of the group. let us imagine a very specific query about language and culture as a necessity for a given learner. an indian college student of portuguese language needs to know how to speak and interact with his/her future classmates in a brazilian university. in this case the pattern would be the community of young male and female college students. the setting could be a general one, like the country, brazil, or a narrower one, like a certain type of university in a given brazilian city, let’s say sao paulo. chronological setting could be the present day. the individual position could be his/her status as a registered student (of course there is the issue of how foreign students are accepted and whether they interact equally in the group that could be an information variable itself). finally, the topic or purpose is the reason these students conform to the behaviors of a specific group (they feel or need to thinkthey are special, they share the same kind of hobbies and preferences, etc.). to summarize, in this article we have reconsidered the already established notion of the need for learning specific cultural settings when learning the corresponding language. this reflection has been made from the perspective of a rhizomatic approach to language learning and the relevance of the use of contemporary technology in this process. finally, we have proposed a theoretical model for the application of these ideas. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, gonzález, josé antonio 66 references bourdieu, pierre. (march 2008). field. wikipedia. encyclopaedia on line. retrieved october 9th, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pierre_bourdieu#field derrida, jacques. (2000). différance. in julie rivkin and michael ryan (eds.), literary theory: an anthology. (385-407) oxford: blackwell. du bois, j.w. (2001). grammar. in alessandro duranti (ed.), key terms in language and culture. (87-90). oxford: blackwell. duranti, alessandro. (ed.), key terms in language and culture. oxford: blackwell. firth, alan. (october 2006). discourse, language and culture. retrieved april 2007 from http://www.hum.aau.dk/%7efirth/research/cultbooksage.html geertz, clifford. (1973). the interpretation of cultures; .selected essays. new york: basic books, greenall, simon. (2003). current concerns in socio-cultural training in the classroom. the language teacher. retrieved from april 2006 from http://www.jaltpublications.org/tlt/articles/2003/07/greenall greenblatt, stephen. (1995) culture. in frank lentriccia and thomas mclaughlin (eds.),critical terms for literary study (225) chicago: up. hogg, michael a, deborah j. terry and katherine m.white. (1995). a tale of two theories: a critical comparison of identity theory with social identity theory. social psychology quarterly. 58(4), (255-269). kozulin, a. (1990). vygotsky's psychology: a biography of ideas. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. lian, andrew. language, culture, meaning, learning and technology. (april 2006) keynote address at the 2006 (9th) conference on english language education. retrieved april 2007 from http://www.andrewlian.com/andrewlian/prowww/fortune_2006/fortune_talk_01.mht lian, andrew. (2004). technology-enhanced language learning environments: a rhizomatic approach. in jeong-bae son, (ed.), computer-assisted language learning: concepts, contexts and practices. (1-20). new york: universe. retrieved april 2007 from http://www.andrewlian.com/prowww/apacall_2004/apacall_lian_ap_tell_rhizomatic.pdf. lotman, jurij. (1979). semiótica de la cultura. madrid: cátedra ___ (october 2007). meme. wikipedia: encyclopedia on line. retrieved october 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/meme tentori, tullio. (1970) cultura y transformación social: cuestiones de sociología. barcelona: herder. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pierre_bourdieu#field http://www.hum.aau.dk/~firth/research/cultbooksage.html http://www.jalt-publications.org/tlt/articles/2003/07/greenall http://www.jalt-publications.org/tlt/articles/2003/07/greenall http://www.andrewlian.com/andrewlian/prowww/fortune_2006/fortune_talk_01.mht http://www.andrewlian.com/andrewlian/prowww/fortune_2006/fortune_talk_01.mht http://www.andrewlian.com/prowww/apacall_2004/apacall_lian_ap_tell_rhizomatic.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/meme asiacall online journal received: 23/12/2020 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 11/01/2021 vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 accepted: 21/01/2021 pp. 1-11 online: 06/02/2021 1 a case study of home-based teaching and learning practice at ton duc thang university nguyen huu ngoc english department, ton duc thang university, vietnam correspondence: nguyen huu ngoc, ton duc thang university, vietnam. email: nguyenhuungoc921@gmail.com abstract online teaching has not been widely applied in education until the severe widespread outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic on a global scale. like other educational institutions, ton duc thang university promptly switched to online teaching practice for all courses for the sake of teachers’ and students’ safety and health protection. to investigate the implementation of home-based teaching practice at tdtu as well as its advantages and disadvantages, a case study was launched by the university with the participation of three teachers and 76 nonenglish major students from three english classes at elementary and pre-intermediate level. the study was a qualitative design; observations and interviews were used as research methods. the researcher found that there are generally three main stages in every three-period online lesson: teacher's presentation with zoom, students' assignment in google classroom, and teacher’s constructive feedback with zoom. teachers and students praised geographical convenience, time flexibility, and a customized learning environment and experienced technical problems. students found it difficult to motivate themselves to study, had no self-discipline, and interactions were limited. teachers also had difficulty in class control, and teachers exerted anxiety over technology use. these findings contributed to further research on online teaching practice as well as considerations as to whether faceto-face teaching and learning should be replaced in the long run. keywords: home-based teaching and learning, ton duc thang university, zoom 1. introduction with the ubiquity of the internet and the accessibility of technology, the demand for online learning has been increasingly popular since the 1990s. accordingly, a great number of researchers have delved into the effectiveness of online courses in comparison with traditional on-campus schooling in attempts to work out which model of education is better. while a meta-study conducted in 2010 reveals that e-learning would help enhance students’ academic performance (means, toyama, murphy, bakia, & jones, 2010), plenty of other research favored the traditional in-class method over its online counterpart. the quintessence is the study carried out in 2002 by noble, proving that the student participants preferred face-to-face instruction because of its more desirable learning outcomes. to weigh up the two training methods to have an objective view, there are many factors that need taking into consideration. due to the outbreak of the covid-19 virus worldwide, many educational institutions have decided to replace traditional teaching and learn with online courses. in particular, ton duc thang university swiftly switched to technology-mediated learning with the aid of zoom and google classroom. to make a humble contribution to the research into the field of online teaching and learning, this study was implemented, entitled “a case study of homebased teaching and learning practice at ton duc thang university”. mailto:nguyenhuungoc921@gmail.com acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 2 2. literature review 2.1 definitions of common terms in online education in your literature review and also when describing your teaching environment, you need to tell us something about pedagogy. what is the pedagogy discussed in the literature for online learning? what pedagogy was applied in your case study context, and what exactly the students and the teachers were doing? you need to include a lot of detail in your paper to be interesting for people to hear about your context. you don't have to get things right but share some information to all relate to it: include lots of detail. there are various terms for online education coined by linguists and researchers. some common ones are chosen and discussed as follows. keegan (2005) called this kind of educational approach “distance learning”, which does not take place in physical classrooms but over the internet instead. according to him, one absolute necessity of this kind of education is the employment of technical media such as computer and video to create two-way communication between the instructors and the learners. additionally, "e-learning" or "m-learning" is also widely used in the era of technological advances. the first term, e-learning, is defined as interactive learning in which multimedia technologies and the internet are used to improve the quality of learning by enabling access to a variety of online learning or teaching resources (the european commission, 2001). the second one, m-learning or mobile learning, can be understood as any educational provision where the sole or dominant technologies are hand-held or palmtop devices” (traxler, 2005). for this definition, it is implied that mobile learning employs a wide range of portable devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops rather than desktops. web-based learning or web-based education is also a term commonly used in online education. keegan (2005) defined that web-based education as a "subset of distance education". barron (1998) considered web-based learning as "internet-based learning" and "network-based learning". therefore, they can all be defined as the method of learning using computers and internet-supported technologies. 2.2 types of online education according to algahtani (2007), there are two typical online education types, namely computer-based learning and internet-based learning. computer-based learning is an instructional approach employing computer software and hardware as the key component for the learning process. in this type of e-learning, a range of computers or laptops is used as the main tool. they can either assist the learning environment with interactive software for information and communication technology or act as an instructional strategy to help the educators or instructors to manage and assess the learners' progress. on the other hand, the second, internet-based learning, uses the internet as a medium for the process of learning. hence, the learners can access the learning content which was made available on the internet before at anytime and anywhere without the teachers' presence. this type of e-learning provides any time with the comfort of time and space (almosa, 2001). on the other hand, zeitoun (2008) had another way of classifying online education. the total online mode can create either synchronous or asynchronous interactions in his classification. the first mode enables the instructors and the learners to have direct online meetings via the internet. this means they can have live interactions and get immediate feedback in real-time using video-conferencing or other similar means. unlike the first mode, asynchronous e-learning is more flexible as the learners can access the e-learning environment whenever or wherever they want. this mode was facilitated by certain platforms and media such as email or thread discussions. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 3 the kind under discussion in this study is computer-based learning or synchronous e-learning. in this case, both the teachers and the students are supposed to possess a computer or a laptop as a main means of conducting the teaching and learning process. with the aid of particular software and platforms, lessons are delivered through direct online class meetings. 2.3 the use of online learning in education the dramatic development of the internet and technological tools has led to the widespread use of online learning in education. mertens (2009) indicated that internet-based activities had been proved a great help to the learners' process of knowledge transmission. therefore, many educational institutions like colleges and universities have started to apply blended learning, known as a mixture of traditional education and e-learning, in their teaching curriculum (fry, 2001). warschauer (1996) claimed that e-learning enhances the learning progress of the learners at any educational level and facilitates the process of assessment and evaluation, reducing the burden of workload for the teachers. adding to the view, keegan (2005) asserted that online learning has been contributing significantly to the changes in the role of instructors and learners. the teachers, known as main knowledge dispensers, would no longer play a major role in the teaching and learning process. accordingly, the students would tend to employ self-learning during their process of gaining knowledge instead. 2.4 research questions the study sought to answer the following research questions: 1. how is online teaching implemented in english classes at ton duc thang university? 2. what advantages and disadvantages do teachers and students have during the implementation of online learning and teaching? 3. methods 3.1 research participants three teachers and 76 students who took part in the study were all from ton duc thang university. first, all of the three teachers have had at least two years of teaching experiences about the teacher participants. among them, teacher 3 (t3) spent the longest time working as an english teacher at tdtu, while teacher 1 (t1) was the least experienced teacher in teaching. all three teachers have got bachelor's degrees in tefl (teaching english to foreign learners) from public universities in vietnam. two of them (teachers 2 and 3) acquired master of arts in applied linguistics and tesol. table 1. teachers’ information no. information teacher 1 (t1) teacher 2 (t2) teacher 3 (t3) 1 class in charge foundation 2 – group 43 foundation 3 – group 56 english 1 – group 38 2 age 25 28 32 3 years of teaching english 2 5 9 4 degree/ certificate of english bachelor’s degree in tefl ielts 7.5 bachelor’s degree in tefl master of arts in applied linguistics bachelor’s degree in tefl master of arts in tesol acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 4 second, as for students, the number of student participants in the current study was 76. they were first and secondyear non-english major students from three classes with different levels. the students major in chinese, information technology, and accounting. table 2. students’ information gender/class foundation 2 – group 43 foundation 3 – group 56 english 1 group 38 male 14 22 8 female 12 6 14 total 26 28 22 3.2 research design the study was developed as a case study, which is defined as “an intensive, holistic description and analysis of a single unit” (mackey and gass, 1998). this approach is ideal for this study because it can descriptively show “the particularity and complexity of a single case, coming to understand its activity within important circumstances". according to creswell (2009), three distinctive types of a case study are intrinsic, collective, and instrumental cases. among the three, a collective case study that focuses on several cases to provide deep understandings of an issue after comparing or contrasting the cases is a good choice for the researcher in this study. by studying three different classes, the researcher aimed to grasp the practice of online teaching and learning at tdtu as well as its advantages and disadvantages. 3.3 instruments to answer the stated research questions, the researcher employed two instruments, observations and interviews. 3.3.1 observations a number of class observations were conducted online via the zoom cloud meetings to delve into how distance learning and teaching were actually done in english classes. the researcher contacted the teacher participants and asked for the codes before the classes started to observe the chosen online classes. the researcher was then available in the class meeting on zoom five minutes earlier than the students. so as to avoid their attention and any disturbance caused by the observer's presence, the researcher turned off the video so that no one could see him. this could help ensure the study's objectivity as the students would behave comfortably without exerting any inhibitions or nervousness during the observations. 3.3.2 interviews in order to get both teachers’ and students’ opinions about the problems and benefits during online classes, semistructured interviews were conducted with the participation of the three teachers and fourteen selected students from three classes. while the three teachers were coded as t1, t2, and t3, the students were coded as s1, s2, to s15. because of the quarantine, the interviews were administered online using zoom cloud meetings and recorded for the sake of data analysis. each teacher was interviewed at their convenience, whereas the students were invited as a group for the interviews. with the support of the teachers in charge, the researcher contacted the volunteer students via social networks to agree on the date for the interviews. for some students who had scheduling conflicts with their peers, interviews were implemented individually at their earliest convenience. as an act of obedience to acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 5 the ethical research principles, all of the participants were informed that their participation in the study was kept confidential and anonymous. all the data collected from the observations and the interviews were then used for analysis by coding and themes grouping. 3.4 platforms used for online teaching and learning english at tdtu online teaching and learning processes at tdtu were conducted with the use of the zoom app alongside google classroom. zoom cloud meetings were the primary tool used for live class meetings where teachers and students had direct interactions. on the other hand, the teacher in charge was responsible for creating a class in google classroom and then invited the students to join it via their personal email. google classroom was a platform where teachers created assignments for the students during and after the class. it also acted as a channel of communication between the teachers and their students. teachers, who would like to update announcements, i.e., time and dates for online meetings, could make a post directly in google classroom; and on the other way round, the students may write any inquiries there too. figure 1: the teacher was delivering her lesson by using share screen on zoom app in an online lesson at tdtu figure 2: prior to the online lesson, the teachers had to post materials for language input or exercises on google acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 6 classroom platform 4. findings and discussion research question 1: how is online teaching implemented in english classes at ton duc thang university? according to the data collected from a series of observations in three classes, a three-period english lesson can be divided into three main stages. phase 1: teachers check student attendance, present key language inputs and assign assignments in google classroom there was a similarity in each lesson's first period presented by the teachers. they all started with settling the class down for some minutes before checking the students' attendance. next, they opened the powerpoint slides prepared beforehand and shared them with the students using the share screen function. then the key knowledge inputs were all presented. it was observed that the teachers called on some students to interact from time to time to ensure the students’ full attention during the presentation stage. after providing the students with essential knowledge, the teachers checked if they had a good grasp of the lesson or not. sometimes they asked questions and requested answers from the students, and they also occasionally organized quick games. before stopping the zoom app, the teachers reminded the students to visit google classroom to do exercises assigned in advance. they also went through how to do the assignments and announce the students to the deadline. phase 2: students do assignments in google classroom at a designated time as required by the teachers, the students started to do the exercises in google classroom within the set time frame. the exercises given by the teachers were normally in the forms of short quizzes designed with google forms. there were also writing tasks or open questions that required the students to write and submit their writing products in word documents. after finishing the assignments, they were allowed to take a short break for about 15 minutes before joining zoom again for the feedback section. phase 3: teachers correct assignments, give feedback, and check student attendance again when the students were all present again in zoom, the teachers then checked the answers and gave them constructive feedback. students’ scores for the assignments were automatically recorded, which would then be added to their total progress scores. after that, the teachers gave students some reminders if necessary and then ended the lessons. research question 2: what advantages and disadvantages do teachers and students have during the implementation of online learning and teaching in english courses? advantages perceived by teachers and students. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 7 both the teachers and the students had common perceptions of the advantages of online courses they were conducting via certain platforms. there were three main benefits coded from the data collected from the interviews. geographical convenience all of the participants agreed that online teaching and learning practice brought them the comfort of space. they all found it convenient when they did not have to travel a long distance to the university to deliver or attend lessons. it was kind of convenient because i could conduct my teaching right at home. i did not have to move anywhere. (t1) the first benefit i can see is the convenience of the place. i could stay at home to learn using my computer… (s3) time flexibility besides the convenience in terms of place, it was shown that the teachers and the students also benefited from the flexibility of time. regardless of strict adherence to the class start time on the schedule, the teachers posited that they could flexibly allocate the time when the lesson delivery was in progress. although we had to follow the class start time on the portal strictly, we could still flexibly manage time during the lesson. for example, after the students finished their assignments, i started to give them feedback and correction. and when it was done, we could stop some time earlier than scheduled. (t2) similarly, some students also stated that they also had certain advantages from time flexibility while learning online with zoom. for instance, they “could do something else after quickly finishing all of the exercises assigned in google classroom” (s5) or “asked the teacher to join another class with the same level at a more suitable time” (s9). customized learning environment apart from benefits regarding time and space, home-based teaching created great opportunities for teachers to adjust the learning content and the time allotment for the purpose of the appropriateness of learning outcomes. t1 claimed that “instead of following the steps available in the book, i had to redesign the content to make it more suitable for the students. it seemed more productive in the end because i think the rigidity of the tasks in the book sometimes did not help much”. t2, similarly, shared that “when teaching online, i selected the key knowledge from the book and added some extra activities or materials so that the students could better understand the lessons and learn something else”. regarding the effectiveness of a custom-made learning environment, the students showed positive attitudes. in the interview, they stated that learning through the teachers' slides was pretty accessible and effective. the lessons which were all put on slides by my teacher was very useful. the content was so concise and easy to understand. moreover, he always posted his slides in google classroom right after the lesson, which was good because we could read them again later (s7) disadvantages perceived by teachers and students. besides certain benefits of online learning and teaching discussed above, the participants faced several drawbacks, which are discussed as follows. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 8 overmuch amount of work according to the three teachers, it took them much more time to prepare a lesson before "the livestream" was conducted (t1). the extra amount of time was spent on designing the powerpoint slides together with exercises or quizzes, which "took three times as much as teaching in the classrooms” (t1). “it was so time-consuming to prepare a lesson before the class. i had to put everything on slides to show the students, then create quizzes in google forms for them to do in the second period… (t2) the lessons conducted online also took three periods as in physical classrooms, but i had to spend extra time to prepare for the lessons before that. there was no tool on my laptop, so i had to prepare slides to show the students instead. i even stayed up some nights until three pm to plan the lessons for the three classes the next day. (t3) on the side of students, most of them also expressed certain concerns over the excessive amounts of time they were supposed to spend on doing assignments on google classroom. my teacher assigned a lot of homework in google classroom and i had to finish everything to meet the deadline. there were times when there were so many exercises and the time given was so short, and i had to be quick to finish them just on time. (s3) another student also complained about the number of exercises he was supposed to do during online lessons: “i don't like learning with zoom because there were a lot of things to do during the break. the teacher gave us a lot of assignments and asked us to finish them. it was called “break’ but actually we had no break with this kind of learning. we spent more time trying to do the exercises to get the points…” (s11) technical problems as stated, one problem commonly faced by the participants was internet instability. this caused lagging or freezing during the class meetings, which occasionally created a disturbance to both the teachers and the students. poor internet connection was the most common problem i knew. this happened to me and also my students. sometimes i was out during the meetings because the internet bandwidth was too low, which confused my students. on the other way round, some of my students suddenly disappeared on screen, and i had no idea where they were until they joined again and reported that it was the internet instability that stopped them. (t2) in agreement with the teachers on this issue, the students accepted that they had to experience certain problems caused by the slow internet speed. the internet was so low, and i found it hard to follow the lessons. (s4) we were interrupted at times because of poor internet access, which was so frustrating. (s5) i was out when the internet was weak, and i had to provide the teacher with evidence not to mark absence. (s10) moreover, there were some extra problems such as broken webcam and microphones, which hindered the participants from seeing and hearing each other. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 9 some students just kept saying that their webcam was broken and asked me for my permission to let them have a blank screen instead of turning on their video. (t1) speaking of technical problems, i found that the audio was inactive at times, and i had to ask my students over and over again just to know if they could be hearing me or not. then i had my laptop fixed at the store with a new microphone separately connected to my laptop. (t3) no self-discipline in the interview, the teachers asserted certain typical problems about the students' indiscipline while attending the lessons via the internet. they can be named inappropriate learning postures, eating and drinking misconduct, and frequent lateness. some of the students did not study seriously. even though i had consistently told them to choose a quiet place and have a good sitting position during the lessons, they still ignored what i said… i could notice they were both learning and watching films or listening to music at the same time. some others even laid on the bed with their laptop on their belly, which was so annoying… (t1) i was shocked at times when noticing that some of my students still covered themselves with blankets in the early mornings. it seemed they were not awake yet, still sleepy, and could not stay focused. some students recklessly ate and drank while i was teaching. i reminded them so many times about the classroom rules, but this still happened from time to time…(t2) i observed that my students usually joined the class late. just a few came early for the lessons. i think students' tardiness partly came from their thinking that it was quick to access the class meetings online instead of allotting some time to get to school… (t3) limited interactions due to the large number of students joining the class meetings, the teachers admitted that they had difficulty covering the whole class at a time. therefore, interactions were limited to a certain extent. online interactions were not as easy as in the classrooms. there were many students present during the class meetings, and when i asked a question and invited a student to answer, i had to wait for him to unmute himself, which took a while. (t1) i had to limit interactions with the students as few as possible for fear of having not enough time. it took a lot of time for interactions via the internet to happen for some reasons. the students might not hear me clearly, and i had to repeat the question over and over. then for some students who were distracting or not available, i had to wait for ages to hear them say something whenever i called them. (t2) difficulties in class management class controls from a distance are such a big problem for teachers. all of the teachers agreed that it was hard to manage the class during an online lesson even though they made great attempts to use zoom's functional buttons. it took me a lot of time to check if the students were still there listening to me. (t2) acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 10 some of my students just kept making excuses about their broken cameras and refused to turn them on when i requested. then i did not even know if they were actually listening to me or doing something else. some even used a fake profile picture to trick me into believing that he was listening to me. i didn’t know until i asked him to answer a question… (t3) anxiety over the use of technology a number of participants shared that they were anxious at first when switching to teaching and learning online in fear of technology. the stated reason was that it was the first time they had had such an experience. their anxiety came from a lack of familiarity with the participants' application. when i heard that the department had an announcement on online teaching, i was a bit worried because i had not been familiar with this kind of teaching. i had never heard of zooms before. i remember that the first online lesson was such a mess. i even did not know how to turn on my microphone… (t1) to be honest, i was scared at first because i was not good at technology. i was such a technophobe, actually. i had to spend the whole night searching on google and watching videos on youtube to learn how to use zoom for teaching. the department's announcement came so late, and i did not have much time to familiarize myself with the tool. i was even stressed about that. it was such a nightmare when looking back on those days… (t2) sharing the same ideas, students affirmed that “learning with zoom app was completely new," and they, therefore, "found it hard to adapt to this kind of learning” (s4). it was the first time i had used zoom for learning. i was a bit afraid because i had not known how to use it as well as how to install it on my computer. (s9) i had never used this app (zoom) before, so i did struggle at first. i was so nervous on the first day when i turned on the app and saw my teacher’s and my friends’ faces. (s13) learning through zoom was a bit hard at first because i had not tried it before. things were much easier later as i got familiar with the app. (s14) 5. conclusion in general, it can be seen through a series of observations that the practice of home-based teaching and learning at tdtu went through three main phases: teacher's presentation of key knowledge inputs, student's completion of assignments and teacher's feedback and correction. each lesson lasted for three periods, with 45 minutes being spent on each stage. regarding the participants' perceptions of this mode of education, both the teachers and the students asserted that they had certain advantages and disadvantages while teaching and learning online via zoom cloud meetings and google classroom. however, the drawbacks of this education mode far outweighed the benefits, which was clearly stated by the majority of the participants. overall, they expressed a strong preference for a traditional classroom atmosphere to bring more productive educational outcomes. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 11 references almosa, a. (2001). e-learning: concept, properties, benefits and obstacles , future's school conference. saudi arabia 22-24/10/2001, riyadh: king saud university. algahtani, a. (2007). library to learning resource centre in riyadh s government secondary schools for boys: an evaluation of whether goals have been met, from the point of view of lrc specialists, ma dissertation, uk: nottingham university. barron, a. (1998). designing web-based training. british journal of educational technology, 29(4) fry, k. (2001). e-learning markets and providers: some issues and prospects. education training, 233-239. keegan, d. (2005). synchronous e-learning systems: an introduction. in e. schwenke mertens, d.m. ( 2009). transformative research and evaluation. new york: guilford means, b., toyama, y., murphy, r., bakia, m., and jones, k. (2010). evaluation of evidence-based practices in online learning: a meta-analysis and review of online learning studies. us department of education. noble, d. f. (2002). technology and the commodification of higher education. monthly review, 53(10). traxler, j. (2005). mobile learning the ethical and legal challenges. rome: lsda. warschauer, m. (1996). comparing face to face and electronic discussion in the second language classroom. calico journal, 13(2/3), 7–26. zeitoun, h. (2008). e-learning: concept, issues, application, evaluation, riyadh: dar alsolateah publication. enrollment trends and call preferences in the study of foreign languages in america: asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 81 using computer supported reasoning mapping to teach efl learners critical reasoning and academic writing sonja elsegood selsegood@ialf.edu indonesian australian language foundation, indonesia ali rahimi rahimijah@yahoo.com university of kashan, iran abstract this paper describes how computer-generated argument mapping has been successfully incorporated in an english for academic purposes program to train indonesian students en route to postgraduate studies in australia, how to construct evidence-based logical reasoning in their english academic writing and also to critically follow the flow of reasoning in the english academic texts they read. this paper attempts to demonstrate, with reference to student sample work, that training students in the use of reasoning mapping software to diagram reasoning makes the complex pyramid hierarchical structure of logical reasoning far more easily understandable and aids them in being able to create wellreasoned academic writing in english. keywords: computer supported argument mapping (csam), critical reasoning, english for academic purposes (eap) introduction there has been a growing recognition in literature, that the key critical thinking skill for students to be successful in english language university study, is the ability to understand and use evidence-based logical reasoning. in virtually all disciplines, students are expected to be able to present both orally and in writing a well-argued logical academic case supporting conclusions based on research (davies, 2001, 2003, 2006). despite the importance of logical reasoning to academic success many students find it difficult either to present a well-reasoned academic case or to follow the flow of logical reasoning in their readings of academic texts let alone to engage in any kind of critical analysis of this reasoning. this is particularly the case in the tefl context. we argue that the problem is that students usually do not receive any training in how to use evidence-based logical reasoning and that this problem can be overcome through training them in the use of computer supported argument mapping (csam). in the following paper we present a case in support of the following claims: 1. efl students‟ problems with applying critical reasoning in their reading and writing of academic texts are not primarily language-based but result from a lack of explicit instruction in the mechanics and principles of evidence-based logical reasoning. 2. computer supported argument mapping (csam) offers a useful way to help efl students build critical reasoning skills in their reading and writing of academic texts. the contribution that this paper makes is that while there has been a considerable amount of research into the usefulness of csma for improving the critical thinking and reading/writing mailto:rahimijah@yahoo.com asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 82 skills of native speaker students there is still a need for more research to look at its usefulness in the tefl context. this paper attempts to answer the following questions: 1. why explicitly teach critical reasoning particularly in the tefl context? 2. how can csam help efl students develop critical reading skills? 3. how can csam help efl students construct grammatically correct, well-structured logically reasoned academic writing? 4. how can csam help efl students develop critical thinking skills? 1. why explicitly teach critical reasoning in the tefl context? the research demonstrates unequivocally that many university students lack critical reasoning skills when reading and writing academic texts (benesch, 1999, davies, 2003, egege and kutieleh, 2004; moodie, 2001; thomas, kazlauskas and davis 2004). this is particularly the case in the tefl context. the evidence for this is that efl students often find it difficult when reading academic texts in english to: 1. distinguish between main and supporting ideas in a text 2. distinguish between a writer‟s major and minor claims 3. grasp the significance of logical connectors as cues signifying the logical relationships between ideas 4. understand a writer‟s position and stance 5. understand a writer‟s use of objection, rebuttal and concession to construct their academic case efl students‟ lack of critical reasoning skills is even more apparent when they write academic texts in english. many students find it difficult to: 1. logically develop their opinions and ideas by providing relevant, valid and sufficient support 2. incorporate their own position, voice or stance in their written texts 3. build a convincing academic case using evidence-based reasoning from research literature to support their position 4. incorporate critique in their writing through the logical use of objection, rebuttal, concession and counterargument 5. use logical connectors and rhetorical devices and formulas appropriately and correctly to link the ideas in their texts the research indicates that an important factor contributing to a student‟s lack of critical reasoning skills is the assumption in many education systems that students will pick up skills of logical reasoning and argumentation through a process of osmosis, through being exposed to good reasoning. however the reality is that many students fail to pick up these skills during their education. as varghese and abraham (1998) report, evidence for this is connor, gorman, and vahapassi‟s study of undergraduate written composition in 14 countries (1987), which found that the vast majority of students demonstrated difficulties in arguing to advocate their viewpoint on a complex issue. even more revealing are the results of deanna kuhn‟s 1991 study with 160 native speakers drawn from a wide range of age groups, occupations, and education levels, as reported by van gelder (2005 a). kuhn found that the majority of people interviewed, when asked their opinion on complex and controversial issues, were unable to provide genuine evidence in support of their views. their responses demonstrated that many lacked basic skills of reasoning and argumentation. van gelder notes that this finding is confirmed by other studies (2005 b). asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 83 as a result of research such as the above, it is becoming accepted that critical reasoning skills, so vital to academic success in university, need to be explicitly taught. the ability to deal with arguments is seen to be a key critical reasoning skill (davies, 2001, 2003, 2006). davies argues that academic success depends on students‟ ability to read, understand, evaluate, and construct arguments, both written and oral. talking about the australian context, davies notes that while the subject matter will vary from one university course to another, in almost all disciplines, the major purpose of study is to develop students‟ mastery of academic argumentation. davies concludes that the principles of argument used in academic culture need to be explicitly taught to students as all disciplines require an ability to argue critically in essays, term papers or dissertations (2003, p 2). davies also argues that, more often than not, efl students‟ difficulties comprehending and constructing arguments are to do with problems with logic rather than language (2001, 2003, 2006). this conclusion is supported by bolton‟s research (2007), analysing indonesian students‟ essay writing in l1 and l2. he found that students faced similar problems with logic and argumentation in both l1 and l2 and this demonstrates that the issue is lack of training in logic rather than lack of proficiency in english. the logic that both davies and bolton refer to is obviously the conventions of western logical reasoning and aristotelian rhetoric. it might be claimed that based on the findings of contrastive rhetoric, it is ethnocentric to teach western logic to efl students in the asia region. however as varghese and abraham note (1998), this objection is not convincing since much academic argumentation today still favors aristotelian rhetoric as its preferred mode of inquiry and persuasion. another objection to explicitly teaching western logic and aristotelian rhetoric is that the western academic cultural tradition favours an adversarial style of argumentation, which is not in harmony with the consensual intellectual traditions of asian cultures. some western scholars also critique the overly „attack and defend‟ character of western academic argument culture and suggest there is a need to move from debate to dialogue (tannen, 1998). however while there may definitely be valid grounds for developing a more consensual style of academic debate and critique, it does need to be acknowledged that students from exam orientated education systems in asia often have an overly factual orientation to academic texts. there is a tendency to see the „claims‟ made by scholars as „facts‟ to be reproduced in examinations rather than as debatable propositions that they are expected to challenge by presenting argumentation and critique (sinclair 2000). it would be an advantage for all students to be explicitly trained to see academic texts as advancing and supporting debatable claims. indeed it could be said that all academic writing and research is comprised of claims and supports because it involves evaluation (making a judgment about something) and analysis (drawing a conclusion about something which is then supported). even „factual‟ claims require supports, as for example where scientific claims are supported by evidence that is constantly subjected to scrutiny and challenge. all research reports have a „conclusion‟ or „interpretation‟ section where writers present claims (draw conclusions) supported by evidence. in a critical review too, a writer presents claims about the text they are reviewing which they then support. similarly, in a case study, the writer draws conclusions and supports these conclusions. thus it could be argued that all academic texts consist of claims and supports and thus „argumentation‟, though not all texts have an explicitly „persuasive‟ tenor. this demonstrates the usefulness of giving all students explicit training in the principles of argumentation and aristotelian rhetoric. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 84 2. how can computer-supported argument mapping (csam) help efl students develop critical reading skills? csam provides a useful tool to help students understand firstly what argumentation is and secondly how a writer constructs an academic case using aristotelian rhetoric. trying to decode and follow the flow of reasoning in argumentative prose is a challenge for native speaker students let alone l2 readers. this is because students have to deconstruct a writer‟s arguments from the argumentative prose in which they are embedded. as monk notes (2004), there are a number of steps involved in the decoding process when reading. students need to ask themselves: 1. how many distinct arguments (minor claims) does a writer provide for their main point/claim/contention? 2. how many main lines of argument do they have to back it up? 3. do they support all of these primary arguments with further evidence? 4. do they provide any objections to their argument and rebut them? are these supported by evidence? (monk 2004) based on research at melbourne university (twardy 2004), van gelder (2005 a) argues that if csam forms the basis for teaching logical reasoning, students find it easier to grasp the logical structure of argument. according to van gelder, the basic idea in argument mapping is very simple. arguments have a structure, often quite complex, and complex structure is generally more easily understood and conveyed in visual or diagrammatic form. thus argument mapping involves using graphical or diagrammatic methods to display the structure of reasoning and argumentation more clearly and explicitly so that the reader can follow the reasoning more easily. the rationale is that being able to more easily understand the structure of reasoning helps improve reasoning and argument skills. this can be clearly seen if we attempt to answer monk‟s decoding questions above about a writer‟s argumentation when it is presented as argumentative prose or as an argument map. in the second instance it is far easier to follow the flow or reasoning and assess how the writer‟s case is structured and how well it is supported. please refer to appendix 1 and 2 in order to make this comparison. the idea of argument diagramming is not new and the concept was first developed by wigmore in 1913 and then engelbart in the 1960s ( van gelder 2005 b). neither is the idea that producing diagrams of arguments can help students with developing their critical reasoning (horn 1998). however it has only been with the development of csam software that the possibility of diagrammatic representation of complex argumentation has become a reality (van gelder 2005 b). monk (2004) argues that csam is a useful tool for comprehending and communicating reasoning because argument maps present reasoning in a completely clear and unambiguous form. the benefits of argument maps are that they: 1. make explicit the logical relationships that the linearity and abstractness of prose argumentation obscures the evidential and logical relationships between claims and supports are visually explicit (monk 2004). 2. reduce drastically the cognitive burden because we don‟t have to assemble a representation of the argument in working memory which is, as research shows, limited (monk 2004) 3. offer an instant and effortless scan ability of the overall structure of the argument, something that cannot easily be derived from prose. (monk 2004). argument maps provide a big picture as well as a little picture view of a writer‟s case. 4. give unambiguous visual clues as to the significance of particular details due to the hierarchical ordering of the structure and the inferential relations between individual boxes (monk 2004). asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 85 students can practice a number of skills using csam software like rationale: (the following is from the rationale website (http://rationale.austhink.com/learn) basic reasoning 1. map out reasons for and against a contention 2. classify evidence sources (basis boxes) 3. evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of reasons and evidence 4. show evaluation of claims through colour and icons (evaluation tab) 5. essay writing with essay planning templates (essays panel) advanced reasoning 1. identify assumptions and co-premises (advanced reasoning maps) 2. identify individual premises, including unstated assumptions 3. distinguish between the acceptability of premises and the validity or strength of inferences. 3. how can csam help efl students construct grammatically correct, well structured logically reasoned academic writing? as has already been discussed, many efl students find it difficult both to present a clear position in their academic writing and to provide relevant and sufficient support for their position, both to substantiate their own claims and to weaken opposing claims. many have problems sequencing different „levels‟ of support to „unpack‟ claims, for example, by providing a supporting reason before adding relevant supporting evidence or examples. efl students‟ problems may indicate a lack of familiarity with the hierarchical ordering conventions of logical western reasoning, such as the need to develop ideas by moving from the general to the particular and from the debatable to the more factual. evidence for this is that efl students tend to misuse logical connectors suggesting that they don‟t fully grasp what the logical relationships are between ideas in their writing. the benefits of using csam for teaching academic writing is that: 1. argument maps clearly show how writers and speakers logically support, develop or „unpack‟ their ideas or oppose other people‟s ideas. 2. through argument mapping students learn that logical reasoning has a tree or pyramid shaped hierarchical structure and must follows certain „rules‟ or conventions. 3. argument mapping make it easier for students to tell the difference between core sentences in a text which carry the main and supporting ideas and connective words and phrases which structure the text. 4. argument mapping makes it easier for students to understand the logical links between claims and supports in a text and how these logical links are signaled through particular connective words and phrases. another benefit of csam is that it can be usefully combined with a genre approach to teach academic writing because argument mapping can be used to support the genre cycle of text deconstruction and then joint and individual construction of the target genre using teacher led scaffolding. teaching the generic conventions of different text types is much easier in combination with argument mapping. the weakness of the traditional genre approach is that it doesn‟t systematically address the issue of how logical reasoning is constructed because the focus is not on the content of argumentation but rather on how texts are realized through particular generic structures and conventions and language features (cope and kalantzis 1993). this issue is http://rationale.austhink.com/learn asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 86 addressed when argument maps are constructed with students before commencing the genre cycle. using an argument map that includes objections and rebuttals, a teacher can jointly scaffold various essay types merely by embedding supporting and opposing arguments into different rhetorical formulas and essay structures. (see examples of 3 different essay types based on one argument map see appendix 3, 4, 5, and 6). in this way, students‟ awareness of how a writer moves from reasoning to argumentative prose increases dramatically. a major advantage of argument mapping is that it reduces the cognitive load of students when learning to write academic texts because they need only focus on one thing at a time. this is because an argument map separates the „content‟ ideas out from the generic framework in which they are embedded. by this is meant the rhetorical conventions of the text, as well as the rhetorical formulas and devices used to convey stance and evaluation, the connecting words and phrases which introduce and link ideas between sentences and paragraphs. these don‟t appear in an argument map so it is much easier for students to focus on their reasoning before converting this reasoning into argumentative prose. argument mapping also makes it much easier for a teacher to be able to identify the students‟ problems in terms of english sentence structure and grammar. in an argument map students write full, grammatical, declarative sentences in boxes. they use complete sentences, not words or phrases as in an outline. thus the teacher can focus on whether the student really understands how to structure an english sentence, how to construct nominalizations, verb phrases and to use english tenses, modals, adverbial and adjectival phrases, correct word forms, passives etc. it is far easier for a teacher to give language error feedback on an argument map than in a whole essay where there may be so many errors at the sentence paragraph and whole text level that it is overwhelming. an additional benefit of csam is that argument mapping can help to fight plagiarism. when argument mapping using academic sources, students clearly see which ideas and evaluations they have drawn from the research literature are „intellectual property‟ of scholars that need to be both paraphrased carefully and referenced and which are their own. argument maps can also be usefully combined with synthesis and paraphrasing grids. at the indonesian australian language foundation in bali, teachers guide eap students through a step-by-step construction process when learning to write research based academic texts. this involves students first researching then mapping a „skeleton‟ academic case presenting argumentation in support of a contention related to a debatable issue in their field. this map includes the major objections and rebuttals to their position and uses full, complete grammatical, declarative sentences in boxes. the next stage is that students conduct further research to identify supporting reasons and evidence for their case which they then bring together in a synthesis grid which shows how the major and minor claims in their argument map will be supported and opposed from all their sources. the next step is for students to create a paraphrasing grid in which they both paraphrase and reference each separate support or evidence they have extracted from the research literature to flesh out their argument map. the paraphrasing grid enables the teacher to evaluate students‟ paraphrasing efforts as both the original quote and extract from the literature and the students‟ paraphrased rendition are presented side by side. the final step is the writing of the research paper by adding appropriate logical connectors to signal the logical relationships between the claims and supports in their argument map. students learn how to add appropriate rhetorical devices and formulae to convey their positive/negative evaluation of opposing or supporting reasons or evidence reported from research. at this stage students are guided in how to convey stance or insert their own writer‟s asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 87 voice through the skillful use of rhetorical devices, problematising phrases, modals, adjectives and adverbs which either weaken or strengthen their own or other‟s claims or evidence. based on our experience at ialf bali, we have found it extremely useful if students are required to provide a map of their reasoning whenever they hand in a piece of written work that involves presenting some kind of reasoning or argument. in addition, in order to promote critical thinking it is highly recommended that students be required to present their reasoning maps to each other for peer critiquing before writing up their essay or papers. as has been mentioned, mandatory mapping before writing makes teachers‟ lives easier because an argument map offers an instant and effortless scan ability of the overall structure of the argument or academic case presented by the student. what arguments are well or poorly supported, what objections are presented, whether these are skillfully rebutted or whether the rebuttal needs further evidence, etc. is all clearly evident. it saves teachers considerable time and effort, which they usually spend in trying to decipher what a student‟s argument in a piece of prose argumentation consists of. an example of a student‟s argument map (appendix 7), an extract from her paraphrasing grid (appendix 8) and her final research assignment (appendix 9) is attached. this student commenced her 3 month eap program with an ielts writing band score of 5.5. the research essay assignment was undertaken in the final phase of her eap program how can csam help efl students develop critical thinking skills? van gelder (2005 b) has presented a convincing case arguing that csam has the potential to enhance human reasoning and augment human intelligence. he argues that csam helps strengthen and extend peoples‟ intrinsic reasoning skills, i.e., the skills they deploy unconsciously when engaging in reasoning in everyday or educational or professional contexts, particularly those involving complex reasoning rider and thomason (2008), argue that “lots of argument mapping practice” (lamp) using a software tool like rationale considerably improves students' critical thinking skills and has additional cognitive and pedagogical benefits like helping students to learn to better understand and critique arguments, to improve in their reading and writing, to become clearer in their thinking and even to gain meta-cognitive skills that ultimately make them better learners. it does seem irrefutable that argument mapping is a useful tool for developing critical thinking particularly in helping students to critically evaluate reasoning. one reason as previously mentioned, is because argument maps make the structure of reasoning completely explicit and thus they help students see strengths and weaknesses in their own and others‟ argumentation that would otherwise be obscured or hidden (monk 2004). however an even more important reason why argument mapping is a useful tool for developing critical thinking is that mapping an issue from two sides encourages rational debate about issues and mitigates against biases like belief preservation and confirmation bias (monk 2004). van gelder (2004) argues that in particular the explicit teaching of counterargument (objection, rebuttal and concession), helps overcome a natural human tendency to belief preservation. he points out that the human mind has a natural tendency toward cognitive biases and blind spots, in particular belief preservation. there is the tendency to pay more attention to evidence that supports our existing opinions rather than contradicts them. he argues that teachers need to push students to apply compensatory strategies, in particular to use counterargument. teachers should therefore encourage students to put extra effort into searching for and attending to evidence that contradicts what they currently believe. in addition, when “weighing up” the arguments for and asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 88 against, students should be encouraged to be given “extra credit” for those arguments that go against their position and students also need to be trained to cultivate a willingness to change their mind when the evidence starts mounting against their position. hoffman also believes that the true benefit of csam is its capacity to promote flexible thinking and reduce biased thinking. he points out that the primary goal of such mapping so far, has been to clarify the structure of argumentation, but not necessarily to change the ways students frame what is going on. hoffman however argues that the main goal of csam should be to visualize the mostly implicit logic of people‟s reasoning in order to stimulate self-reflection and the modification of implicit assumptions thus aiming for positive cognitive change (hoffmann 2004). this is another claim for csam that could be usefully tested in the tefl context. concluding remarks computer-generated argument mapping can be effectively utilized in english for academic purposes programs to equip students with the ability to create evidence-based logical reasoning in their english academic writing. acquainted with critical thinking competency, they are able to delve into the argumentation and reasoning in the english academic texts they read. students are in need of training in the utilization of reasoning mapping software to diagram reasoning to be able to cope with the formidable task of realizing the complex pyramid hierarchical structure of logical reasoning. this way they can perceive the intricate network of discussions and avoid specious argumentation as well as erroneous interpretation. hence, they learn to relate the ideas to one another logically and meaningfully. they can contribute fully, valuably, and effectively to the development of ideas and, in turn, gain from what these ideas critically offer them. by expanding students‟ critical thinking ability and providing them with logical reasoning techniques, teaching them what to value and what to ignore, computer-generated argument mapping further empowers students to take a critical, profound and innovative stance while dealing with certain texts. they will be able differentiate between cogent, well-grounded argument and specious discussion. references austhink (developers of rationale csam software) http://rationale.austhink.com/learn benesch, s. (1995). genres and processes in sociocultural context. journal of second language writing, 4(2), 191-195. benesch, s. (1999).thinking critically, thinking dialogically. tesol quarterly, 3 (3), 573-580. bolton, s. (2007) no argument! language and logic in indonesian eap student writing. dissertation submitted to the university of manchester for the degree of med educational technology and elt connor, u., gorman, t. and vahapassi, a. (1987). the argumentative/persuasive task.in t. p.gorman, a. c. purves and r. e. dagenhart (eds.). the iea study of written composition, vol. i. the international writing scales and scoring scales jyvaskyla, finland: institute for educational research, 155-171. cope b. & kalantzis m. (eds) (1993) the powers of literacy: a genre approach to teaching writing (pittsburgh, pa, university of pittsburgh press). davies, w. m., (2001), „where to begin? problems in teaching critical reasoning to nesb students‟, sources of confusion, language and academic skills conference, la trobe university, november.2003 davies, w. m., (2006) „an “infusion” approach to critical thinking: moore [sic] on the critical thinking debate‟, higher education research and development, 25 (2) (reply to tim moore‟s paper: “the critical thinking debate: how general are general thinking skills?” herd, vol 1 (1), 2004, pp. 3-18. http://rationale.austhink.com/learn asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 89 davies, w. m., (2003), „a cautionary note about the teaching of critical reasoning‟, higher education research and development society of australia (herdsa), learning for an unknown future. 2-9 th july, 2003, christchurch, new zealand. egege, s and kutieleh, s. (2004) critical thinking and international students: a marriage of necessity dealing with diversity first year in higher education conference, monash university, july 2004 www.fyhe.qut.edu.au/past_papers/papers04.htm. horn, r. e 1998). mapping great debates: can computers think? bainbridge island wa: macrovu, inc. moodie, j. (2001) the development of critical voice in the writing of international postgraduate students changing identities national language and academic skills conference wollongong, 28 nov monk , p and van gelder, t. (2004) enhancing our grasp of complex arguments http://austhink.org/monk/fenner/fenner.htm plenary address by paul monk at the 2004 fenner conference on the environment, australian academy of science, canberra, 24 may 2004. [15 june 04] okada, a. j. buckingham, s.j. shum and sherborne, t (eds) (2008) knowledge cartograp y springer rationale csam software website http://rationale.austhink.com rider, y and thomason, n (2008) „cognitive and pedagogical benefits of argument mapping: lamp guides the way to better thinking‟ in okada, a. j. buckingham, s.j. shum and sherborne, t (eds) (2008) knowledge cartography springer sinclair, s. (2000). „when i say „describe‟ i don‟t mean that you should just describe‟… sources of confusion, national language and academic skills conference, la trobe university, november 27-28, 2000 varghese s.a and abraham s. a. (1998) „undergraduates arguing a case’ journal of second language writing, 7 (3), 287-306 national university of singapore tannen, d. 1998 the argument culture: moving from debate to dialogue, random house thomas, t, kazlauskas, a and davis, t. (2004) „teaching first year students to communicate their reasoning‟ dealing with diversity first year in higher education conference, monash university, july2004 http://www.fyhe.qut.edu.au/past_papers/papers04.htm van gelder, t. (2005 a). teaching critical thinking: some lessons from cognitive science college teaching, 45(1), 1–6. van gelder, t. (2005 b) „enhancing and augmenting human reasoning‟ in zilhão a (ed.) (2005) evolution, rationality, and cognition: a cognitive science for the twenty-first century, routledge twardy, c. r., (2004). argument maps improve critical thinking teaching philosophy, 27:2 zilhão a (ed.) (2005) evolution, rationality, and cognition: a cognitive science for the twenty-first century, routledge appendix 1 should marine mammals be kept in captivity in marine parks? discuss. (marine mammals are warm-blooded sea animals such as whales, dolphins and seals. marine parks are places where these animals are kept in pools and perform in shows for the public to see. an example of a marine park in australia is „seaworld‟ on the gold coast in queensland, australia) adapted from online text by bill daly, 1997,http://www.ltn.lv/~markir/essaywriting/frntpage.htm http://www.fyhe.qut.edu.au/past_papers/papers04.htm http://www.science.org.au/events/fenner/index.htm http://www.science.org.au/events/fenner/index.htm http://rationale.austhink.com/ http://www.fyhe.qut.edu.au/past_papers/papers04.htm http://sarbayes.org/ctwardy/papers/reasonpaper.pdf http://www.ltn.lv/~markir/essaywriting/frntpage.htm asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 90 the issue of whether we should allow marine parks to stay open has been widely debated in our community recently. it is an important issue because it concerns fundamental moral and economic questions about the way we use our native wildlife. a variety of arguments have been put forward. this essay will consider arguments for having marine parks and point to some of the problems with these views. it will then put forward good reasons why laws should be introduced to prohibit these unnecessary and cruel institutions. it has been argued that dolphin parks provide the only opportunity for much of the public to see marine mammals (smith, 1997). most australians, so this argument goes, live in cities and never get to see these animals. it is claimed that marine parks allow the average australian to appreciate our marine wildlife. however, as smith states, dolphins, whales and seals can be viewed in the wild at a number of places on the australian coast. in fact, there are more places where they can be seen in the wild than places where they can be seen in captivity. moreover, most australians would have to travel shorter distances to get to these wild locations than they would to get to the marine parks on the gold coast. in addition, places where there are wild marine mammals do not charge exorbitant entry fees they are free. dr alison lane, director of the cairns marine science institute, contends that we need marine parks for scientific research (the age, 19.2.1999). she argues that much of our knowledge of marine mammals comes from studies that were undertaken at marine parks. the knowledge obtained at marine parks, she says, can be useful for planning for the conservation of marine mammal species. however, as jones (1998) explains, park research is only useful for understanding captive animals and is not useful for learning about animals in the wild. dolphin and whale biology changes in marine park conditions. their diets are different, they have significantly lower life spans and they are more prone to disease. furthermore, marine mammals in dolphin parks are trained, and this means that their patterns of social behaviour are changed. therefore, research undertaken at marine parks can be generally seen to be unreliable. it is the belief of the marine park owners association that marine parks attract numerous foreign tourists (the sun-herald 12.4.1999). the organisation asserts that these tourists spend a great deal of money, increasing our foreign exchange earnings and assisting our national balance of payments. however, it is arguable that foreign tourists would still come to australia if the parks were closed. indeed, recent surveys of overseas tourists show that they come here for a variety of other reasons and not to visit places like seaworld (the age, good weekend 16.8.1999). tourists come here to see our native wildlife in its natural environment and not to see it in cages and cement pools. there are plenty of opportunities for them to see animals in these conditions in their own countries. what is more, we should be promoting our beautiful natural environment to tourists, not the ugly concrete marine park venues. marine parks are unnecessary and cruel, and they should not be supported. the dolphins and whales in these parks are kept in very small, cramped ponds, whereas in the wild they are used to roaming long distances freely across the seas. another point to consider is that the concrete walls of the pools interfere with the animals' sonar systems of communication making it difficult or impossible for them to communicate with each other. a related argument is that keeping these animals in confined areas is a terrible restriction of the freedom of highly intelligent creatures that have sophisticated language ability. moreover, these animals are friendly and helpful to human beings and as such deserve our respect. there are many asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 91 documented cases of marine mammals helping humans who are in danger at sea or helping fishermen with their work. in conclusion, marine parks need to be closed, or at the very least, no new animals should be captured for marine parks in the future. our society should no longer be prepared to tolerate unnecessary cruelty to animals for the purposes of science or entertainment. if these creatures continue to suffer as victims of captivity, future generations will surely remember us as cruel and inhumane. bibliography the age, 19.2.1999 the age good weekend, 16.8.1999 jones, g. (1998). „the myths about animal research in marine parks‟. in scientific australian. vol 12, no 3. smith, h. (1997). „marine parks: good for business, good for australia‟. in leisure business review. vol 24, no. 4 the sun-herald, 12.4.1999 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 92 appendix 2 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 93 appendix 3 the following claims and supports were adapted from an online text by bill daly, 1997 writing argumentative essays http://www.ltn.lv/~markir/essaywriting/frntpage.htm opinion essayone-sided rhetorical pattern the essay below uses only supporting arguments. notice the rhetorical formulas or devices are italicized for childcare & subsidising childcare over the last decades there has been increasing financial pressure on mothers to contribute to their families income by working. however, childcare is expensive and many working mothers could not afford to work without the government childcare subsidy. some people argue that childcare has negative effects and should not be subsidised by the government. others argue that childcare benefits children, parents and the economy. this essay supports this last view and argues that the government should provide more not less financial assistance to parents who use childcare because childcare has many positive effects. firstly, childcare may assist children in early learning. for example, childcare gives children an opportunity to mix with other children and to develop social skills at any early age. indeed a whole range of learning occurs in childcare centers. secondly, childcare benefits the relationship between parents and children. for example, children become less dependent on their parents and parents themselves are less stressed if there are periods of separation. in fact, recent studies show that the parent child relationship can be improved by the use of high quality childcare facilities. finally, childcare benefits the national economy. evidence for this is that working parents contribute to the national economy because they are able to utilize their productive skills and pay income tax. in conclusion, government support for childcare services assists individual families and is important of the economic well-being of the whole nation. for these reasons the government should subsidise childcare services. http://www.ltn.lv/~markir/essaywriting/frntpage.htm asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 94 appendix 4 two sided essay: clustering rhetorical pattern the following is a classic ‘discussion essay’ which presents both sides of the argument but opposing and supporting arguments are listed in separate paragraphs notice that opposing or counter arguments/objections to the writer’s thesis (which is given in the conclusion) are presented first and are then followed by rebuttals or arguments supporting the writer’s thesis. notice the rhetorical formulas or devices are italicized for childcare & subsidising childcare recent changes in federal government priorities have seen a reduction in financial support for parents who use childcare. this is occurring at a time when there is increasing social and financial pressure on parents, particularly mothers, to work. there is ongoing debate about whether childcare is really beneficial and should be subsidized by governments or not. this essay presents arguments for and against subsiding childcare. people who disagree agree with subsiding childcare contend that childcare has many detrimental effects on children, parents and the economy and should therefore not be subsidised by governments. they claim that children who attend childcare centers at an early age may miss out on important early learning that occurs in parent child interaction. they also argue that children may become emotionally deprived and emotionally insecure if they go to childcare. another point they make is that the government and the economy as a whole cannot afford the costs involved in supporting childcare for working parents. however, there are also strong arguments in support of subsiding childcare. proponents of childcare say that childcare benefits children, parents and the economy. they argue that childcare assists children in early learning because it gives children an opportunity to mix with other children and so develop social skills at an early age. another argument they make is that childcare benefits the relationship between parents and children because children become less dependent on their parents and parents become less stressed if there are periods of separation. furthermore they believe that childcare benefits the national economy because working parents are able to utilize their productive skills and pay income tax. in conclusion, after looking at the different points of view and the evidence for them, it is my contention that government support for childcare should continue because the many benefits of childcare outweigh the drawbacks. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 95 appendix 5 two sided essay: alternating rhetorical pattern in the following essay, the writer shifts between objection and rebuttal for each separate theme or topic used to develop their case.. notice the rhetorical formulas or devices are italicized for childcare and subsidising childcare recent changes in federal government priorities have seen a reduction in financial support for parents who use childcare. this is occurring at a time when there is increasing social and financial pressure on parents, particularly mothers, to work. the issue of childcare and working mothers has been debated for some time. many argue that the best place for children is always in their own homes with their own parents. however, it is my contention that there are many advantages to be had from using childcare and therefore the government should provide more financial assistance to parents who do so. it has been argued that children who attend childcare centres at an early age miss out on important early learning that occurs in parent-child interaction. these children, so this argument goes, may be educationally disadvantaged later in life. however, childcare centres may actually assist children in their early learning. for example, they give children an opportunity to mix with other children and to develop social skills at an early age. indeed, a whole range of learning occurs in childcare centers. another argument against the use of childcare facilities is that children can be emotionally deprived in these facilities compared to the home. this argument assumes that the best place for children is to be at their parents', especially mothers', side for twenty-four hours a day. it claims that children's emotional development can be damaged when they are left in childcare facilities. however, it is my contention that childcare actually benefits the relationship between parents and children. the reason is that children become less dependent on their parents and parents themselves are less stressed and more effective caregivers when there are periods of separation. in fact, recent studies indicate that the parent-child relationship can be improved by the use of high-quality childcare facilities. it could further be asserted that the government and the economy as a whole cannot afford the enormous cost involved in supporting childcare for working parents. however, childcare actually benefits the national economy because working parents contribute to the national economy. evidence for this is that they are able to utilise their productive skills and pay income tax, while nonworking parents can become a drain on the tax system through dependent spouse and other rebates. in conclusion, despite the claims by opponents of childcare that childcare has a negative impact on children, families and on the national budget, in fact, childcare services assist individual families and are important for the economic well-being of the whole nation. therefore government support for childcare should continue. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 96 appendix 6 following claims and supports were adapted from an online text by bill daly, 1997 writing argumentative essays, http://www.ltn.lv/~markir/essaywriting/frntpage.htm http://www.ltn.lv/~markir/essaywriting/frntpage.htm asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 97 appendix 7 sample student map for research essay assignment (on entry to her 3 month eap program this student has ielts writing score of 5.5, this assignment represents the final course task) asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 98 appendix 8 sample paraphrasing grid (extract only) main claim: offshore outsourcing is a positive economic phenomenon. source quote from literature paraphrase commander et al (2006) today, there is broad agreement among economists that the offshoring of jobs has created net benefits for both host and home countries. offshoring is seen as benefiting both the origin and destination countries. ulferts and howard (2005) manufacturing, for example, has been using offshore arrangements for decades as a way to drive down costs and boost production. in the 1990s the production of it hardware moved offshore, resulting in price reduction of 10% to 30%. in deciding which company to choose, us businesses can tap into an international pool of highly talented, experienced workers who do the same skilled job at a lower price. it could lower cost of goods and services to the origin country and provide jobs to the destination country. liikanen (2004) the current economic slowdown in the eu does not guarantee that new jobs will be created t replace those lost. secondly, deindustrialisation is often accompanied by offshoring of some jobs as activities are transferred abroad; however, this time part of the offshoring process includes high-tech and research-intensive jobs as opposed to the blue-collar job migration that has been traditionally easier to accept. that could well have serious implications for europe‟s future competitiveness. offshoring process includes high technology activities and researchintensive jobs as opposed to the blue-collar job migration that has been traditionally accepted in developed countries trefler, d (2005) service offshoring is the use of workers located abroad to provide sophisticated services to us customers. service offshoring is currently small. as it grows it will undoubtedly have important effects on america. however, the real concern is that in the longer run of 10 – 20 years, chinese and indian exports will devastate the united states. what we are less familiar with is losing high paying jobs to india. service offshoring employs highly skilled, white-collar workers operating in low cost countries. this concern raises issue that a number of people will lose their jobs and in the longer run the offshore destination countries will devastate the developed nations. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 99 appendix 9 sample student research essay assignment offshoring is a positive economic phenomenon offshore outsourcing (offshoring) refers to purchases by companies (or government) for services from foreign providers, or the transfer of particular tasks within the organization to a foreign country (kierkegaard 2004). offshoring has been a worldwide phenomenon that is especially affecting the developed countries of the world such as the us, european union and japan. offshoring has intensified due to the rapid rise in available infrastructure for sending digital information around the globe at very low and declining cost (commander et al 2006). according to (kierkegaard) the advances in information and communication technology have been one of the major factors which trigger offshoring. the internet and lower cost telecommunication increase connectivity and business networking throughout the world. another factor that has driven the recent rapid increase in offshoring is access to a large pool of skilled english speaking labour in several countries. offshoring as one element in a significantly changing world is seen as benefiting both the origin and destination countries (commander et al 2006). it could lower cost of goods and services to the origin country and provide jobs to the destination country (ulferts and howard 2005). nevertheless, offshoring has been a controversial issue causing debate among economists. the current debates reflect several concerns. opponents of offshoring state that offshoring process includes high technology activities and research-intensive jobs as opposed to the blue-collar job migration that has been traditionally accepted in developed countries (liikanen 2004). service offshoring employs highly skilled, white-collar workers operating in low cost countries. this concern raises issue that a number of people will lose their jobs and in the longer run the offshore destination countries will devastate the developed nations (trefler 2005). in addition to some other risks, another concern is the disruption caused by the growth of service offshoring, which may make it less worthwhile for firms to make long-term investments in their own human capital (trefler 2005). on the other hand, proponents of offshoring often say it is necessary to move jobs overseas because of a shortage of qualified workers in the domestic market and the great amount of qualified candidates in foreign markets (ulferts and howard 2005). also, lowering cost, deploying work opportunities and increasing competitiveness of products and services in the global market are viewed as other advantages offering by offshoring. as concerns are widespread about advantages and drawbacks, this paper will examine the risks and benefits of offshoring and argues that the likely risks involved are overstated, while the potential economic benefits are far greater. a study by (trefler 2005) finds that offshoring might lead to the loss of job opportunities in developed countries and reduce salaries of well-paid workers. according to brainard and litan (2004) offshoring could result in around 250,000 layoffs in u.s each year. this figure was drawn from research conducted by forrester, an information technology consulting firm, who predicts that the number of u.s. jobs outsourced will increase from about 400,000 in 2004 to 3.3 million in 2015. however, a later study by farrell (2006), reveals that apprehension of job losses because of offshoring is very much overstated. research by mckinsey global institute (mgi) finds that jobs lost by offshoring are approximately only about 300.000 each year. this figure is small compared to average job revenue in the economy. for example, about 4.7 million americans started jobs with a new company in the month of may 2005. theoretically, the greatest number of us service jobs that could be carried out offshore is only about 11% of total service employment. in fact, projection of all us service jobs essentially will be done offshore by 2008 is less than 2% (farrell 2006). asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 100 due to the requirement of a physical presence only a small portion of service jobs could ever go offshore, for example, stocking shelves, providing nursing care, or installing networks. in health care and retail, which are two of the largest service sectors, only 8% and 3% of jobs respectively could be done distantly. the highest percentage of jobs that could be performed remotely in industries such as packaged software (49%) and it services (44%) represent only 1 or 2 % on the whole employment )farrell 2006). similarly, a study by kirkegaard (2004) investigates the relationship between offshoring and mass layoffs in europe as well as in the us. using data about various reasons for mass layoffs in the us from 1996 to 2003 this study finds that offshoring has a relatively small impact on both the us and european labour markets compared to other sources of job losses. furthermore, this study concludes that jobs moved from developed countries to low level salaries in the developing countries are low paid work and the range is limited (kirkegaard 2004). a large body of evidence confirms that offshoring is not the cause of mass layoffs. the us bureau of labour statistics shows that only 1% of service layoffs involving more than 50 employees in the first quarter of 2004 was linked with offshoring (farrell 2006) additionally, mary amity and shang-jin wei, two economists at the imf, (cited in farrell 2006) estimate that us and uk service sectors exposed to offshoring are creating as many or more new jobs than the ones that move offshore. another argument against offshoring is that offshoring might lead to the destruction of human capital. trefler (2005) assumes that if a worker is separated from his/her firm, firm-specific human capital is lost as well. this may reduce the incentives of both managers and workers to invest in developing firmspecific knowledge. for example, a well-paid information system (it) consultant will typically know much more than just it. he/she will know about the unique needs of the firm. offshoring leads to more frequent separations between workers and firms, thus destroying important dimensions of human capital. in other words, this study presumes that offshoring is likely to reduce the length and value of worker-firm relationships. however, as the above analysis indicates, the assertions are likely to be overstated as there is no clear evidence which support this view. while it is true that there may be losses in human capital, these losses are offset by the gain in total production achieved through offshoring. offshoring allows more developed countries to focus their economic activities on more highly skilled, value-adding processes which may be more financially profitable. it can be further stated that offshoring the production of intermediate business services to low-cost locations could enhance the productivity of companies, allowing them to reduce their prices and earn higher profit (commander et al 2006). what is more, some of the gains from offshoring can be used to help displaced employee cope. wage loss insurance, for example, would cost only a fraction of the savings that offshoring will bring (farrell 2006). moreover, profit generated through offshoring can be used to develop firm‟s human capital. workers need help coping with the accelerated pace of job change that accompanies openness to global trade (farrell 2006). improving human capital would help to overcome losses from offshoring. education and training can have a significant impact on economic growth, particularly through the influence of human capital on the introduction and absorption of new technologies, which in turn can raise overall productivity. in addition, higher profit then can finance more investment to improve existing products or produce new products (commander et al 2006). unfairly exploiting inexpensive foreign labour is also cited as one negative consequence of offshoring. some people believe that companies simply take advantage of paying low level wages and sometimes offer bad working conditions when shifting production to low wage countries. however, a study released by ulferts and howard (2005) indicates that offshoring helps the development of developing countries. many developing countries have exploded into the technology scene in a very short time. as the worker base becomes more skilled and as demand increases for services, wages are increasing. a number of economists think that india's wages could increase so fast that they could push much of the offshore asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 101 labour market from india to china and southeast asia in the next decade. research by commander et al (2006) supports this point and add that india and china which attract offshored jobs will benefit through more jobs, higher incomes, and faster growth. consequently, there will be increased demand for exports from the offshoring nations. in terms of risk involved, opponents of offshoring try to argue that offshoring may lead to certain major risks such as loss of critical skills or abilities and loss of control over the supplier. a good quality product needs to be maintained by firms in order to be competitive and therefore the design, production and the logistics has to be controlled. moving a particular task remotely will make companies lose technical capability and eventually its ability to innovate (pellicelli 2006). it might be true that some risks will be faced through offshoring. however, offshoring basically encourages efficiency. according to a survey, usual cost savings range in between 30 to 60 % (kirkegaard 2004). liikanen (2004) argues that through offshoring many benefits can be obtained as the process also creates value for the home country in a number of ways. for example, by saving costs for the companies that move abroad, by repatriating earnings, and indirectly by redeploying labour with high average wages. in addition, liikanen (2004) remarks that over the medium term the economy will be more proficient and will be using its assets more realistically. employment will also be intensified even in different sectors than those experiencing turn down. still during the transitional stage nationally produced goods and services will take some part of employment lost. furthermore, profit generated by offshoring allows companies to invest in advanced technologies, creating jobs at home as well as abroad. companies‟ skills are even more strengthened because of global competition (farrell 2006). offshoring offers an even larger degree of benefits. as ulferts and howard (2005) state that everyone benefits when considering that shifting jobs offshore would lower costs as a company can sell its products cheaper. shifting particular business functions to other offshore companies allows a company to have no overhead costs. for instance, offshore companies supply their own facilities to do the work. there is no need to take on, hire, or train new employees at all for the company. also, other expenditure related to employees such as insurance, worker‟s compensation, social security, and company benefits are all gone (ulferts and howard 2005). offshoring encourages firms in developed countries to be part of a global market and hence to compete globally. thus, this promotes investment and competitiveness (trefler 2005). a significant study by commander et al (2006) finds that the most important trigger for offshoring have been cost considerations. labour costs in many countries that magnetize offshored activities are 70 – 90 percent lower than in the highly developed market economies. for example, the wages of indian software engineers are about 25% of the wages of comparably skilled american software engineers (as measured between the late 1990s and 2003). such large wage gaps can create considerable costs savings for firms, allowing them to reduce their price and reinforce their competitive position in global markets. foreign outsourcing can speed up the formation of innovative products and services (brainard and litan 2004). most firms especially those depending on information and technology are using highly trained foreign technicians to build prototypes of new products and services. a fast escalation of traded services involving innovative, technology-intensive processes has been occurring and involves high paid whitecollar workers (trefler 2005). it is therefore clear that offshoring will have parallel beneficial effects for economic growth and job creation in the companies and in the countries from which jobs are offshored. india and china that mostly attract offshored jobs will also benefit through more jobs, higher incomes, and faster growth. consequently, there will be increased demand for exports from the offshoring nations. briefly, offshoring, asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, sonja elsegood and ali rahimi 102 like other forms of trade should be positive for both offshored and offshoring countries (commander et al 2006). in conclusion, in spite of many different arguments against offshoring, one cannot assume that risks related to offshoring would scale up for the broader economy. indeed, there are obvious benefits that offset the disadvantages of offshoring. offshoring which is caused by improvement in international communication, the computerization of business services as well as the availability of an educated labour force has provided substantial cost savings and improved economic growth for both original and destination countries. the challenge is to deal with these forces and trends so as not only to compete better, but also to create higher paying jobs which in turn result in a higher quality of life. clearly, offshoring presents attractive opportunities for enterprises and converts benefits to costumers (liikanen 2004). offshoring is likely to grow in the future and could have positive effect on global economic development. bibliography 1. aea‟s board of directors 2004, “offshore outsourcing in an increasingly competitive and rapidly changing world: a high-tech perspective”, advancing the business of technology, retrieved 9 august 2008, http://www.aeanet.org 2. antràs, p (2005), “discussion of daniel trefler's, offshoring: threats and opportunities," presented at the brookings trade forum, harvard university, nber and cepr, may 12, 2005, retrieved 9 august 2008, http://www.brookings.edu 3. brainard, l and litan, re 2004, “service offshoring: bane or boon and what to do?”, cesifo forum, journal on european economic issues, summer 2004, vol.5, no.2, retrieved 6 august 2008, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu 4. carmel, e and abbott, p 2007, “why „nearshore‟ means that distance matters”, communication of the acm, october 2007, vol.50, no.10, retrieved 7 august 2008, http://anapps.american.edu 5. commander, s et al., 2006, “migrating workers and jobs: a challenge to the european social model?”, london business school, retrieved 7 august 2008, http://ftp.iza.org 6. cronin, b, catchpowle, l and hall, d 2004, “outsourcing and offshoring”, cesifo forum, journal on european economic issues, summer 2004, vol.5, no.2, retrieved 6 august 2008, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu 7. farrell, d 2006, “u.s. offshoring: small steps to make it win – win”, economists‟ voice, march 2006, the berkeley electronic press, retrieved 7 august 2008, http://www.mckinsey.com 8. kirkegaard, jf 2004, “offshore outsourcing – much ado about what?”, cesifo forum, journal on european economic issues, summer 2004, vol.5, no.2, retrieved 6 august 2008, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu 9. kirkegaard, jf 2004, “outsourcing – stain on the white collar?”, institute for international economics, retrieved 7 august 2008, http://www.iie.com/publications 10. liikanen, e 2004, “adjustment of europe‟s industries in a competitive world”, cesifo forum, journal on european economic issues, summer 2004, vol.5, no.2, retrieved 7 august 2008, http://www.iie.com/publications 11. pellicelli, m 2006, “the new economic of outsourcing: empirical evidence from italian textileapparel industry”, study aziendali e manageriali, 2006, retrieved 9 august 2008, retrieved from science direct database http://www.sciencedirect.com 12. trefler, d 2005, “offshoring: threats and opportunities”, paper prepared for the brookings trade forum, 12 – 13 may, washington dc, retrieved 7 august 2008, http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca ulferts, gw and howard, tl 2005, “offshore outsourcing: the impact on businesses”, viewed 9 august 2008, http://www.sbaer.uca.edu http://www.aeanet.org/ http://www.brookings.edu/ http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/ http://anapps.american.edu/ http://ftp.iza.org/ http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/ http://www.mckinsey.com/ http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/ http://www.iie.com/publications http://www.iie.com/publications http://www.sciencedirect.com/ http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/ http://www.sbaer.uca.edu/ asiacall online journal received: 16/12/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 16/02/2021 vol. 12, no. 3, 2021 accepted: 06/03/2021 pp. 39-46 online: 07/03/2021 english language-learning environments in covid-19 era nguyen van my ho chi minh city university of education *corresponding author: email: nguyenmydhsptphcm@gmail.com abstract no doubt that english education is a complex process, and its successes depend on many variables. of these, english language-learning environments for regular practice are commonly accepted as a prerequisite in the contexts of english as a foreign language (efl). unfortunately, the questions of what english language-learning environments exactly are and how these are to be implemented have not been well addressed. the present paper reviews the literature on the concept of english language-learning environments and identifies approaches for successful applications of those environments for english language education. the present paper contributes to the growing body of literature on foreign language education and draws special attention to english language teaching theories (elt). keywords: efl contexts, english-language environments, technology-based approach, english language learning introduction in today’s second and foreign language classrooms in south east asia, the main purpose of teaching and learning is to develop the learners’ communicative proficiency in the target language (tl). the field of english language teaching (elt) has been witnessing considerable changes and developments in its theories and practices. these attempts involve investigating solutions to raise the effectiveness of english education and to keep up with the rapid developments of society. in addition to issues such as the teaching methods, content, activities, and teaching materials, it must be said that the implementation of english language-learning environments requires appropriate teaching approaches which facilitate opportunities for the learners to immerse in the english language inside and outside classrooms. the questions of how to effectively create an english language-learning environment have not mostly addressed. as an attempt to highlight special attention to the crucial understanding of methods in the teaching process, the present study proposes brief explanations on the english language-learning environment and identifies critical relationships between basic components, finally ending with pedagogical applications of its theories into the english language instructions as a foreign language (efl). in response to society's rapid development, a shift away from the disciplinary knowledge, which is not persuasive and evident enough, toward applications of the interdisciplinary knowledge to solve systematic and complicated problems. similarly, the author proposes a preliminary model of the english language-learning environment structures based on an analysis of the critical theories concerning elt theories, sociolinguistics, social psychology, and systematic theories. rationale theories of english language-learning environments, which have been developed throughout the history of language education worldwide since the 1970s, are commonly known as an emphasis on the use of language inside and outside classrooms. it is widely acknowledged that there are two kinds of linguistic environments – formal linguistic environments and informal linguistic environments. as distinguished by krashen (1976), the use of active language happens irregularly in the formal environments (classrooms), as opposed to the informal environments, in which the active language is regularly used in the concepts of english as a second language (esl) [8]. it would be wrong to state that the classification as mentioned above is entirely appropriate to a variety of today's english language teaching and learning contexts. in other words, it is essential to make a distinction between the esl contexts and the efl contexts or other contexts, for each case, the context in which the teaching takes place is very different, requiring differences in materials, syllabuses, and methodologies (carter & nunan, 2001) [3]. in the esl https://asiacall.info/acoj mailto:nguyenmydhsptphcm@gmail.com acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 40 contexts including the united kingdom, the united states, or countries in africa (i.e., nigeria and zambia), as mentioned by ellis (1994), english plays an institutional and social role in the community (e.g., its functions as a recognized means of communication among members who speak some other language as their mother language) [6]. on the contrary, efl is used in contexts where english is neither widely used for communication nor used as the medium of instruction (i.e., brazil, japan, korea, thailand, and vietnam) [6]. for the outside-classroom environment creating, learners use english in real-life situations in which they set themselves demanding goals and express english purposely and meaningfully. nevertheless, it isn't easy to establish the outside-classroom environment in the efl contexts because the learners mostly do not need to use english in socio-communicative situations (frequently use mother language instead). in most efl contexts, including vietnam, similarly, learners have fewer opportunities for english practices (focusing mainly on learning activities inside classrooms), even having no in some cases, the english instructions are only implemented in mother language (l1). despite spending much time learning english, there is a mismatch between the ability in english inside classrooms and the use of english in real-life communicative situations. it is increasingly important that the english language-learning environments play an essential role in the success of english teaching and learning in the efl contexts. english as a foreign language based on the analysis mentioned above, a "closed-english ecology" conceptual model was empirically designed to account for the english language-learning environment settings (figure 1). in this conceptual model, the two main components of the english language-learning environments are the inside-classroom and outside-classroom environment creating. to be more specific, creating an inside-classroom environment is the implementation of teaching approaches that enthusiastically stimulate classroom interactions to use english as much as possible. depending on particular contexts, the outside-classroom english language-learning environments can be created by facilitating much-needed conditions, especially social life-illustrating situations for repeated english practices beyond classrooms. figure 1: the structure of the english language-learning environment (1) the interactions between teachers and learners inside and outside classrooms the inside-class interactions acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 41 in english classrooms, explanations of classroom interactions here focus primarily on the purposeful use of the english language from the teacher and learners, at least in the teacher's questions or feedback and the learners' responses through classroom situations (figure 2). in this regard, tsui (2001) proposes that the effectiveness of the classroom situations (a means of classroom interactions) is reflected in how the teachers create opportunities for learners to engage in the production of english [12]. to be more consistent with the english language-learning environment's notions, classroom situations are considered classroom tasks and learning activities for learners to communicate in english with the teachers or other learners interactively. figure 2: the illustrations of inside-class interactions relating to the effectiveness of classroom interactions, it is essential to discuss the roles of the learner's willingness to interact or collaborate. this is particularly due to the fact that the learners only interact with others in classrooms or social life on the condition that they have certain purposes or needs. many important arguments suggested by the literature propose that when teaching structures meet the learners' expectations or enable learners to be more active in their learning, the teaching will be more effective (dörnyei, 1998; tudor, 1996) [5] [13]. furthermore, the learners' willingness depends on either internal factors (i.e., genders and ages, the characteristics, knowledge background, language backgrounds including the level of english, personal backgrounds, motivations, or expectations) or external factors (i.e., learning environments, similarities in cultural backgrounds of partners, or teaching approaches). more importantly, the increase of teacher-learner interactions (especially young learners) relates to the teacher's styling identity. based on the teachers' characteristics or social-life backgrounds (the social-psychological approach), the teacher's styling identity might include "open-minded styles" and "close-minded styles." for the teachers with the open-minded styling identity, it is believed that their interactions with learners may be open and friendlier, as opposed to the close-minded styling identity ones. depending on the local contextual details, however, the teachers' styling identity contains different considerations, whether positives or negatives. to conclude this extensive discussion, it is important to design appropriate classroom situations to promote the use of english as much as possible effectively. for learners' background diversity, it is required that many reviews of different aspects relevant, the social-psychology included, have strong influences on the interactions between the teacher and learners or among groups of learners inside classrooms. in other cases, the teacher is involved in an integral part that provides learners with opportunities for developing positive self-images and raising their willingness to interact in english with others. another aspect worth mentioning is that the english language-learning approaches' effectiveness is also dependent on the teachers' professionals. based on real-life classroom observations, the teacher stimulates the use of english inside classrooms, especially instructing learning activities, supporting the learners as language resources, or encouraging learners to produce english in the teaching process. in english proverbs, it is often said that "nothing can succeed without the help of the teacher”, compared to a vietnamese proverb “không thầy đố mày làm nên". in a study conducted in the vietnamese context, canh and renandya (2017) found that teachers with high proficiency are more confident in the use of target language and develop more interesting and engaging classroom causing target language and developing proficiency in english and their understanding of elt methodologies impact little or much on the teaching process's success. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 42 the outside-class interactions for the success of the english language-learning approaches outside class, it is vitally important to establish a friendly learning environment for english practices. to meet the objective, the teacher must be in the role of an instructor or a co-learner who provides learners with advanced necessities for regularly practicing english outside classrooms and inspires them to be more active in the learning process. of these necessities, the teacher frequently engages learners in learning tasks or required-suitably projects in which they are able to recall and apply linguistic competencies (i.e., vocabulary, lexico-grammar, or grammatical structures) in the production of the four-english skills. it seems understandable that the teacher should be a source of motivation for continuously enhancing english competencies outside classrooms. (2)-(3) the effects of socio-communicative situations in this review, the socio-communicative situations are defined as real-life opportunities for learners to transfer what they learn in lessons to the daily use of english (both oral and written production). not surprisingly, the sociocommunicative situations are affective variables associated with the use of english from the learners outside classrooms. these situations mostly remain in the community where members speak english as a mother language (l1), a second language (esl), or a “lingua franca” (english is considered a common language in a multilingual community where the people speak many languages, for example, european communities). despite having many different arguments, the globally rapid spread of english has remarkably changed english's status in many parts of the world. it is estimated that over 100 countries (e.g., china, russia, germany, spain, egypt, and brazil) where english is widely taught as a foreign language (crystal, 2016) [4]. the efl learners are likely motivated by the so-called means for integration, of which english is considered an international language. the primary purpose of learning english from the efl learners is to be more proficient in the four-english skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), which help them meet the current labor markets' requirement. it might make learners focus on the learning process and enormously engage their purposes in the high efforts to learn english. in addition to making sure that the teaching approaches for setting inputs (linguistic competencies) are comprehensive, similarly, those for the output of english (communicative competencies) are lively and purposeful. regarding the discussion, “communicative competence may be defined as the ability to function in a truly communicative setting – that is, in a dynamic exchange in which linguistic competence must adapt itself to the total informational input, both linguistic and paralinguistic, of one or more interlocutors” (savignon, 1972, as cited by hadley, 1993) [7]. for the successful settings of the dynamic exchanges between the input and output, the teacher appropriately selects more purposeful learning resources and design authentic activities with intercultural contents approachable in sociocommunicative situations. a reasonable reason is that the learners are frequently motivated by some common topics related to their hobbies or interests and their available understandings. as pedagogical practices, the teacher needs to regularly update the methodology suited to the rapid development of society so that they can select appropriate sociocommunicative situations for demonstrating in english classrooms, which are more responsive to the learners’ diverse backgrounds (e.g., genders and ages, knowledge backgrounds, backgrounds of english ability, or cultural backgrounds). (4) the use of english inside and outside classrooms from the learners understandably, the paramount important purpose of the existence of any languages on our planet is for the people in the society to carry out socio-communicative functions. no exception in this review, especially english, is more and more important in globalization and integration today. as highlighted above, learning and teaching aim to effectively use english in real-life social situations (both oral or written production). therefore, the flections on the learners' english use inside and outside classrooms are considerably used to evaluate the effectiveness of the english learning and teaching process. specifically, when learners express themselves in english meaningfully and interactively in real-life situations, the english learning process's effectiveness is recognized. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 43 approaches for classroom practice before discussing how to create a linguistic environment inside classrooms effectively, it has been claimed that the practices of english depend on the proficiency of the learners (from the beginners to the advanced learners). pedagogically, the inside-class english language-learning approaches are to motivate the use of english inside classrooms, which starts with developing linguistic competence (i.e., vocabulary, lexico-grammar, or grammatical structures) and meaningfully produces english in the classroom situations (communicative competence). according to krashen (1976), the contributions of classrooms as the formal english language-learning environments are to provide the language input (rule isolation and feedback) to activate the developments of language use [8]. finding an agreement with ellis's (2002) concepts of practice and consciousness-raising, in which "the learners are provided with opportunities to practice the structures, first under controlled conditions, and then under more normal communicative conditions" [6]. as mentioned previously, the use of english inside classrooms are stimulated by the purposeful interactions between the teacher with learners or among the learners. consequently, the english language-learning approaches to productions of english need to be implemented in a class community (i.e., work in pairs, or working in small groups). in his history of language teaching, webb (1982) observed that learner-learner interactions in group work outstandingly expand the learners' talking time instead of only demonstrating what they have learned [14]. in some cases, roleplays are effective in creating needed opportunities for practices of english inside classrooms. relatively few empirical studies conducted to investigate the effectiveness of roleplays in teaching english in vietnam; as explained by nguyen (2019), role plays and dramatizations enable learners to use english in a funny and interesting way when illustrating communicative situations related to their lives (i.e., greetings, booking rooms in a hotel, clothes, and weather) and gradually develop the learners' fluency in english [9]. on the other hand, the effectiveness of activities based on interpersonal skills (i.e., small groups or pairs) requires a highly well-prepared process from the teacher. these well-established stages are not only in preparing learners for group work but also in designing appropriate learning tasks and monitoring what learners are doing in class. more importantly, small-group work learning tasks need to be sufficiently open-ended and challenging to engage learners in higher-order thinking without being too confusing. in a series of classroom observations, battistich et al. (1993) propose that the use of group work is negatively related to achievement if group interaction is disrespectful or unequal [1]. in a classroom, some learners, in this case, have some difficulties interacting positively with others due to a lack of the social skills necessary (i.e., team-working skills or communicative skills) and diversity of social background. to deal with these problems, learners should be explicitly trained in communicative skills, namely paraphrasing or listening to other people's ideas before using small group work. in addition to the mentioned-above activities, discussion in a group or whole class settings actively promotes learnerlearner interactions inside the class. in day-to-day practice, however, the discussion needs to be carefully prepared and usually needs to follow on from some prior activities such as a previous lesson on a certain topic. in this sense, the teachers should enable learners to prepare their own ideas for a particular topic before the lesson. subsequently, the teachers need to clearly set out the purpose of the discussion from the start to keep it focused and to the point. during the discussion, the teacher needs to respond to the learners’ ideas in such a flexible way as to encourage them to clarify and be more conscious of their thought processes. approaches for outside-classroom practice it is well-known that a cutting-edge difference between the efl contexts and the other contexts, including esl contexts or native english contexts, is that the use of english as a means of communication irregularly happens in social-life situations. as a consequence, the english language-learning approaches are to generate much-needed conditions in which learners are able to apply linguistic competence to meaningful productions of english in both oral and written outside classrooms. to help students to transfer what they learn to real-world situations, applied activities should be more authentic or as close to real-world experiences as possible. it is vitally significant for the teachers to flexibly take advantage of onsite environments when hands-on practice needs to match real-world scenarios and engage multiple senses (e.g., face-to-face interaction with people or hands-on interaction with physical objects). actions for the aforementioned purposes, using group-work settings outside classrooms, improve learners' interactions and engagements with ongoing english practices. one of these learning types, project-based learning (pbl), being a student-centered form of learning that involves students spending sustained periods of study time exploring and attempting to solve real-life problems, is an appropriate choice for this situation. as a matter of fact, applying projectacojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 44 based activities into english teaching facilitates opportunities for learners to engage what they learn in real-world situations outside classrooms. nevertheless, project-based learning also contains some problems in teaching and learning english. for example, the question of how to effectively individualize participation or learning outcome evaluations needs to be considered carefully when applying project-based learning approaches. technology integration today's communication needs are more and more expanding over the borders of each nation because of globalization. of these demands, cultural understanding or academic exchanges between domestic learners and international learners are increasingly becoming necessary. in other words, there are the existences of purposeful interactions between the communities around the world. to successfully engage these interactions in the english classrooms, applying advancements of technology is a reasonable consideration. as technology innovations rapidly expand the universe of possibilities in many areas, online technologies facilitate closer connections among learners of english around the world. based on social networks' advancements, learners of english advantageously make communication with native speakers in purposeful situations. furthermore, continual advancements in technology and internet connections possibly offer efl learners enormous opportunities to approach the near-native learning environment. these resources are useful for the teacher to select authentic materials with intercultural content. easily observed in real-life situations, learners are extremely interested in trendy events on social networks (e.g., facebook, zalo, or native english vloggers on youtube). in some cases, the teachers could guide learners on using available learning resources, enabling them to develop self-directed learning skills at home in unstressed ways. reinders and white (2010) commented that technology is applied to individualize the language learning process and offers learners language learning opportunities outside the classroom as well [11]. regards creating the english language-learning environments for the regular practice of english in the contexts of teaching english as a foreign language, nguyen (2020) suggests a conceptual framework for integrating technology into the communicative language teaching activities to motivate learners to speak english (figure 3). from the findings of his empirical study, integrating computer and smartphone assistants into communicative language activities (i.e., roleplays and dramatizations, project-based activities, and opinion-sharing activities) enables learners to interact with the english language with variously interesting hands-on activities both inside and outside the classroom and slightly enhances the learner’s performances in english speaking [10]. figure 3: conceptual framework for integrating technology into the communicative language teaching activities to motivate learners to speak english conclusion it must be concluded that the english language-learning environment is repeatedly defined as the implementation of appropriate teaching approaches that enthusiastically promote the regular practices of english from learners. it is a prerequisite in english contexts as a foreign language (efl). in light of the views expressed in the present paper, the concepts of the english language-learning environments in efl contexts differ from the ones in the esl concepts. in most efl contexts, opportunities for using english occur regularly in classrooms (formal language environments), compared with the esl contexts, “a distinction must be made between informal environments in which active language use occurs regularly and those in which language use is irregular” (krashen, 1976, p.157) [8]. from theories to practices, this paper respectively extends understanding of what english language-learning environments are or how to model the structures of its components. to illustrate this, the author reviews a variety of concepts and draws a acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 45 model of the english language-learning environments for the acquisition of english in efl contexts. the model of the english language-learning environments exactly explains what main components and their roles are, or what the teachers and learners do in the english acquisition process. furthermore, the author reveals some suggestions for successful applications of its theories in real-life practices. it is hoped that the present paper extends the literature review in the field of english language teaching and draws special attention to the importance of the english languagelearning environment for english acquisition, besides the focus on theories of elt methodology from elt scholars around the world. authors’ contributions mr. nguyen van my is an early researcher in language acquisition and language studies and an english and russian teacher as foreign languages. he received formal training in teaching english and russian as foreign languages at the ho chi minh city university of education, vietnam. his current research interests include language teaching methodology, curriculum developments, technology in language teaching, learner motivations, and language assessments. his research interests are reflected in his publications in the areas of english language teaching and technology and language assessments. acknowledgments i would like to express my special thanks to prof. john f. fanselow, teachers college columbia university, tokyo japan, for his precious time to read the early draft and give some sympathetic responses, and eminently reasonable and constructive suggestions, many of which make the paper better as a result. furthermore, i am grateful for the organizing committee to accept the paper for presentation at the asiacall 2021, in association with vl-tesol, the 17th international conference of asiacall, to be hosted by van lang university, vietnam. i sincerely thank the editors and reviewers for reading and giving critical comments on the paper. concurrently, i would like to express my heartfelt thanks to my beloved teacher, dr. vu thi hong van, ho chi minh city university of education, for her guidance, understanding, and great inspirations. references battistich, v., solomon, d. and delucchi, k. (1993) interaction processes and student outcomes in cooperative learning groups. elementary school journal 94, 19–32. canh, l., v., & renandya, w., a. (2017). teachers’ english proficiency and classroom language use: a conversation analysis study. relc journal, 48(1), 67–81. carter, r., & nunan, d. (2001). the cambridge guide to teaching english to speakers of other languages. cambridge: cambridge university press. crystal, d. (2016). english as a global language (2nd ed.). new york, us: cambridge university press. dörnyei, z. (1998). motivation in second and foreign language learning. language teaching, 31, 117-135. doi: 10.1017/s026144480001315x. ellis, r. (2002). grammar teaching-practice or consciousness-raising? in richards, j., c. & renandya, w., (eds.), methodology in language teaching: an anthology of current practice, (pp.167-174). cambridge: cambridge university press. hadley, a., o. (1993). teaching language in context. boston, massachusetts, us: heinle & heinle publishers. krashen, s., k. (1976). formal and informal linguistic environments in language acquisition and language learning. tesol quarterly, 10(2), 157-168. nguyen, v., m. (2019). solutions to problems of the communicative language teaching activities: raising learners’ motivations and applying technology equipment, proceeding of the international conference “language teaching and learning today”, pp. 164 – 181. vietnam national university – ho chi minh press. nguyen, v., m. (2020). integrating technology into the communicative language activities to motivate learners to speak english, proceeding of the international conference “globalization and localization in computer-assisted language learning”, pp. 60 – 72. da nang publishing press. reinders, h. & white, c. (2010). “the theory and practice of technology in materials development and task design” in n. harwood (ed.) english language teaching materials: theory and practice. cambridge: cambridge university press. pp. 5880. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 46 tsui, a. (2001). classroom interaction. in cater, r., & nunan, d., (eds.). the cambridge guide to teaching english to speakers of other languages, (pp.120-125). cambridge: cambridge university press. tudor, i. (1996). learner-centredness as language education. cambridge: cambridge university express. webb, n. m. (1982). student interaction and learning in small groups. review of educational research, 52(3), 421– 445. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543052003421. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543052003421 incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a18 incorporating music in call: an exploratory study establishing a protocol for computer assisted language learning incorporating music (callim) kim rockell kimusiknz@gmail.com the university of aizu, japan submitted 14 january, 2015; accepted in final form 17 september, 2015 abstract research in fields such as cognitive science, anthropology and sociolinguistics strongly support the importance of the music/language nexus, while in the language classroom, music is increasingly recognized as a valuable education tool. interesting studies, such as franzblau’s computer-aided learning system employing a pitch tracking line, and lenz’s system for learning music using a computer game, have potential application to music in call. however, very few studies have addressed the combination of music, language and computers directly. this paper reports on a recent, japan-based, exploratory study, which probes the affordances and constraints of incorporating music in a call environment, establishing a protocol for computer assisted language learning incorporating music (callim). approaches used previously without a computer are applied to call, to help discover the key functionalities and sustainable approaches that assist in learning a language through music in a digital age. reflective practice, auditor intervention and diary work inform data collection and analysis. the study reveals a number of interesting contradictions that arise when moving from a pre-call to call environment. it also sheds light on issues that impact on searching and sampling, vocabulary learning strategies, and developing comprehension skills and cultural competence when incorporating musical strategies. with ilocano song lyric texts as a point of departure, the importance of employing varied rhythmic drills and featuring music as a component of rich input (ri) is also highlighted by the study. keywords: call, music, reflective practice, self-directed learning, ilocano. introduction music, language learning and computers combine in an exploratory nexus at the centre for language research (clr) at the university of aizu, in fukushima, japan. part of an institution that specializes in computer science and engineering, over the past two decades, the clr has produced a steady stream of call related research (brine & franken, 2006, p. 7; brine, wilson, & roy, 2007; lambacher, 1999; warschauer, 1995, 1996, 1997). this stimulating environment has prompted the exploration of call from my own perspective as both a language learner and a musician, and motivated recent research into the way teachers are incorporating music in the language classroom (k. rockell & ocampo, 2014). much of my personal experience of language learning tended towards self-directed learning (sdl) and what schön referred to as “deviant traditions of education”(schön, 1987). these earlier attempts did not involve computers, but relied on a rather bulky array of language learning materials. reflection on this precall period, motivated curiosity about how the language learning techniques practiced without the computer might be re-applied to call, incorporating music and as an autonomous, self-directed learner. in choosing a focus language for this project, ilocano, i was guided by previous work on the preservation of cultural heritage within the migrant filipino community (k. rockell, 2012, 2013; k. f. rockell, 2009, 2012). these studies revealed the importance of language retention in migrant communities in which call may play an increasingly important role. the goal in this research was to discover the key functionalities of incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a19 the computer that can be made use of to teach oneself ilocano incorporating music, helping to establish a protocol for computer assisted language learning incorporating music (callim). rather than allowing the power of the technology to take preference, the aim was to see if the procedures used previously in the precall environment could work with technology, and in what way they might be modified, improved or even hindered in the process. asking, “what are the fundamental things, not embodied in the technology, which outlive changing technologies?” it was also the author’s hope that that the careful documentation of a self-study might make an interesting, idiographic contribution and offer additional insights into what is known about autodidactic, adult language learning. methodology in documenting this project, a combination of diary and journal writing was used. supported by several authors (bolger, davis, & rafaeli, 2003, p. 13; matsumoto, 1996; rieman, 1993; zimmerman, 2008), diary research provides “a powerful set of methods for studying various human phenomena” and offers “a unique window on human phenomenology”(bolger et al., 2003, pp. 580, 610). diaries are listed along with computer traces, think-aloud protocols, direct observation and microanalyses as online measures that provide “valuable new information regarding the casual impact of srl [self regulated learning] processes” (zimmerman, 2008, p. 166). diary work in language research has been strongly supported by researchers in japan (matsumoto, 1996; wojtowicz, 2014), where matsumoto believes that diary keeping is best combined with questionnaires and interviews as “as means of optimal self-reflection in the learning process” (matsumoto, 1996, p. 147). the terms “diary” and “journal” overlap. “diary” tends to indicate the regular recording of times, duration, frequency and basic details of study activities, while “journal” implies the writing up of wider ranging and more detailed observations. in this study, diary/journal entries following a three-part model of reflective practice, and retrospective coding (see appendix 1) were used. the research was also monitored at regular intervals through a series of independent auditor interventions. the idea of “reflective practice” and the importance of reflecting on ongoing experience has long since been established by schön (schön, 1987). journal writing, being “both the place where the events and experiences are recorded and the forum by which they are processed and re-formed”, is an ideal support for such a practice (boud, 2001, pp. 10-11). the microanalyses of these processes has frequently been applied the investigation of athletic skills, but it may also be very useful to apply to the language learning (zimmerman, 2008, p. 179). a basic framework of this “cyclical model of self-regulated learning involving three sequential phases: preaction, action and post action” is presented below (zimmerman, 2008, pp. 173, 178): incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a20 figure 1 cyclic model of self-regulated learning applying this idea to journal writing, typical processes associated with each phase are listed below (boud, 2001, pp. 12-13): 1. in anticipation of events (reflecting of intents, goals, expectations and what we want from the activity) 2. during events (noticing, intervening and reflection in action) 3. afterward (return to experience, attending to feelings and re-evaluation of experience) during the afterward-phase, the role of feelings and emotions in decision-making can be emphasized, and it is “not simply a process of thinking” (boud, 2001, p. 13). music/songs the importance of the music/language nexus is “substantiated by research in the fields of cognitive science, anthropology, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, first language acquisition (fla) and second language acquisition (sla)” (engh, 2013, p. 113). in the language classroom, many increasingly share the view of music as a “proven teaching tool” (setia et al., 2012, p. 271), which has the potential to really “helps students succeed as efl students” (jalongo & bromley, 1984). songs, in particular, being texturally based, are a natural starting point. however, although songs are currently used by teachers world-wide (murphey, 1992), it is pertinent to ask what intrinsic qualities songs posses that pertain to language learning.1 to highlight these for the purposes of this study i define as song as: an affectively enriched text with enhanced prosody and rhythmic emphasis, built-in repetition and embedded cultural information. 1 to merely suggest that songs are beneficial is not enough. after all, almost any object, model, text, map, sonic data or musical texture may be of potential benefit, depending on the way the materials are used in language learning. forethought phase goal setting/strategic planning performance phase metacognitive monitorning self-reflection phase self evaluation incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a21 affectively enriched texts can evoke a variety of emotional responses including laughter, and have an aesthetic dimension, rendering them more attractive and capable of capturing our attention (butto, holsworth, morikawa, wakabayashi, & edelmen, 2014). by “harnessing music’s affective power” (k. rockell & ocampo, 2014, p. 38), these elements positively influence learners’ attitudes, motivation and confidence (setia et al., 2012, p. 270). they makes learning more lively (campbell, campbell, & dickinson, 1996) and create a learning environment which is more exciting and at the same time more “relaxed and conducive” to studying language (setia et al., 2012, p. 274). enhanced prosody and rhythmic emphasis draw our attention to features of intonation and stress in spoken language (davanellos, 1999) . this, in turn, assists students in improving pronunciation (setia et al., 2012, p. 273). repetition is found frequently in strophic song texts with chorus, verse alternation. repetition provides a natural opportunity to practice units of language and aids in the automatization of colloquial language (setia et al., 2012, p. 274). it also promotes recall as a result of intensified input (murphey, 1992). working with song has a positive effect on recall because it helps to lodge language in the short and long-term memory has been described as an “easy way to remember quite long chunks of a language” (campbell et al., 1996; salcedo, 2010, pp. 23,27; setia et al., 2012, p. 271). frequently too, songs contain embedded information about the cultural environment and circumstances in which they came into being, making them a “potentially culturally rich resource for the language classroom” (engh, 2013, p. 115) and base for cultural knowledge activities (kristen lems, 2001). of course, like any other text, song lyrics contain individual vocabulary items and examples of grammatical structures, which could be examined on their own and without recourse to musical strategies (murphey, 1992, p. 271; setia et al., 2012). songs are authentic or natural language materials (setia et al., 2012, p. 274) and, when carefully selected, can enhance interest, recall, pronunciation and cultural understanding, as described above. recognizing these benefits, the two ilocano song texts were incorporated during the current project. ilocano ilocano is an austronesian language with its homeland in northwest luzon, philippines. with approximately nine million speakers, it is the philippine language with the third largest number of native speakers after cebuano and tagalog (rubino, 1998, pp. 7-8). the philippines archipelago exhibits “remarkable linguistic diversity”(rubino, 1998, p. 8). out of a total of 101 languages spoken throughout the country, ilocano appears amongst a list of 14 languages spoken by at least one percent of the total household population (roxas & borra, 2000, p. 1). as mentioned earlier, this projected followed on from earlier ethnomusicological fieldwork into philippine music when ilocano was encountered through the song title, “manang biday”, in an instrumental arrangement performed by filipino migrants to australia. there, it appeared as part of a core repertoire of filipino folk and popular songs and folkdances, and as representative of the instrumentalists’ identity as “filipinos and as migrants in the broader australian society” (k. f. rockell, 2012, p. 376). while most songs appeared to have tagalog titles, the appearance of titles in other languages such as bicol, hiligaynon, ilocano and cebuano which represented the “diversity of philippine ethnic and linguistic groups” (k. f. rockell, 2012, p. 394). “manang biday” is an ilocano folk song from the northern philippines, which tells of a man serenading an older woman. not long into the project, during e-field work, the researcher came across “laglagipen”, a song associated with the performer lea dansalan, and this too became a textural vehicle with which to explore callim.2 2 current work on ilocano is also a useful preparation for a planned future investigation of mutual intelligibility between the yami or tao language of orchid island, taiwan and other northern philippine languages such as incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a22 computer assisted language learning incorporating music (callim) almost two decades have passed since levy’s attempt to “define a framework for the description and analysis of call research in terms of identifying the goals of call researchers and clarifying the unique features and problems of call research” (stockwell, 2007, p. 106). at that time, an interdisciplinary tendency in much call-related academic literature, was noted, highlighting the “multitude of approaches” that the field seemed to invite (levy, 1997, pp. 1,2). today, however, despite their extraordinary potential, “the development of high-tech study environments is yet in its infancy” (zimmerman, 2008, pp. 171-172). a number of works amongst the 623 items listed in the extensive references of levy’s computer-assisted language learning deal with video, multimedia and hypermedia, but not one of these specifically addresses music or song in call (levy, 1997). since then, some studies linking computers, music and language learning have been conducted, but overall the area appears to have received scant attention. interesting developments such as franzblau’s computer-aided learning system employing a pitch tracking line, which helps to control the pitch and rhythm of a singer’s voice (franzblau, 2007), and lenz’s system for learning music using a computer game (lenz, 2011) have potential application, but are not aimed specifically at language learners. examples of the few studies that do address music, language and computers include pinkard’s examination of the use of childhood songs as literary scaffolds in computer-based learning environments (pinkard, 2001). more recently, lems has referred to the use of music-related topics in computer assignments (kristin lems, 2005), and work in computational linguistics has examined learning word meanings and descriptive parameter spaces from music (whitman, roy, & vercoe, 2003). a taiwanese web-based study of the influence of song repetition, likeability and understandability on efl learner outcomes (beasley & chuang, 2008) is also of interest. conscious of the concern that the call literature “abounds with one-off projects” (levy, 1997, p. vii), it is the author’s wish that callim be both seen within a broader call context, and recognized as a new and growing area in its own right, to which this paper makes a small contribution. to facilitate a comparison between the pre-call and call workstation environments, the following section sets out to make explicit a range of language learning techniques previously employed without the computer. retrospective diary archive: the pre-call language learning station circa 2000 growing up in new zealand, in the 1980s, i observed sdl efforts using endless-loop tapes, shortwave radio and cassette players. language learners lamented the seeming difficulty of learning a language outside the country where it is normally spoken, and envisaged a special immersion lab into which one could retreat for lengthy periods of linguistic development. a decade later, during the late 1990s while working at the central queensland conservatorium of music (and prior to owning my first computer), i assembled my first language study environment. although it is claimed that foreign languages can be learned successfully with “no technology support at all” (doughty & long, 2003, p. 38), historical technologies such as handwriting, printing or memorization strategies have long been considered integral to the study of languages. the pre-call environment did rely on these, and other technologies, but did not directly involve the use of a computer. ilocano. conversations between the author and a combined taiwanese aboriginal folk dance group with members from several different tribes in hualian, 2007, touched on the topic of mutual intelligibility between philippine and taiwanese languages. incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a23 two main principles guided study using this pre-call language learning station. firstly, the idea of rich input (ri) combining comprehensible and “real world” language was important. the benefits of linguistically rich input in language learning is supported in the literature (doughty & long, 2003, pp. 4753, 57). language input, which is “not just a matter of linguistic complexity, but of quality, quantity, variety, genuineness, and relevance”, has been recognized as important for adult foreign language learners. several audio sources blending spoken language and/or music were present simultaneously during the majority of time spend studying at the pre-call workstation. sourcing such materials brought in to play liam’s three basic principles of awareness, autonomy and achievement or “the 3 as” (ap lian, 1987; andrew lian, 2000). secondly, the idea combining, uniting or simultaneously exercising the four processes with deliberate intensity was considered important. language presented via text and audio sources was spoken aloud energetically and written at the same time. the pace of speaking and writing were frequently different, so several looped repetitions of a particular utterance would be spoken, while the same language was written, one word at a time, at a slower rate. during this process, spoken language, and music or song, continually informed the ear, both consciously and unconsciously from the various audio sources. music, specifically, was incorporated into this pre-call environment in two main ways: 1. as a component of ri, as described above. 2. as looped, sung, formulaic sequences or lexical chunks (schmit, 2000; wray, 2000), practiced repetitively to the accompaniment of a simple musical instrument (keyboard, guitar, ukulele or percussion). the pre-call study environment or workstation was established on the balcony of a freestanding, twostory house in central queensland, australia. it combined the following items: a) short-wave radio b) punch-play back cassette player c) cd cassette player d) mirror e) electronic psittaciformes [parrot](records and loops short voice samples) f) pad paper/pen g) magnifying glass h) text books, dictionaries and other literature i) pictures or realia related to the culture of the language being studied j) musical instrument (an auxiliary item and not included in the desk arrangement) the above items were arranged on a large table as indicated below: incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a24 table 1 desk layout of pre-call, self-regulated language learning lab e) electronic psittaciformes d) mirror a) shortwave radio c) cd radio cassette player g) magnifying glass b) punchplay back cassette player h) text books, flash cards, dictionaries and other literature i) pictures or realia (currency, figurines etc.) f) pad paper/pen3 function of the individual items a) short-wave radio the short-wave radio provided access to news broadcasts and music in the language(s) being studied. reception quality was variable and limited to fixed time slots, but these broadcasts provided a sense of authentic connection to the location and cultural context in where and in which the language was spoken. b) punch-play back cassette player. this type of cassette player made it easier to frequently rewind and replay short segments of taped material. it was mainly used to play dialogues and key phrases that formed part of commercial language learning course work as well as private records made for my own study purposes (personal interviews with native speakers, tailor-made pronunciation guides, etc.). this was a durable machine and pressing the “springaction” buttons provided an energizing, tactile experience. c) cd radio cassette player the radio cassette player was primarily used for playing songs and music, and occasionally longer spoken language recordings that did not require frequent pausing. the music was used primarily for mood enhancement and as “a cognitive break” between periods of study (k. rockell & ocampo, 2014, p. 39). musical content was continually played at a lower volume throughout periods of study to create ri. d) mirror the mirror was used to observe facial movements and behaviour of lips and tongue while speaking. it was kept near the back of the workstation table so that it could be rested against the wall. for close-up observations the mirror was picked-up and held manually near the speaker’s face. 3 the pad paper was positioned to the left of the study area because the author is left-handed. incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a25 e) electronic psittaciformes this device was a kind of simple looping technology that played back repeatedly the words or short phrases spoken to it. the brightly coloured, battery-powered, electronic psittaciformes [parrot] had a lively visual appeal, which helped to ease the intensity of serious, sustained study. f) pad paper low-grade pad paper was available cheaply at discount retail outlets in queensland in the late 1990s. in keeping an overall approach to study that sought to exercise the four processes simultaneously and intensively, a great deal of paper was used writing out the target words and phrases as they were heard and/or spoken. writing by hand provided a spatial experience while forming individual letters and/or chinese characters. g) magnifying glass many of the entries in language dictionaries (particularly chinese and japanese ideographs) were too small for the author to see clearly. the magnifying glass made it possible to view multiple and complex stroke patterns in unfamiliar characters more easily. h) text books, flash cards, dictionaries and other literature these items included a large stack of regularly used texts. books relating to the language under consideration at a particular time were placed at the top of the stack. flash cards of various sizes made of cardboard and paper were also stored at the top of this stack of items. i) pictures or realia forming a kind of “visual culture capsule”, coins or note currency, photographs and other types of illustrations or small ornaments or figurines representing the area where the target language was spoken, helped to provide inspiration during long hours of study. j) musical instruments (not included in table 1) musical instruments, used to accompany looped lexical chunks, were stored in various locations, separate from the pre-call workstation. they also sometimes aided the learning of song texts in the target language. commencing e-field work: diary/journal data exploratory research and data collection for callim took place between 5th november 2013 and 23rd january 2014, at the university of aizu centre for language research. one mac osx version 10.6.8, and a dell sp2309wc 23” flat screen monitor were used throughout the project.4 a qualitative evaluation of diary/journal entries was prioritized, and entries were made mindful of the cyclic model of self-regulated learning described earlier. as will be noted, regular habits and routines began to form during the project, but as much as possible, an exploratory focus was maintained. an example page from the research diary appears as table 2 below. codes for searching and sampling (ss), vocabulary learning strategy (vls), auditor intervention (ai) and difficulties or constraints (p) are highlighted in this diary example and, as mentioned earlier, a more detailed list of codes appears as appendix 1. following this example, the general findings that emerged from the research process are described. 4 on several occasions an additional laptop was used simultaneously in an attempt to expand monitor space, but for the main part of the project only one machine was used. incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a26 table 2 callim diary/journal callim diary/journal 5th november 2013– 23rd january 2014 forethought phase plan performance phase action/observation self-reflection phase self-evaluation date: 2013-11-05 time 6:25 p.m. watched “the new eco system of open knowledge flows” ted talk by sanjay pradhan url1 time 6.27 p.m. ai auditor enters room and discusses schön and also individual obsessive attachment to particular musical genres date: 2013-11-06 time 11.22 a.m. begin by searching for and listening to the target song using the internet ss search for “manang biday” clip on youtube. found url2 although i have decided to use a certain song text, there are many more ilocano songs accessible on the internet and many of these might be more appealing. there do seem to be quite a number of spanish loan words in this song text. i wonder what other words appear frequently. notice lyrics appear but no voice track, notice spanish loan words decide to list spanish loan words vls  list: bintana, jandin(ko), enkanto (appears twice), laguna, manga, frutas, tanto  read this list aloud  listen again to clip and observe the listed words ss  searched and came across a medley of ilocano songs that seemed more appealing that “manang biday” time 3:15 p.m. vls look for high-frequency words look for high-frequency words it may be enough at this stage just to observe but i want to know what these words mean notice that “ta” appears 5 times vls search for an online ilocano dictionary and look up the highfrequency words  found: url3 online dictionary p “ta” does not appear as a simple entry in the online dictionary it is curious that a high frequency word does not appear. perhaps it is a particular form of another root word. lack sufficient understanding of the grammatical system to guess root. perhaps i should read about ilocano grammar incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a27 general findings in this section, general diary/journal findings are presented, beginning with searching and sampling and then addressing general language learning strategies and those incorporating music. following this, vocabulary, grammar, comprehension, culture, the communicative dimension and motivation are discussed. searching and sampling for resources at the outset, a search for material on the internet revealed the very wide range of potentially applicable open source multi-media. clips, such as sanjay pradhan’s ted talk on “the new eco system of open knowledge flows”, affirm the value of online learning and inspired action. it also became clear that much ilocano-related material is accessible online. searching is an intrinsically enjoyable activity, and the desire for more and varied material motivates increasingly extended online searches. the issue then becomes how to adequately sample and assess appropriate material for study, in a way that is not inordinately timeconsuming. of course, individual learners do not come to this knowledge pool with a totally unbiased outlook. in the case of music, some individuals have strong attachments to particular musical genres, and find certain songs more appealing than others, which, in turn, may influence the way they access and appraise the range of materials available. it may be a helpful strategy to identify typical topics and content areas during the first phase of searching and direct attention there. in the case of ilocano, for example, religious material and romantic songs appeared prominently. online resources also need to be organized and edited. some multimedia available on line is of poor, or very amateurish quality, despite containing interesting and relevant content and this may exclude them as appropriate material for study. at a certain point, there is a need to organize online recourses into a workable “kit”. this can be done using bookmarks, favourites, or creating a file or folder with contains groups of files and commonly accessed urls. such a kit takes up a lot less space that the set of pre-call tools. a huge amount of material can be organized into sets for use as ri. despite the possibility of building up even richer environments, the most effective combination during this project appeared to be two spoken tracks and one music track simultaneously. this was the same as what was used in the pre-call languagelearning environment. music was used as an integral component of almost all ri sets throughout the project and its absence was felt when not included. a significant problem during searching, which is explained more later on, was the difficulty finding an online ilocano-english dictionary that could meet the requirements of callim. in the absence of such a dictionary, communication platforms, such and the interactive dictionary proposed by lian as “a shell which enables individuals who are in the process of investigating various concepts and issues to create their own entries,” could prove useful (ania lian, 2006, p. 187). language learning strategies with searching as a point of departure, practice styles evolved as research moved forward and, as the project developed, the need to consolidate materials grew. after 2 months, a regular routine had evolved, usually combined with ri. approaches used frequently included:  song lyric activities  vocabulary drills/practice  dictionary input (compiling the ilocano to english word list)  visually focussed activities incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a28 ri was used consistently during the research period.5 this approach takes advantage of the possibility for overlaying multiple tracks to create a soundscape that approximates what one might experience in the target language location. within this, music and conversations can be backgrounded and foregrounded in a variety of ways. in working with multiple tracks, the combinatorial possibilities are unlimited; with white noise at the extreme end of an increasingly intricate continuum. as already mentioned, the standard ri in this project was one or two spoken tracks and one musical track played simultaneously, plus or more static visual images related to ilocano life and culture. for the latter, multiple monitors can enhance visual impact. vocabulary practice approaches (usually combined with ri) included:  working from an experimental, fixed vocabulary set  using a logitech camera  using an online metronome  doing patterned alternation practice with gestures or gesture dances  using the personal acoustic muffler (pamm), (described in a subsequent section) visually focussed approaches can also be combined with ri and with a computer it is also relatively simple to combine text and images. during this project, for example, a google images picture of a group of players on a sports field was used for practicing pointing to individuals and groups of players and asking: q: siak? [me?] a: saán? [no] or q: isúda? [they] a: wen [yes]. another possible approach is to use speech bubbles and dialogs added to simple pictures or open source digital comic strip creation software. the language learning strategies that tended to incorporate music were: 1. song lyrics activities. 2. rhythmic vocabulary drills. studies of music and language recognize the importance of song as a “combination of music and language”(mithen, 2005, pp. 273-274). the first ilocano song, “manang biday” was easily accessible via an internet search. the second, “laglagipem”, reminiscent of mexican ballads, was found during callim searching and sampling. examples of the first verse of each of these songs appear as appendices 2 and 3. song lyrics and guitar chords for filipino songs are numerous on the internet, but english translations of these songs less so. perhaps filipinos, who are frequently very comfortable using english, do not feel the need for such translations. lyric-focused activities in callim tended to draw upon participatory-focussed, listening-focused, combined-focus and literary-focused approaches. 5 only on one occasion did the constant use of ri become irritating but i forced myself to listen to in nonetheless. previously, during a two-year stay in hokkaido, japan i experienced this kind of irritation after one year, and felt the urge to retreat from contact with japanese speakers. this turned out to be period of strong linguistic development, engendering a belief in the importance of “breaking through the pain barrier”. incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a29 three different emphasis in lyric-focussed callim 1. participatory 2. listening-focussed 3. combined foci speaking background listening while working on other language learning tasks. listening to song (e.g. “manang biday” while following along with (silently reading) the lyrics. humming focussing on sound groupings and patterns. listening to the song and typing out lyrics manually into a word document (then listening again to check for accuracy). lightly singing with personal acoustic manual muffler (pamm). listening for monosyllabic words like ka and ko. segmental practice using youtube repeater. focussing on the title or title’s meaning. listening to song and learning it in sections using youtube repeater. figure 2 lyric-focussed approach to callim literary-focussed approaches included:  alternating reading grammar texts and observing the lyrics as they appear in the karaoke version of a song (here the text is the focus and the musical elements are purely decorative).  scanning song text for high frequency words or loan words (or other specific types of language such as personal pro-nouns).  choosing a group of five words from the song text and focussing on them specifically.  using an english translation of the song text as a “key in” or aid to understanding. as mentioned earlier, the use of music in language learning as a fundamental practice has been established, and evidence shows that working with songs can aid memory and retention. during the current research, however, doubts arose as to whether or not song lyrics by themselves can be a self-sufficient textural resource. one problem is that the kind of vocabulary found in song lyrics is very different from that used in areas such as technical communication, for example, and this limits their broader application. also, as the desire to use ilocano communicatively increased during the course of research, the concern began to arise that song texts are not “communicative” (if we include in this definition an exchange of information), and do not often present semantically related question/answer couplets between speakers. only certain texts with embedded question/answer sequence could form the basis for such interaction. 6 the original intention for callim research set out to focus primarily on song lyrics has been clearly stated. it was the case, however, that rhythmic drill and dance activities emerged as increasingly important areas, and began to eclipse the lyric focus. challenging my own pre-conceived notion that a computer or machinebased approach would be physically restrictive and immobilizing, it was revealed that, on the contrary, the digital environment offers great potential for freeing the body, making dance and a range of other computer assisted tpr (catpr) activities more possible. this supported, in part, by the ability of the computer to 6 one example is the american colonial song that asks: “soldier, soldier will you marry me with your musket pipe and drum?” and in the same verse answers: “ oh no sweet maid, i cannot marry you for i have not shirt to put on.” incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a30 display text on the monitor. dance can be explored and expanded in various directions, such as vocabulary drills done standing still using complex hand-gesture only, various stretches, body-loosening movements and even free dancing. all these are made possible as a result of the power of the computer to free the body. there is much potential to explore vocabulary drills with dance and variations of catpr.7 in fact, dance became so engaging during the project that at one point the focus on the song lyrics was completely lost. over the three-month period of exploratory research, rhythmical, repetitive vocabulary practice was done with increasing frequency. a question also arose, and warrants future investigation, as to whether there is a particular rhythm that is most effect when learning language. chinese 3-character poems, such as the confucian classic, san zi jing [三字经] for example, are read with a quick-quick-slow/quarter note-quarter note-half note rhythmic pattern. a typical 3-character poem opening illustrates this point, as seen below: table 3 chinese 3 character poem rhythmic pattern 7 unfortunately, overly enthusiastic practice can lead to injury. an overly energetic session of vocabulary practice on christmas day resulted in distressing lower back pain. incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a31 combinations of patterned repetitions with gestures and other body movements are very dance-like. this choreographic feeling was enhanced during activities, such as rhythmic patterned repetitions with finger clicks and hand gestures. one approach trialled during callim was “double handed”, with one hand providing basic information and other hand enhancing the meaning. for example, “sprinkle gestures” or a single finger point were used as indicators of singular or plural personal pronouns. figure 3 plural personal pronouns indicated by double-handed sprinkle gesture an online metronome provided rhythmic support for this quasi-dance style and one can strive to make the steps coincide with accented syllables in words or phrases.8 at the same time, experimenting with different rhythmic possibilities or patterns makes practice much more interesting. examples include: on beat, off beat, doubled, and two off beats in triple-metre coming after the metronome beat, as shown below with the ilocano plural, proximal demonstrative dagitóy. figure 4 on beat figure 5 off beat 8 interestingly, using the online metronome simultaneous with ri (at a different tempo) was not experienced as offputting, despite the rhythmic incongruence. incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a32 figure 6 doubled figure 7 two off beats in triple time musical activity is constrained by a number of factors, including degree of privacy and sound proofing conditions. singing or speaking out loud may disturb neighbours, and this was certainly a problem during callim where sound was easily heard in the neighbouring office through the rather thin walls.9 a potential solution aimed primarily at wailing infants was proposed by boynton (boynton, 1988). research into vocal muffling continues (almagro, 2012; chapman, 1990), and portable vocal booths for private practice are now available, although they are prohibitively expensive. lacking adequate technical resources, one rudimentary solution is to use a personal acoustic manual muffler (pamm) although it is doubtful how effective these methods are. in the pre-call environment, pamm was not mandatory due to the relatively freer australian sound environment (k. f. rockell, 2012, p. 313). a propensity for silence, and tendency towards situation-specific behaviour in japan (fujio, 2004; harumi, 2010; hasegawa & gudykunst, 1998; jones, 2008; nakane, 2006), however, mandate the use of such techniques, and make vocal booths a necessity for callim practitioners in japan. vocabulary learning strategies working with song lyrics, a variety of ways for dealing with vocabulary arose during research. specific groups of words, such as loan words from spanish or apparently high-frequency words appeared prominent and could be grouped together for study. many spanish loan words appear in the song “manang biday” but less so in “laglagipem”. approaches to vocabulary learning included:  reading aloud and observing high frequency words.  repetition (energetic, viscerally reinforced repetition).  review.  making an arbitrary choice of 5 words from the song text to focus on.  creating vocabulary sets and put them in file for ready access.  intensifying meaning with gestures.  clarifying meaning by alternating relative pairs such as me/you, here/there etc.  internally imagining the “meaning” (visual or other sense associations) of a term.  exploring the “boundaries” of a word by entering it, de-contextualized from the song lyrics, into a search engine and viewing a selection of results.  looking for similarities with tagalog (e.g. diak=di ako)10  searching for closely related or similar words such as manong/manang 9 when i became more familiar with “laglagipem”, the urge to sing along with it was strong, but since the neighbouring office had complained about hearing guitar practice i felt inhibited to sing out loud. 10 familiarity with tagalog proved helpful as some ilocano words and phrases are similar and this provided some clue to meaning. incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a33 the search for vocabulary in online dictionaries, frequently unsuccessful, was problematic and caused considerable frustration. certain ilocano verb forms, which appeared in song lyrics, were difficult and sometimes impossible to find in online dictionaries. verbs in philippine languages are agglutinative and these conjugated forms, which might appear in a song, are not always immediately accessible in dictionaries. lack of sufficient knowledge of ilocano grammar makes it difficult to identify the root form and, even when this is identified, the root word alone does not always appear. even words that appeared prominently or frequently in lyrics were often not listed in dictionaries. having reference to an english translation of the song lyrics, to provide a key into the meaning of some of the words, seemed a possible avenue. as mentioned earlier, however, filipino song lyrics with guitaraccompaniment chords are readily available online, but english translations are rarely provided. a possible explanation for this is that because many filipinos are fluent in english they do not require a translation for their own personal use. in answer to this need, an ilocano textbook with a built-in dictionary was ordered for use in callim (rubino, 1998). in this textbook, however, words were only listed from english term to ilocano equivalent and not the reverse. it took a great deal of time to reorganize the ilocano definitions into an alphabetical list of terms with english equivalents, to permit ready access. the act of searching for the meaning of terms in itself, however, even if it does not yield a concrete result, had some positive benefits as a vocabulary learning strategy. searching seems to result in “ingraining” aspects of the word (sound and written from) despite the lack of semantic understanding. less positively, however, in this project, searching for the meaning of terms took up a disproportionately large amount of time. vocabulary learning sometimes occurred spontaneously, as in the case of the word agbabawi [repent], which appeared several times in a religious debate used as part of ri. from the context and english code switching used in the program the meaning became self-evident. on another occasion, noticing the word ngarud appearing several times (this word can also be seen in the lyrics of “laglagipem”) provided a strong motivation to discover its equivalent meaning in english. this illustrates how ri can work without the learner requiring a specific linguistic focus. ensuring that there is sufficiently broad input is enough. aspects of grammar during study with ri, inductive grammar understandings began to form. for example, it became apparent that the meaning of ití is similar to ng in tagalog, a realization facilitated by pre-knowledge of another philippine language. early in the project, however, the need for more information about ilocano grammar was felt. as mentioned earlier, insufficient knowledge of ilocano grammar, in particular agglutinative verb formation, makes dictionary searches problematic. online searches led to sites offering information about ilocano particles, and other features of grammar. employing musical strategies, certain grammatical concepts, such as the inclusive and exclusive personal pronouns (dakamí/datayó) found in ilocano and other philippine languages, can be well expressed in dance with enclosing, limiting or inclusive gestures as shown below: incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a34 figure 8 dance gesture for excusive second person plural ilocano pronoun dakamí figure 8 dance gesture for inclusive second person plural ilocano pronoun datayó developing comprehension skills when directly approaching advanced materials, such as song lyrics, in the early stages, and observing uncomprehendingly, working from the initial assumption that observing/listening was enough, the inner imperative for clear semantic insight became very strong. real discomfort, and a strong urge to “know” and “understand” the lyrics of “manang biday” was experienced. after six weeks of regular practice, however, which involved regular work constructing a word list (ilocano to english dictionary) while listening to a set of rich input (ri) materials, understandings of now familiar words such as daytóy [this], kabsát [brother/sister], in a similar way to inductive grammar understandings, began to form naturally. meaning making in this way is “a dynamic process rather than a static process which relates to the simultaneous management of both known and unknown, perhaps even unknowable, variables” (andrew lian, 2000). sounds in ilocano that are very different from those heard in cebuano and tagalog also began to be recognized. incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a35 the numerous vocabulary-learning strategies described earlier are ways of dealing with a body of incomprehensible material in terms of the “known”. if one can discover the “key into a language”, in a communicative context, language can be a self-informing system as long as one has this key or entry point. cultural aspects another key feature was searching and sampling for cultural information related to ilocano, which highlighted the tremendous power of the internet in education. the importance of the ilocano community’s connection with hawaii, and their relationship with, and identity in relation to, other filipino groups became apparent. a wide range of materials, such as radio drama from laoag, home-made films, ilocano rap music and information about the bannawag magazine, which supports ilocano literature (bragado, 1995) are examples of the range of easily assessable materials that greatly enhance and support the language learning enterprise. the communicative dimension the impulse to use ilocano communicatively emerged strongly six weeks into the project. there is an ilocano facebook group, numerous other ilocano chat rooms and social networking language exchange sites such as lang-8 offer interesting possibilities. communication can be approached using a sliding scale beginning with being a totally passive observer of online chat and moving gradually towards communicative confidence. during this phase of callim, however, lack of confidence was a barrier to participation. at a low level, one way of approximating communicative interaction from the earliest stages of learning is the paring of interrogatives with simple complimentary answers. this approach emphasises meaning more strongly than merely defining a word in english, or using it in an interrogative sense but not providing a complimentary answer. during callim research, ilocano interrogatives such as asíno [who] and aniá [what] with complimentary responses were practiced. when the ilocano word for the answer was unavailable, english was used, preserving a feeling of communicativeness by permitting a multi-lingual environment. at the same time, the project engendered uncertainty as to whether the digital environment favours mere simulation, and facilitates approximation, rather than “genuine” communication? this begs the question: “when, and under what circumstances, is digital communication “genuine” and at what point does it become mere simulation?” motivational aspects self-motivation may be a quality assumed in self-directed learners, but sustaining motivation over the course of the project was not without challenges. aspects, which positively impacted on motivation, were:  using a variety of different rhythmic patterns during practice.  the freedom to explore and access a variety of related cultural information and multimedia via the internet.  computer assisted total physical response (catpr): the freedom to stretch the body or perform other physical movements while doing language drills. greater motivation and musical enjoyment proceed from choosing songs in which the learner has a genuine interest. unfortunately, when focussing on one particular text for a sustained period, listening to the same song multiple times and repetitive practice become tedious.11 exploring different versions of the same song can help counteract this. with such a wide range of multimedia available, the continued search for new and appealing items fuels the desire to “know” and “understand”. 11 previous language study experience helped me to “suspend disbelief” and continue practicing patiently the same material while awaiting a result, but repetitive practice can undoubtedly be boring. incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a36 at times during the project, despite having the freedom to manage ones own time and activities, the experience of not wanting to do what was planned during a study session, and the clash between intentions as a planner and participant, was intensified. other factors that decreased motivation were:  becoming busy with other tasks external to calllim.  annoyance with rich input (ri) as a result of overload.  lack of understanding of, or trust in, the reliability of the text. after a month and a half, the problem of not understanding anything at all in the ilocano song lyrics remained. without a dictionary from ilocano to english it was not possible to look up the words. also, there are variations in the online versions of the song “manang biday”, and there was no apparent way to assess the correctness of any particular version. these factors all impacted on motivation levels during callim research. digitizing the pre-digital work station pre-call workstation items were adapted to the call environment in the following ways: items a), b) and c) in the pre-call environment (short-wave radio, punch-play back cassette player and cd radio cassette player) were easily replaced in call, as the devices themselves occupy far less physical space and there is no need to keep cds, cassette tapes and batteries on hand. technology, particularly the internet, offers a “seemingly infinite (e.g., web) access to rich input” (doughty & long, 2003, p. 49). when creating ri, multiple sound sources can be directed to a single set of headphones. compared to the shortwave radio and online cassette player, the internet offers vastly more resources. however, the sense of serendipity in discovery is reduced, and the task of choosing the best material is made more onerous by the huge amount of available material. item d), the mirror, was replaced in callim with i-chat and a logitech camera. unless on a separate ipad, in real time this approach affords far less physical flexibility than was provided by the simple mirror. the user is constrained by the position and size of the monitor. it is, however, possible to create still pictures, videos and screen shots with i-chat in order to record facial images for use in retrospective observation. item e), the electronic psittaciformes, was replaced in callim with youtube repeater, a relatively easyto-use looping technology. reviewing vocabulary through repetition is greatly aided by technology since the computer can tirelessly repeat segments of language. although the pre-call pasittaciformes provided an aesthetic and tactile stimulation lacking in call, there is no doubt that working with a computer makes looping vastly easier and more effective. item f), pad paper, was replaced in call with microsoft word. working without paper is ecologically sound, tidy and makes it possible to store vast amounts of written material. however, like the mirror, it is physically constrained by the monitor and keyboard. writing on a pad with a pen or pencil viscerally reinforced the spatial dimension of individual letters, and required the constant use of only one hand. typing uses both hands and involves patterns of movement as the fingers tap on a keyboard. these patterns are an extra level of abstraction, since they represent combinations of letters, which in turn represent the sound of words. the author grew up and was educated to use a pen rather than a keyboard, and it may be the case that callim practitioners who began using a keyboard at a younger age would experience visceral reinforcement differently. for the author, however, a separate i-pad to free up monitor space, and i-pen to maintain spatial, letter formation experience, are desirable. these were not trailed during the current incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a37 research. beyond this, the move to the digital workstation encourages in reconceptualization of literacy itself and the way we “access, understand, and use information in reading, writing and interacting in our social and professional lives” (chattopadhyay, p. 1). item g) the magnifying glass was replaced in callim using font size tabs and zoom views. these were undoubtedly more effective than the pre-call magnifying glass but, as with other visual aspects, the size, position and availability of simultaneous viewing space were constrained by the monitor size. item h) textbooks, flash cards, dictionaries and other literature, were approximated in call by a variety of websites and multimedia. the urls of some of theses site appear in appendix 4. searching for cultural information about ilocano on the internet yielded a great deal of useful information, and this information can be conveniently stored. it is difficult to gesture while holding a book. if the text is not available on the internet or in a computer file, one can type the text into a document and then become hands-free. however, as with other items, despite bodily freedom, visual access is constrained by the physical properties of the monitor itself. even though the computer allows unlimited ri possibilities, there is a problem fitting the various windows comfortably on one screen (for visual access). this is not a problem for purely music or spoken word files, but it is for other kinds of files, especially when there is a need to see text as in a word document. also, as has been emphasised, online ilocano dictionaries were highly problematic during this study. google pictures replaced flashcards. as described earlier in relation to visually focussed language learning strategies, an image can quickly be copied into a word document and simple exercises using the picture can be created. online, open source flashcard programs are available, and were tried during the study. such programs currently lack a rich visual appeal, as might be found in contemporary gaming software. in this sense, they were not superior to pre-call flashcards, which held both an aesthetic and tactile appeal. further, online flashcards, despite the possibility of conveniently storing mass numbers of virtual cards, were constrained by the monitor in terms of display. they freed the body, since the freestanding monitor displayed the cards, and there was no need to hold them physically. but, at the same time, they tethered the body to the monitor visually, and, unlike pre-call flash cards, move in a prescribed way within a limited visual plane. the primary differences between the way music was incorporated in the pre-call and call environments were the wider range of music available for ri in call, and an increased emphasis on dancelike, rhythmic drills resulting from the power of the computer to free the body. these drills looped microchunks of language, unlike in pre-call, where acoustic instruments supported looping of full-length lexical chunks. conclusion: affordances and constraints and a sustainable approach to callim in moving from pre-call to call environments, a number of inherent contradictions have come to light. the search for sustainability drew attention to the body, and bodily engagement in language learning through activities such as rhythm drills. here the body is revealed as the sustainable thread, outliving changing technologies. the application of schön’s model in this exploratory callim research also helped to identify important issues and areas that require further research and investigation. such areas appeared as evolving, accumulative strategies, such as the development of increasingly nuanced rhythmical drills, or the reapplication of a search strategy from a category such as “spanish loan words” to another such as “high frequency words” or “monosyllabic particles”. the contemporary computer offers the extraordinary potential for hitherto unknown physical freedom in interacting with the machine, yet withholds it, by centralizing the visual focus (relevant musically in terms of song lyric texts) to the monitor. it is vital that future research into callim examines the use of mobile incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a38 monitors, or multiple monitors to maximize the potential for employing “physically mediated musicality” (k. f. rockell, 2009, pp. 235-236) in the language learning process. the question of storage is also significant. although the call workstation offers the potential to store almost unlimited quantities of multimedia and other files, to display such files in a way that approximates the visual richness of the pre-call environment, requires just as much physical space, yet offers only a bland one-dimensional view. vast resources are now available for ri, but sampling and assessing materials is impractically timeconsuming, and the number of practically useful tracks in a ri set remains limited. in the case of writing in call, unless an extra or larger display is used, writing practice takes up an uncomfortable amount of space on the desktop and tends to be bound, in terms of location, to the keyboard. to fully enjoy the benefits the computer now offers to self-directed language learners, it will be necessary to find ways to resolve these contradictions between expansive potential and simple, physical restrictions. this study revealed that while there has been work done on ilocano using computers, and there are considerable online resources for learning the language, a comprehensive, user-friendly dictionary was not available, forcing a time consuming, tedious word-list construction task that tended to interfere with the flow of learning. online dictionaries for learners of languages featuring agglutinative verb forms, like those found in many philippine languages, need to be designed to respond to a search term for a verb in any one of its conjugated forms, including the root form, by directing the user to the root form entry. this may seem an unreasonably complicated demand, but unless online dictionaries are designed in this way, they are almost useless for self-directed language learners in projects such as the current research. in terms of music, this study affirmed the idea that music can be usefully applied to language learning. however, the limitations of a lyric based approach, with a fixed choice of song text were also apparent. it is clear that such texts need careful treatment, such as extracting formulaic language or lexical chunks from the main body of song text, for reapplication to looped musical drills, to be of benefit. using a computer for study is increasingly ubiquitous, and its lack, as in the pre-call workstation described in this paper may become of little more than historical curiosity. with visceral engagement as a constant, technological advances offer increasing ways of further freeing the dance component in callim. interactive screen projectors, wii remote mice or microsoft kinect all demand immediate investigation. in the near future, computation surface veneers on walls and tabletops made of graphene coating promise to bring call into a new realm, and make possible the incorporation of music with constantly evolving efficacy – a subject for continued reflective practice in the future. references almagro, i. (2012). foldable wireless voice muffling device for mobile communications: google patents. beasley, r. e., & chuang, y. (2008). web-based music study: the effects of listening repetition, song likeability, and song understandability on efl learning perceptions and outcomes. tesl-ej, 12(2), n2. bolger, n., davis, a., & rafaeli, e. (2003). diary methods: capturing life as it is lived. annual review of psychology, 54(1), 579-616. boud, d. (2001). using journal writing to enhance reflective practice. new directions for adult and continuing education, 2001(90), 9-18. boynton, c. r. (1988). vocal muffler: google patents. bragado, j. a. (1995). iloko literature:■ a historical■ sketch■. many voices: towards a national literature, 176. brine, j., & franken, m. (2006). students' perceptions of a selected aspect of a computer mediated academic writing program: an activity theory analysis. australasian journal of educational technology, 22(1), 21. incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a39 brine, j., wilson, i., & roy, d. (2007). using moodle and other software tools in efl courses in a japanese it university. paper presented at the computer and information technology, 2007. cit 2007. 7th ieee international conference on. butto, l. i., holsworth, m., morikawa, f., wakabayashi, s., & edelmen, c. (2014). music: a motivator for underachieving efl studetns? a preliminary study using karaoke. 姫路獨協大学外国語学部紀 要, 27, 49-54. campbell, l., campbell, b., & dickinson, d. (1996). teaching & learning through multiple intelligences: eric. chapman, d. r. (1990). vocal sound muffling device: google patents. chattopadhyay, k. future directions for digital literacy development of indian educators. davanellos, a. (1999). songs. english teaching professional(13), 13-17. doughty, c., & long, m. (2003). optimal psycholinguistic environments for distance foreign language learning. engh, d. (2013). why use music in english language learning? a survery of the literature. english language teaching, 6(2). franzblau, c. a. (2007). computer-aided learning system employing a pitch tracking line: google patents. fujio, m. (2004). silence during intercultural communication: a case study. corporate communications: an international journal, 9(4), 331-339. harumi, s. (2010). classroom silence: voices from japanese efl learners. elt journal, ccq046. hasegawa, t., & gudykunst, w. b. (1998). silence in japan and the united states. journal of crosscultural psychology, 29(5), 668-684. jalongo, m. r., & bromley, k. d. a. (1984). developing linguistic competence through song picture books. the reading teacher, 840-845. jones, s. (2008). speech is silver, silence is golden: the cultural importance of silence in japan. the anu research journal(6), 17-27. lambacher, s. (1999). a call tool for improving second language acquisition of english consonants by japanese learners. computer assisted language learning, 12(2), 137-156. lems, k. (2001). using music in the adult esl classroom: national clearinghouse for esl literacy education. lems, k. (2005). music works: music for adult english language learners. new directions for adult and continuing education, 2005(107), 13-21. lenz, e. (2011). system and method for learning music in a computer game: google patents. levy, m. (1997). computer-assisted language learning: context and conceptualization: oxford university press. lian, a-p. (1987). awareness, autonomy and achievement in foreign language learning. revue de phonétique appliquée, 82-84. lian, a-p. (2000). from first principles: constructing language-learning and teaching environment. paper presented at the selected papers from the ninth international symposium on english teaching. lian, a. b. (2006). an interactive dictionary of concepts: an exploratory platform for enhancing communication between the concepts which form and inform us. affective and emotional aspects of human-computer interaction: game-based and innovative learning approaches, 1, 178-206. matsumoto, k. (1996). helping l2 learners reflect on classroom learning. elt journal, 50(2), 143-149. mithen, s. j. (2005). the singing neanderthals: the origins of music, language, mind, and body: harvard university press. murphey, t. (1992). the discourse of pop songs. tesol quarterly, 26(4), 770-774. nakane, i. (2006). silence and politeness in intercultural communication in university seminars. journal of pragmatics, 38(11), 1811-1835. incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a40 pinkard, n. (2001). rappin'reader and say say oh playmate: using children's childhood songs as literacy scaffolds in computer-based learning environments. journal of educational computing research, 25(1), 17-34. rieman, j. (1993). the diary study: a workplace-oriented research tool to guide laboratory efforts. paper presented at the proceedings of the interact'93 and chi'93 conference on human factors in computing systems. rockell, k. (2012). rondalla down under: a contemporary resurgence in australasia. musika jornal, 8. rockell, k. (2013). the philippine rondalla: a gift of musical heritage in a migrant context. international journal of asia pacific studies, 9(1), 97-120. rockell, k., & ocampo, m. (2014). musicians in the language classroom: the transference of musical skills to teach "speech mode of communication". elted, 16(spring), 34-37. rockell, k. f. (2009). 'fiesta', affirming cultural identity in a changing society: a study of filipino music in christchurch, 2008. rockell, k. f. (2012). the philippine rondalla: recreating musical heritage in contemporary australasia. roxas, r. e. o., & borra, a. (2000). computational linguistics research on philippine languages. paper presented at the proceedings of the 38th annual meeting on association for computational linguistics. rubino, c. r. g. (1998). ilocano: ilocano-english, english-ilocano: dictionary and phrasebook: hippocrene books. salcedo, c. s. (2010). the effects of songs in the foreign language classroom on text recall, delayed text recall and involuntary mental rehearsal. journal of college teaching & learning (tlc), 7(6). schmit, n. (2000). lexical chunks. elt journal, 54(4), 400-401. schön, d. a. (1987). educating the reflective practitioner: jossey-bass san francisco. setia, r., rahim, r. a., nair, g. k. s., husin, n., sabapathy, e., mohamad, r., . . . jalil, n. a. a. (2012). english songs as means of aiding students’ proficiency development. asian social science, 8(7), p270. stockwell, g. (2007). a review of technology choice for teaching language skills and areas in the call literature. recall, 19(02), 105-120. warschauer, m. (1995). comparing face-to-face and electronic discussion in the second language classroom. calico journal, 13(2&3), 7-26. warschauer, m. (1996). motivational aspects of using computers for writing and communication. telecollaboration in foreign language learning, 29-46. warschauer, m. (1997). computer‐mediated collaborative learning: theory and practice. the modern language journal, 81(4), 470-481. whitman, b., roy, d., & vercoe, b. (2003). learning word meanings and descriptive parameter spaces from music. paper presented at the proceedings of the hlt-naacl 2003 workshop on learning word meaning from non-linguistic data-volume 6. wojtowicz, b. (2014). making a difference with diary study self-reflections. 姫路獨協大学外国語学 部紀要, 27, 69-93. wray, a. (2000). formulaic sequences in second language teaching: principle and practice. applied linguistics, 21(4), 463-489. zimmerman, b. j. (2008). investigating self-regulation and motivation: historical background, methodological developments, and future prospects. american educational research journal, 45(1), 166-183. incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a41 appendices appendix 1: diary key codes code term code term app application m methodology ai auditor input and participation mem memory and recall c comprehension mot motivation cul culture mus musical activity or focus d dance p problems, constraints, difficulties or challenges dis discovery r resources g grammar ss searching and sampling ir irrelevant ust use of song texts lls language learning strategy vls vocabulary learning strategy appendix 2: manang biday (first two verses) manang biday, ilukatmo man 'ta bintana ikalumbabam ta kitaem 'toy kinayawan ay, matayakon no dinak kaasian siasinnoka nga aglabaslabas ditoy hardinko pagay-ayamak ammom ngarud a balasangak sabong ni lirio, di pay nagukrad appendix 3: laglagipem awan ti nagkurangak (first two verses) kasla diak maaklon pannaka pukaw ko kakaysuna nga ayat ko diak man ninamnama a masulisug ka bayat kaawan ko narukop man gayam dayta nakem mo kararua ken puso di mo pinanunot toy sakripisyok rigat ko ken tuok appendix 4: callim url list callim url list 1 http://www.ted.com/talks/sanjay_pradhan_how_open_data_is_changing_international_ aid.html incorporating music in call: an exploratory study kim rockell asiacall online journal vol. 11, 2016 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a42 ted talk about how open data is changing international aid 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lvd-9rtu_4 karaoke version of manang biday with lyrics on screen but no vocal track (only accompaniment is playing). 3 http://ilocanoonline.wordpress.com/tag/english-ilocano-dictionary/ ilocano online (the home page to the online ilokano dictionary project 4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ilokano_grammar ilokano grammar wiki 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?=3jbjjxxrtdk laglagipem duet version man and woman photo of attractive girl on screen 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xmjfyebbx8 laglagipem solo female singing in front of computer. no lyrics visible 7 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkeesxis1su laglagipem karaoke version 8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oheetqpnks laglagipem home-made karaoke version with lyrics on screen 9 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huwazbros1y laglagipem family in the philippines singing together with one guitar 10 http://www.opmtunes.com/songs/l/lea-dansalan-laglagipem-awan-nagkurangak.html lyrics of laglagipem 11 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ilokano_particles grammatical information about particles in ilokano 12 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns94mkpecme amateur performance of lalaglagipem male adult with guitar 13 http://www.toidp.com/search/ the online ilocano dictionary project 14 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ijqa6f9jp8 version of laglagipem with screen shot of girl in bikini 15 http://cogweb.ucla.edu/discourse/proverbs/ilocano.html ilocano proverbs and sayings 16 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-bzjmxwdwk amateur performance of laglagaipem at home with electric guitar accompaniment 17 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6snxpixgeje laglagipem version with band/karaoke backing a montage of photos of filipino man wearing cap shooting in the woods. asiacall online journal received: 04/01/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 25/01/2021 vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 accepted: 05/02/2021 pp. 87-93 online: 06/02/2021 investigating the role of ict for teaching english at elementary level muhammad safdar bhatti1*, asif iqbal2, shaista noreen3, rafia mukhtar4, zahida javed5 1the islamia university of bahawalpur-pakistan, safdarbhatti2001@gmail.com 2assistant professor of education, university of education lahore, faisalabad campus, asif.iqbal@ue.edu.pk 3assistant professor of education, the islamia university of bahawalpur, noreenshaista2@gmail.com 4principal, workers welfare school (girls) bahawalpur, rafia.wwsgirls@gmail.com 5assistant professor of education, university of education lahore, joharabad campus, zahida.javed@ue.edu.pk *corresponding author’s email: safdarbhatti2001@gmail.com abstract today's world is an ultra-modern world where new ways of communication are being explored continuously. technology continues to play an important role in elt. ict has become part and parcel of the educational systems of the nations. as computers are coming rapidly into the classrooms, parents feel the necessity of computers in education and don't want their children to be left behind. the present study explored the teachers' opinions about ict use at the elementary level. it tried to explore the possibilities of using computers effectively to teach english. the study seeks out the availability of ict facilities for the teachers at the elementary level and investigates the problems about accessing ict. the study was descriptive type in nature. fifty teachers from the bahawalpur region participated in this study. the results showed respondents' positive attitudes toward the ict implementation and integration of in-class activities. the results affirmed that using computers in an efl classroom helps students better comprehend the english language than the traditional methods of teaching the english language. the recommendations are provided at the end. keywords: ict, role, facilities, attitudes, investigate. 1. introduction english is an international language and also a storage bank of world information and knowledge. it is a medium of international communication and also an upholder of standard terminologies. the impact of ict on teachers’ motivation and engagement has significant. teachers claimed that female students used more ict than males (iqbal, shah, usman, &shahzad, 20202). the advancement in higher-level firmness and of english language is necessary a real most all the knowledge is available in english language. the ict in every walk of life is a miracle of the twenty-first century. the ict role has expanded in all sectors to improve employee productivity. the role of ict in education is yet to explore to improve students' performance (nayar &kumar, 2018). due to a lack of resources, teachers are hesitant to use technology in classes (carnoy, 2005). a change is needed at tertiary education regarding ict use (ben youssef & dahmani, 2008). lack of professional development and leadership support are the main challenges (rabah, 2015). technology's actual persuasion is needed between teachers and learners (yusuf, 2005). according to (cerretani, iturrioz, &garay, 2016), the use of ict four hours a day for study and five hours for entertainment has been proven. many teachers are using digital skills and ict in classes (siddiq, scherer, &tondeur, 2016). ict use has expanded the learning experiences of english language students with enhanced performance. female students performed better ict use than males (pruet, ang, & farzin, 2014). the learning motivation and technology use has improved students’ satisfaction (amornkitpinyo &wannapiroon, 2015). considering the state of this language is the language's state of the teachers. it is very important for an ean english language teacher needs to have the english language. our world is an ultra-modern world where new ways of communication are being explored continuously. integration of ict in education is a worldwide issue (pelgrum, 2001). communication in computer education involves multidimensional interactions that are basically divided into face-to-face, writingreading communication, and visualizing observations. machines support either of these types. the most innovative of these is the computer, known as man's thinking machine. a computer is a machine, which computer programmed mailto:zahida.javed@ue.edu.pk acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 88 to accept raw data (input) and put it into useful information (output). the present study's main aim is to explore the possibilities of using computers effectively to teach english. computers are coming rapidly into the classroom at every level of arts and science (tebbutt, 2000). no one can deny the impact that technology continues to have on almost every aspect of our daily lives, nor the speed with which we adopt new developments. the mobile phone is ubiquitous, and not just for any time anywhere voice communication. broadband data connectivity brings to access to the internet and our personal and business communications (pachler, bachmair, &cook, 2010). gps can give us geographical guidance. a camera gives us a video as well as image and sound recording capability, and local storage continues to get ever larger and ever cheaper. technology matters for students’ achievement (mercier &higgins, 2013). with the introduction of "apps," technology has managed the information to which we have access. with the expansion in "cloud" people have access to use the information technology (tomei, 2005). today, the different electronic equipment has changed the style of thinking of people, and students with multiple languages have developed the capacity to perform in almost every language. tablet computers like ipads are popular are popular sources of knowledge delivered digitally. computer technology has been improving in pakistan's education system (wasif, ullah, & ali, 2011). the use of ict in teaching and learning has just started progress in learning a language (albirini, 2006). ict is a useful tool for educational changes and reforms. a computer-enhanced or blended learning environment may encourage language acquisition (macdonald, 2008). it means that the learners learn language through trial and error methods. the need for the hour to switch over to learn english through computer keeping in view its advantages. the current study investigated children's engagement with information communication technology (ict) at the elementary level and examined impacts of ict on enthusiasm and related issues such as student learning outcomes, behavior, and school attendance and quantify any impacts where possible. the study also sets out to consider the ways in which teachers can use ict in the best way to enhance motivational impacts for students at the elementary level, especially for those dissatisfied with outdated forms of learning. 1.1 objectives of the study the core objectives were: 1. to stimulate the teachers to enhance their language learning. 2. to find out whether ict can create teachers' interest in studying english at the elementary level. 3. to highlight the role of ict in teaching-learning situations to facilitate the learners. 4. to make teachers more motivational, self-disciplined and help them formulate ideas. 5. to find teachers' views regarding their beliefs and problems about the implementation of ict at the elementary level. 1.2 research questions whether it is possible through the use of ict to motivate, stimulate sight and hearing, and encourage language acquisition of teachers and get better results in teaching english language than through traditional teaching methods. the major research questions for the present study were to know: 1. what are the teachers’ opinions about the implementation of ict? 2. what is the influence of ict on teachers' teaching-learning practices? 3. whether it is possible to make students independent learners through the use of a computer? 4. what types of icts are available at the teachers' elementary level? 5. what are the teachers' problems in accessing ict at the elementary level? 1.3 research hypotheses in this investigation, the researcher attempted to give a tentative solution to the problems; the hypotheses could be stated as follows: 1. whether the teachers are taking an interest while using ict in the classroom or not? 2. does ict technique improve the language learning skills of the teachers or not? acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 89 1.4 significance of the study the study will reveal the usefulness and consequences of ict as one technique in the english language classroom. it will be significant enough to boost a language teacher's teaching capabilities. it will also cover the other skills of language learning techniques in integrating ict into the teaching and learning process. this research's positive results can support the english teachers to apply this method in teaching language skills, and teachers can change their methods to make the students motivated and relaxed in the teaching-learning process. ict can make esl students comfortable in the teaching-learning process because, with this method, the students can improve their language skills by catching the message from their teachers. this research is also expected to be beneficial for the students, the teacher, and the institution as well. 2. literature review 2.1 ict use in education ict is an interactive learning technique in which students actively use computers, tabs, or mobiles, and the teacher can evaluate their feedback after using ict. these language learning techniques aim to apply the methods or techniques using ict and its impacts on students. ict refers to all broadcasting media, blended management system, auditory transmission system, and networking facilities. the use of ict enhances vocabulary learning, as revealed by (fitzpatrick, al-qarni, & meara, 2008), is considered as multi-technologies carrying diverse data and communication formats and types (batra, 2001).ict has no agreed upon definition, as "the concepts, methods, and applications involved in ict are evolving continuously on a daily basis". society has shaped expanded information technology. the students with a better understanding of the learning method are better to receive the nature of learning (kara, 2009). adopting new technological methods in teaching can prove a better social media tool for learning (kumar &biradar, 2010). policymakers widely accepted that access to ict in education improves skilled workers and social mobility. they emphasized that ict in education has related to traditional instructions delivery (mangal &mangal, 2010). it is supposed that ict may bring abstract perceptions of life using sounds, images, movements, animation, and simulations. others argued that it is just a supply mechanism for learning and teaching. a better understanding of ict use in improving language education has integrated the national education system (obeng, 2004). 3. methods 3.1 research design this research is experimental in nature, including both experimental and control pre-test and post-test groups. a pretest is conducted at the beginning of treatment to get respondents' understanding of the current learning level, while a post-test is directed after treatment to find what has been learned. 3.2 population of the study elementary level teachers of bahawalpur city were part of the study. this study's data were collected from the elementary level teachers in the academic year 2018-19. the study was limited to the bahawalpur city only. 3.3 sampling and procedure in this study, fifty teachers from workers welfare school bahawalpur participated. twenty-five teachers were selected in the experimental group and the same number in the control group. the experiment lasted for four weeks. 3.4 data collection tool the questionnaire in the form of test items was the research tool used for this study. the questionnaire was delivered to both experimental and control groups of teachers about their teaching experiences in their teaching, and their responses were recorded. after four weeks' treatment about ict integration in teaching english was given to the experimental group, the same questionnaire was delivered to both control and experimental groups of teachers, and responses were recorded again. the comparison was made using a t-test in both pre-test and post-test groups. there found a remarkable performance in the post-test result in the experimental group but not a significant difference in pre-test results. the analysis of data is presented in the next section. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 90 4. results, findings and discussion table 1 comparing the experimental and control groups in pre-test using t-test results groups pre-test mean n std. deviation std. error mean t p control group experimental group 24.48 24.24 25 25 8.574 8.526 1.715 1.705 2.295 .301 table 2 comparing the experimental and control groups in post-test using t-test results **p<0.01 post-test mean n std. deviation std. error mean t p pt control group pt experimental group 30.96 37.88 25 25 8.974 7.518 1.795 1.504 -15.615 0.000** asiacall online journal issn 1936-9859 vol ....; issue ....., 2020 91 4.1 discussion and results prior to the beginning of the study, 50 teachers were randomly selected and divided into control and experimental groups, pre-tests and post-tests were conducted to check whether there was any effect of ict on the experimental group. in table one, the value of p is greater than 0.05; we will accept the hypothesis that "there is no difference between the control group and experimental group scores in pre-test." in post-test, the p-value is less than 0.01. so, we will reject the hypothesis "there is an apparent difference between scores of control and experimental groups in post-test." it was concluded that the experimental group performed better in integrating ict in english language learning skills than that of the control group. so from the results, it is obvious to accept the general hypothesis that “ict enhances elementary level teachers’ performance in learning english language skills.” 5. findings, conclusions, suggestions and recommendations 5.1 findings after completing the analysis of data, the researcher found the following information: it is necessary for everyday life activities and at all levels of education. according to unesco, expertise in icts is considered modern literacy. the results showed that most students and teachers faced problems in assessing ict in schools. findings revealed supporting with (zhao &cziko, 2001) that teachers' opinions with problems in accessing icts at the elementary level should be encouraged to provide technology to students and teachers. due to frequent load-shading of electricity it becomes difficult for teachers to use computers, because of poor phone lines it becomes difficult for teachers to access internet, technical support is not easily accessible when needed and due to lack of supporting staff, teachers face problems in using internet, computers, projectors, and printers, virtual language lab is not easily accessible by teachers for conducting classes, it’s very difficult to access internet websites at school. the study's findings exposed that accessibility of information and communication technology services and elementary teacher’s consumption of icts are very limited, which is a serious restraint in excellent instructional service delivery. 5.2 conclusions based on the results of this research, the researcher concluded that the implementation of ict could bring drastic changes among the elementary-level teachers that intern enhances students' performance. the conclusion drew from the teacher’s opinion with the availability of icts shows the fact that basic ict facilities like broadband internet, intranet, trained technical staff. the study revealed that a few libraries have an internet connection, limited use of ict implementation of an automated library system was extremely slow. the mean of teachers' gender score shows that female mean score is higher as compared to male mean score on problems in the accessibility of ict facilities at the elementary level. moreover, on the availability of ict facilities at the elementary level, male students have a high mean score as compared to female students. the mean of private sector school students is higher than public sector students on ict availability. moreover, public sector school students face more problems in accessing ict compared to private sector students. 5.3 recommendations and suggestions based on the investigation and findings of this study, the researcher makes the following suggestions and recommendations for better implementation of ict: acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. ...; no. ...; 2020 92 1. special attention may be paid towards infrastructure at the elementary level, such as ups and generators' provision for computer laboratories. 2. poor phone lines should be repaired and replaced. 3. proper training may be given to technical supporting staff. 4. access to virtual language labs may be given to teachers. 5. special training may also be given to female teachers to handle icts better. this study's recommendations and findings should be taken into careful consideration, and steps should be taken to implement those in our classrooms. if implemented intentionally, it is expected that the state of the teaching and learning of language skills at the elementary level will be improved remarkably. 6. references albirini, a. (2006). teachers’ attitudes toward information and communication technologies: the case of syrian efl teachers. computers and education, 47(4), 373–398. amornkitpinyo, t., & wannapiroon, p. (2015). causal relationship model of the technology acceptance process of learning innovation in the 21st century for graduate students. procedia social and behavioral sciences,174,2090–2095. batra, b. b.(2001). information technology opportunities and challenges. kalpa publications delhi india. p: 3. ben youssef, a., & dahmani, m. (2008). the impact of ict on student performance in higher education: direct effects, indirect effects and organisational change. rusc. universities and knowledge society journal, 5(1), 45–56. carnoy. m. (october 2005). ict in education: possibilities and challenges. inaugural lecture of the 20042005 academic year (2004, 2005), 17. cerretani, p. i., iturrioz, e. b., & garay, p. b. (2016). use of information and communications technology, academic performance and psychosocial distress in university students. computers in human behavior,56, 119–126. fitzpatrick, t., al-qarni, i., & meara, p. (2008). intensive vocabulary learning: a case study. language learning journal, 36(2), 239-248. iqbal, a., shah, a., usman, m., &shahzad, s. (2020). marvelous challenges for academia in using ict: lessons from public sector universities. international journal of innovation, creativity and change, 14(10), 210-222. kara, a. (2009). the effect of a ‘learning theories’ unit on students’ attitudes towards learning. australian journal of teacher education, 34(3), 100-113. kumar, b. t., & biradar, b. s. (2010). use of ict in college libraries in karnataka, india: a survey. electronic library and information systems, 44(3), 271 – 282. macdonald, j. (2008).blended learning and online tutoring: planning learner support and activity design. 2nd ed. alder shot, england: gower. mangal, s. k., &mangal, u. (2010). essentials of educational technology.asoke k. ghosh, phi learning private limited new delhi. p: 698. acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. ...; no. ...; 2020 93 mercier, e. m., &higgins, s. (2013). collaborative learning with multi-touch technology: developing adaptive expertise. learning and instruction, 25, 13 – 23. nayar, a., & kumar, k. r. (2018). covid 19 and its mental health consequences. journal of mental health. online: 10.1080/09638237. 2020.1757052, 1, 2. obeng, t. k. (2004).the practical application of ict to enhance university education in ghana.hula university of technology. pruet, p., ang, c. s.,& farzin, d.(2014). understanding tablet computer usage among primary school students in underdeveloped areas: students’ technology experience, learning styles and attitudes.computers in human behavior,55,1131–1144. pelgrum, w. j. (2001).obstacles to the integration of ict in education: results from a worldwide educational assessment. computer and education, 37, 163 – 178. pachler, n., bachmair, b., &cook. j. (2010). mobile learning: structures, agency, practices. new york: springer. raba, j. (2015). benefits and challenges of information and communication technologies (ict) integration in québec english schools.the turkish online journal of educational technology,14(2), 24–31. siddiq, f., scherer, r., & tondeur, j. (2016). teachers’ emphasis on developing students’ digital information and communication skills (teddics): a new construct in 21st century education.computers & education,92–93,1–14. tebbutt, m. (2000).ict in science: problems, possibilities and principles? school science review, 81,297, 57-64. tomei, l. a. (2005).taxonomy for the technology domain. usa: information science publishing. wasif, m., ullah, e., & ali, s. (2011).usage and impact of ict in education sector; a study of pakistan. department of computer science comsats institute of information and technology wah cantt, pakistan. yusuf, m. o. (2005). information and communication education: analyzing the nigerian national policy for information technology. international education journal, 6(3),316–321. zhao, y., &cziko, g. a. (2001).teacher adoption of technology: a perceptual control theory perspective. journal of technology and teacher education, 9(1), 5–30. biodata dr. muhammad safdar bhatti is an elt expert with 26 years of ielts & tefl teaching and training experience. he has authored four books, 30 publications, supervised extensively & has given keynote speeches at various international forums. he has conducted and attended many elt workshops and seminars within the country. he has been awarded honorary doctorate in elt by an american university due to his remarkable services in the field of elt. he is also an awardee of “national human rights professional award-2016” by ihro, islamabad-pakistan. citation asiacall online journal received: 03/08/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 04/09/2021 vol. 12, no. 5, 2021 accepted: 05/09/2021 pp. 24-33 online: 07/09/2021 citation | le, t. t. m. (20201). a case study of students’ views on effective online learning. asiacall online journal, 12(5), pp. 24-33. a case study of students’ views on effective online learning le thi tuyet minh university of economics ho chi minh city, vietnam. corresponding author’s email: snowle@ueh.edu.vn abstract this study investigates the students’ opinions of the elements of effective online learning. the respondents (n=172) completed a twelve-week course in the module 3 english classes at the university of economics ho chi minh city (ueh) taught by the author with an eight-week online period. the tool includes a questionnaire with 14 questions regarding the factors that enable them to be engaged in the online lessons and an open-ended question asking for the student's contribution to the ideas of effective online learning. the questionnaire utilizes the likert scale via google form. the elements cover the three components: cognitive presence, teaching presence and social presence in the foundational model for online learning developed by garrison et al. (2000). seven main elements for effective online english teaching are recognized as: teaching method, course content, learning activities (updated news delivery, games, polls, and student presentations are favourable), myriad interaction (short questions are preferable), learning incentives (bonus marks), supportive learning environment (teacher voice, praise, encouragement, good teacher-student and student-student relationships) and supplementary materials (revision, extra resources, etc.). finally, the writer draws on some suggestions for effective online teaching and learning. keywords: effective online learning, online teaching, student engagement 1 introduction the covid-19 pandemic has forced educational institutions to move into online teaching. this type of education requires more effort from both teachers and students as it presents new modes of presentation and interaction. in this paper, the writer first gives the theoretical background of effective online teaching before presenting the results of the students’ opinions (n=172) of the elements that enable them to be engaged in online lessons. the writer then suggests some ideas for effective online teaching and learning. online education has been studied for decades but has recently gained high focus due to the covid-19 pandemic. there have been numerous studies on online teaching and learning over the last year. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 25 the best-known theoretical framework for designing an online learning environment is the model developed by garrison et al. (2000), which presents three critical components for an effective online educational community: cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence. cognitive presence is providing a sufficient degree of the content of the course. social presence relates to establishing a supportive environment for students. teaching presence involves the way teachers design and organizes the learning experience. this theoretical framework has been the most popular model for online educational studies. likewise, gold (2001) points out three basic roles of online facilitators: organizational, social, and intellectual. the organizational role involves setting the agenda, objectives, and procedures for the learning process. this is essentially the teaching presence of garrison et al. (2000)’s framework. the facilitator’s main social role is the creation of a friendly environment for the students by giving welcome messages, using a personal tone, seeding students’ feedback with specific examples and references. good teachers also play a social role model of good online and intellectual behaviour for students and help them become better students. correspondingly, this is the social presence. finally, in the intellectual role, moderators facilitate the students' understanding through discussion, questions, probing responses, synthesizing, summarizing, and developing themes and resources. this is basically cognitive presence. in addition, oliver & herrington (2003) demonstrate the constituent elements of online learning settings as in figure 1. figure 1. constituent elements of online learning setting (oliver & herrington, 2003) https://asiacall.info/acoj le, t. t. minh vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 26 the online educational setting involves three elements: learning tasks, learning support, and learning resources. designing learning tasks is ‘the design and specification of tasks to engage and direct the learner in the process of knowledge acquisition and development of understanding’ and 'characterized by learner engagement in cognitively complex tasks involving such activproblem-solvingm solving, critical thinking, collaboration and selfregulation (oliver & herrington, 2003, p.113). they suggest that the learning activity be authentic. planning learning support is arranging the strategies to enable learners to implement and complete the learning tasks successfully. the design and specification of supports are to scaffold the learning and provide feedback that is responsive and sensitive to their individual needs for the online learner. selecting the learning resources is 'the design and specification of the learning resources needed by the learner to successfully complete the set tasks and to facilitate the scaffolding and guidance' (oliver & herrington, 2003, p.113). they recommend that instructors provide content with perspectives from a multitude of sources using both conventional materials and electronic sources and that the resources be relevant and authentic. scholars have also given a myriad of pedagogical recommendations for online education. doolittle (1999) emphasizes the importance of an active learning environment for online students with eight recommendations: 1. learning should take place in authentic and realworld environments. 2. learning should involve social negotiation and mediation. 3. content and skills should be made relevant to the learner. 4. content and skills should be understood within the framework of the learner’s prior knowledge. 5. students should be assessed formatively, serving to inform future learning experiences. 6. students should be encouraged to become self-regulatory, self-mediated, and self-aware. 7. teachers serve primarily as guides and facilitators of learning, not instructors. 8. teachers should provide for and encourage multiple perspectives and representations of content. furthermore, may & short (2003) used the metaphor of gardening in cyberspace to demonstrate the process of enhancing online teaching and learning. there are well-matched analogues between the practices of gardening – positioning, conditioning soil, watering, and controlling weeds and pests – and the online pedagogical practices, including addressing individual differences, motivating the student, providing feedback, and avoiding information overload. because of the covid-19 pandemic, online education has become popular. numerous studies on online teaching and learning have been carried out over the last year. many studies focus on the advantages and disadvantages when implementing online teaching and learning in their own institutions, like most recently nguyen, h.n. (2021), nguyen, t.n. m., tra, v. d., & nguyen, p. h. (2021), tran, v.m.y., &nguyen, t.u.n. (2021), nguyen, h. u. n., & duong, l. n. t. (2021), etc. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 27 we know that effective online learning results from thorough instructional design and conscientious implementation. instructors in an online class need to make a lot more effort than they do in a traditional classroom. 2 methods 2.1 pedagogical setting & participants the subjects are the students (n =172) in module 3 english classes at ueh. all of the participants had finished a 12-week english course taught by the author with an 8-week online period. the students were taught online via google meet. 2.2 design of the study a questionnaire via google form is utilized to measure the students’ views on the items related to effective online english learning. 2.3 data collection & analysis the first part asks the students to rate the 14 items that can affect their online learning. the likert scale is utilized, ranging from strongly disagree, disagree, no idea, agree, and strongly agree. the second part is an open-ended question asking for the student's contribution to the ideas of effective online learning and teaching. 2.4 research questions the research aims at promoting effective online teaching and learning from students' perspectives. through analyzing students' views, the writer identifies important elements that can engage students in online learning and then proposes some ideas for effective online english teaching and learning. the purpose of the study is to answer the two questions: 1. what elements are considered important for effective online learning in students’ viewpoints? 2. what should teachers do so as to promote effective online learning? https://asiacall.info/acoj le, t. t. minh vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 28 3 findings and discussion 3.1 findings the results of students’ opinions on the elements that can engage them in online learning are shown in table 1. table 1 students’ ideas on the elements that can engage them in online learning items sd =1 d=2 n=3 a=4 sa=5 mean 1. lecture content 6 4% 2 1% 4 2% 61 35% 99 58% 4.42 2. bonus marks 5 3% 4 2% 14 8% 82 48% 67 39% 4.17 3. up-to-date news 4 2% 2 1% 18 10% 73 43% 75 44% 4.24 4. the teaching method 5 3% 1 0.5% 3 1.5% 73 43% 90 52% 4.41 5. teachers’ voice and intonation 5 3% 1 0.5% 18 10.5% 74 43% 74 43% 4.23 6. games 5 3% 5 3% 18 10% 88 51% 56 33% 4.08 7. discussion questions 4 2% 5 3% 37 22% 81 47% 45 26% 3.92 8. presentation activities 7 4% 16 22% 41 24% 77 45% 31 18% 3.63 9. q& a section after a presentation 2 1% 17 10% 33 19% 88 51% 32 19% 3.76 10. pair work and group work. 3 2% 10 6% 44 25% 83 48% 32 19% 3.76 11. short questions 4 2% 2 1% 26 15% 101 59% 39 23% 3.98 12. students' opinion poll 4 2% 5 3% 44 25% 86 50% 33 20% 3.81 13. encouragement and praise 6 4% 4 2% 52 30% 75 44% 35 20% 3.75 14. learning atmosphere 5 3% 2 1% 14 8% 76 44% 75 44% 4.24 note. sd: strongly disagree, d: disagree, n: neutral, a: agree, sa: strongly agree teaching content and teaching method are the two elements that are valued the most highly (mean = 4.42 and 4.41 respectively). the teaching method gets the highest number of total agreements (95%), including agreement and strong agreement, preceding lecture content which makes up 93%. however, lecture content is the element that receives the highest number of strong agreement (58%), while the teaching method gets 52%. on the opposite end of the scale, the teaching method is one of the elements that have the fewest number of disagreements (about 3%), while lecture content gets 5%. a supportive learning environment stands out as the third significant element (mean = 4.24), which accounts for 88% of agreement in total. the students show a strong desire for bonus marks, with 87% of the students expressing their favour. furthermore, the lecturer's voice is highly appraised in attracting students to the lecture (mean = 4.23). the two activities that are appreciated the most are the inclusion of up-to-date news (87%) and games (84%). short questions get high approval of 82%, whereas discussion questions obtain 73%. in addition, students like to join in opinion polls, with 70% of the students acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 29 wanting the teacher to conduct regularly. also, most students (64%) would like to be praised and encouraged regularly. the presentation activity gets the least favour with only 63% of the students showing their approval. moreover, this is also the factor which is disagreed the most (26%). besides, after the presentation, the question and answer session is the second least favoured, with 11% of the students showing disagreement. the role of pair work and group work in enhancing student-student interaction is not highly appreciated, with 8% disagreeing, 25% showing neutral ideas, only 67% agree. in the open question, the students are asked to give suggestions for effective online english learning. most of the students place emphasis on more interaction between teacher and students as well as between students and students. they also show a preference for teachers frequently asking small questions so as to increase interaction and pull them back to the lesson as it is easy for them to lose their attention when studying online. many students propose modifying lessons with games, videos, etc., to make the lessons more interesting. they expect a fun, friendly learning atmosphere. they suggest using another website for listening as sometimes the audio files are not clear when transmitted online. the students want more learning materials, exercises, resources for self-study, as well as more assignments with bonus marks. they recommend giving students some small topics to look for information, which they will share with one another in the next class meeting. after each lesson, they would like to have some small review exercises on lms (learning management systems) to help them consolidate the knowledge. there is also the idea that all students should turn on their webcams so that they see other students' faces in order not to feel lonely. 3.2 discussion & suggestions the teaching method stands out as the essential factor that can engage students in the lesson. thus, teachers should pay much attention to their teaching method development as the teaching method has never lost its vital role in the learning process. lecture content is considered the second most vital element. this is the cognitive presence element (garrison et al., 2000) for effective online education. the teacher needs to concentrate their effort to design the course content which is meaningful and relevant. educators should promote activities that are active, experiential, and authentic. in the teaching presence element (garrison et al., 2000), along with the teaching method, which is considered the most important aspect, the teacher's voice is also critical in promoting effective online learning. teachers can use their voice and intonation to attract students. the cyberspace of online learning limits the teacher's interaction with the students. the only means by which the teacher can communicate with the students in his/her voice. thus the teacher should try to use an appealing voice so as to engage the students. the voice should also show the teacher's enthusiasm. it is only enthusiasm that can pervade, transfuse and https://asiacall.info/acoj le, t. t. minh vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 30 provoke enthusiasm. how can the students be enthusiastic about the lesson if the teacher is not enthusiastic himself/herself? additionally, students like the inclusion of up-to-date news in their lessons, so teachers should integrate some news into their instructional designs to make the lessons more practical and updated. students will pay more interest in the issues that are to their concerns, realistic, and useful. students also express their enjoyment in games. games still play a significant role in involving students and creating a fun and appealing learning atmosphere. teachers can make use of gamification in their instruction to make the lesson more interesting. the learning activity can be either gamified by adding competition mode or modified with game-playing via various tools like powerpoint, online games with kahoot, etc. furthermore, creating games is the job of the teacher and the task that students like doing. interaction is identified as a vital element by the students. teachers need to promote teacherstudent as well as student-student interaction as much as possible, employing all kinds of vehicles at their best. the students prefer short questions for increasing interaction more than discussion questions or the question and answer session after the presentation. therefore, it is necessary that teachers frequently ask interactive questions to involve students as it is easy for students to feel lonely and lose their focus when studying online. teachers can ask questions about students' feelings and opinions during the lesson or put simple questions that students can answer easily. for the questions that require complicated answers, teachers should break the question into small parts to give students scaffolding. teachers can, from time to time, conduct students' opinion polls during the lesson to increase students' participation in the lesson. a few students (8%) express their dislike, and 25% show their reluctance to pair work and group work since the online environment makes it difficult for them to interact with each other directly. hence, pair work and group work can be exploited by project-based learning or task-based learning with the students’ presentations about their job. the presentation should be short, concise and have a time limit as other students will easily lose their attention and get bored with long presentations. regarding the social presence element (garrison et al., 2000), teachers should try to promote a supportive learning environment, which is regarded as the third significant aspect by the students. a supportive learning environment must deploy both good teacher-student relationships and student-student relationships. students like praise and encouragement, so teachers need to commend students' achievements and give encouragement when necessary frequently. on the ground that students show a strong desire for bonus marks, teachers can utilize bonus marks as stimulation for their participation. in addition, students may be encouraged to find a studying companion. the lack of physical presence in a real classroom will make it easy for students to feel lonely and distracted. good companions can take care of each other in the learning process. teachers sometimes also need to ask students to turn on acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 31 their webcams so that they see other students' faces, which helps create an atmosphere like a face-to-face classroom to lessen the feeling of being lonely. in today’s 4.0 era, teachers should take advantage of technology to facilitate learning and engage students. teachers can integrate with other websites together with lms, etc. and can deploy the channels like youtube, ted talks (ted-ed), etc.; the apps for creating presentations like mentimeter, flipgrid, padlet, answergarden, etc.; the apps for quizzes like quizizz, quizlet, etc. in order to enrich the lessons. 4 conclusion in sum, seven main elements for effective online english teaching are recognized as: teaching method, course content, learning activities (updated news delivery, games, polls, and student presentations are favourable), myriad interaction (short questions are preferable), learning incentives (bonus marks), supportive learning environment (teacher voice, praise, encouragement, good teacher-student and student-student relationships) and supplementary materials (revision, extra resources, etc.). to promote effective online learning, teachers must pay attention to four primary dimensions: structuring an effective course design, creating community and engagement, facilitating online interaction, and supplying adequate learning support. online education emphasizes an interactive learning environment; therefore, effective online instructions have to facilitate and enhance interaction with both teacher to student and student to student dimensions. teachers have to learn how to make the most of the advanced learning tools in the 4.0 era. the study has a fairly small number of respondents and a limited number of learning activities. further research can exploit more learning activities and online resources. references doolittle, p. e. (1999). constructivism and online education. retrieved june 27, 2021, from https://jgregorymcverry.com/readings/doolittle%20-%201999%20%20constructivism%20and%20online%20education.pdf garrison, d. r., anderson, t., & archer, w. (2000). critical inquiry in a text-based environment: computer conferencing in higher education. the internet and higher education, 2(2-3), 87-105. gold, s. (2001). a constructivist approach to online training for online teachers. journal of asynchronous learning networks, 5(1). retrieved june 27, 2021, from https://olj.onlinelearningconsortium.org/index.php/olj/article/view/1886/717 may, g.l & short, d. (2003). gardening in cyberspace: a metaphor to enhance online teaching and learning. retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1052562903257940 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1052562903257940 https://asiacall.info/acoj le, t. t. minh vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 32 nguyen, h.n. (2021). a case study of home-based teaching and learning practice at ton duc thang university. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 1-11.retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/24 nguyen, h. u. n., & duong, l. n. t. (2021). the challenges of e-learning through microsoft teams for efl students at van lang university in covid-19. asiacall online journal, 12(4), 18-29. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/60 nguyen, t.n.m., tra, v.d., & nguyen, p.h. (2021). difficulties and some suggested solutions in studying online of the students in van lang university during the covid-19 pandemic. asiacall online journal, 12(4), 9-17. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/58 oliver, r. & herrington, j. (2003). exploring technology-mediated learning from a pedagogical perspective. journal of interactive learning environments, 11(2), 111-126. tran, v.m.y., & nguyen, t.u.n. (2021). the practice of online english teaching and learning with microsoft teams: from students’ view. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 51-57.retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/41 biodata le thi tuyet minh is a lecturer of school of foreign languages at university of economics ho chi minh city, vietnam. she has got an m.a. degree in tesol and has been teaching for more than 15 years. she mainly teaches business english and toeic. her major research interests are student motivation, computer assisted language learning, educational technology, and elt methodology. https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/60 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 33 appendix the questionnaire in english dear students, in order to enhance the online learning of english, please help me answer the following questions. thank you very much for your valuable contribution. part 1. please choose the degree which shows your agreement/disagreement. items strongly disagree disagre e neutra l agree strongl y agree 1. interesting lecture content is very important. 2. bonus marks for students’ participation in the lecture create great motivation for students to join the class. 3. the inclusion of up-to-date news in the lecture is very attractive to students. 4. the teaching method is very important in attracting students to the lecture. 5. teachers’ voice and intonation can help attract students to the lecture. 6. games in class make students more interested. 7. discussion questions help increase interaction in class. 8. presentation activities help students become less boring. 9. the questions & answers session after the presentation creates an opportunity for students to interact with each other. 10. teachers should enhance student-student interaction through pair work and group work. 11. teachers often ask short questions can increase interaction with students, which will make students more attentive in class. 12. teachers should regularly conduct students' opinion poll during the lesson to increase students' participation in the lecture. 13. teachers should regularly encourage and praise students. 14. teachers should create a friendly, fun online learning atmosphere, which can help engage students. part 2. what are your suggestions for the online learning of english to be more effective? thank you for completing the questionnaire. asiacall online journal received: 19/02/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 20/04/2021 vol. 12, no. 4, 2021 accepted: 12/05/2021 pp. 1-8 online: 12/05/2021 1 the efficiency of e-teaching activities in teaching speaking skills for english major students tran thi thuy oanh university of foreign language studies – the university of danang, vietnam, corresponding author’s email: tttoanh@ufl.udn.vn abstract in the pandemic context of covid-19, all universities in viet nam have paid great attention to implementing e-teaching activities. the study focuses on evaluating the efficiency of eteaching activities on speaking skills for second-year students of english major at university of foreign language studies the university of da nang (ufls-udn). a survey was conducted in a group of 15 teachers and 100 students of ufls-udn to figure out what the reality is. the findings indicated that the information technology infrastructure system of the school meets the needs of online teaching. most teachers mastered e-teaching equipment, especially supporting software, applying teaching methods suitable to the online teaching model to integrate polarize learners' learning activities. moreover, most students are selfconsciously participating in the form of e-teaching and doing exercises as well as answering questions posed by teachers in the learning process. however, some teachers are still conscious of implementing this duty or spending time to draft lessons. the research proposes suitable and feasible solutions to improve e-teaching activities at ufls-udn, particularly at universities, faculties of foreign languages in viet nam in general. keywords: efficiency, e-teaching, speaking skill, english major. 1. introduction online literacy plays a significant contribution and essential role in student learning and teacher teaching. with the developments of software that intend to improve education quality and access educational information, the learning and teaching opportunities have increased. in fact, teaching and learning on the internet have changed how teachers communicate with students and vice visa. according to carol (2003), “technology is a force worthy of consideration, whether one wishes to focus on the technological potential, to examine pragmatic technology use, or to criticize both” (p.9). van et al. (2021) and nguyen (2021) found that technology is an essential tool in elearning in order to help students improve their english skills. in addition, bhatti (2021) asserts that technology plays an imprtant role in english language teaching. thanks to the developments of technology, how teachers gain access to information in lessons and how students widen their knowledge in learning has changed in recent years. in recent years, universities in viet nam have paid great attention to implementing e-teaching acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 2 activities, especially in the epidemic context of covid-19. it affected most of aspects in the society (hoang & le, 2021; pham & vo, 2021). university of foreign language studies the university of da nang (ufls-udn) is one of the educational institutions requiring students to study online during the last pandemic. although teachers seem to master how to use technology in teaching, there is still an issue that they cannot acknowledge, understand, or 'catch' the way the world's technology changes rapidly. they feel difficult to update these techniques, especially in teaching and learning the speaking skills of a foreign language. the research evaluated the efficiency of e-teaching activities on speaking skills. it proposed suitable and feasible solutions to improve the efficiency of e-teaching activities at ufls-udn in particular, at universities, faculties of foreign languages in viet nam in general. 2. literature review the technologies have an impact on learning and teaching foreign languages. in teaching speaking, teachers show attentions to constant revision and recycling. teachers try to mix many activities with helping learners' language skills. they often use tasks of dialogues, poems, songs, music, games in their lesson schedules. students have chances to check if their speaking abilities improve, their skills of pronunciation get better, and especially their language awareness develops. in particular, using techniques in the classroom can aid in the development of a learner's speaking ability, and we have held in mind that interaction and dissection are important aspects of learning. as a result, we should have more oral focus in our instruction and allow students as much speech time as possible (andrade, 2005:22). in the recent context of education, most teachers pay attention to design activities in teaching speaking skills to students. they try to make more requirements on tasks aiming to achieve the criteria of the oral skills that are fluency and accuracy in the assessment. in communication, speaking competently considers being the most basic session for a communicator who does it fluently. during speaking, language users should focus on grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation, which are appropriated. depending on the situation, they also should apply exact cultural as well as social characteristics. therefore, teaching this skill aims to make learners ensure communicating effectively. according to chandra (2004), the ability of technology to meet learners at any moment and in any location has the power to bring about radical improvements in the educational paradigm. in any educational setting, e-teaching is a necessary prerequisite for e-learning, particularly for inexperienced students. teachers' responsibilities in an online world vary significantly from those in a conventional classroom setting. the majority of today's teachers and academics lack adequate digital literacy (alexander et al., 2017; wineburg et al., 2016). 2.1 research questions the study aims to answer the following research questions: a) what are e-teaching activities in teaching speaking skills for major english students of the university of foreign language studies the university of da nang? https://naerjournal.ua.es/article/view/v7n2-3 https://naerjournal.ua.es/article/view/v7n2-3 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 3 b) what is the efficiency of e-teaching activities in teaching speaking skills for major english students of the university of foreign language studies the university of da nang? 3. methods 3.1 pedagogical setting & participants university of foreign language studies the university of da nang was established in accordance with the decision no. 709 / qd-ttg dated 26 august 2002 by the vietnamese government, with the mission to improve students' knowledge of language and culture to contribute to national construction, development, and international integration. the university is selected by the ministry of education and training and the management board of national foreign language 2020 project to be one of the five regional centers for foreign languages undertaking the task of training, fostering, and assessing foreign language. skills, as well as developing pedagogical skills and applying information technology in teaching and learning foreign languages. the university offers a self-study system based on textbooks, face-to-face tutorials, and a webbased instructional environment. especially in the covid-19 pandemic, the university performed the lessons online absolutely through ms-teams and zoom meetings. microsoft teams is a workspace for real-time teamwork and networking, workshops, file and software sharing, and even the odd emoji—it's the best chat app for the company. all are in one spot, out in the open, where everybody can see it. the university chose the method for eteaching and learning for the following reasons: text, audio, video, and file sharing are all included in this rich chat. having a private conversation to create an idea before sharing it with the whole company; all of the users' notes, docs, and other documents are kept in one location. zoom meetings is a simple-to-use platform that combines cloud video conferencing, remote meetings, community chat, and a software-defined conference room solution. in a usual context, e-teaching and learning are optional or non-mandatory. course sites really do not replace textbooks or face-to-face tutorials. however, in the context of covid-19 pandemic, these activities are necessary to preserve the learning process among students. through these systems, course sites simplify organizational procedures and enrich students’ learning opportunities and experiences. participants participants were 15 lecturers and 100 students of ufls – udn. lecturers had at least 5 years of teaching experience and have experienced in the ways of distance education and been trained for using these systems for e-teaching in this period. students are in the second year of english major in the university and have enrolled in the english speaking skill courses. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 4 3.2 design of the study the aim of the study is to assess the effectiveness of e-teaching in teaching students to talk by using a set of well-structured questionnaires to provide a study context. to agree on the results of this practice, this analysis uses a descriptive test design. the researchers were able to collect data from a wide variety of respondents on the effects of speaking ability e-teaching and learning thanks to this study design. this aided in the analysis of the responses received in terms of how they impact educational content. 3.3 data collection & analysis data collection through questionnaires: questionnaires are the most common method for gathering primary data in the realistic analysis since the researcher may choose the sample size and types of questions to ask. initially, the questionnaire architecture was coded and mixed up based on uniform constructs from individual topics. as a result, the questionnaire yielded useful information that was needed to meet the dissertation's objectives. a five-item likert scale was used to construct the questionnaires. each argument was rated on a five-point likert scale, with one equaling "strongly support" and five equaling "strongly disagree." the responses were totaled to generate a ranking on each of the tests. participants' consent was approved at the class after they came back to school through the questionnaires, which were given to them directly. this 5-minute survey was conducted by the participants and sent to the researcher. the thesis was carried out in such a way that the participants' privacy was covered. to answer the questions raised, the analysis gathered quantitative data. 4. findings and discussion 4.1 activities of e-teaching for speaking skills lecturers prepared lesson planning for teaching speaking skills online. this is an important step for teaching speaking online. they consider the learning, their requirements, and the goal of students' learning and have some grading criteria to assess the progress of the students. lecturers focus on making and dividing activities to prepare daily and weekly to achieve lessons' goals. lecturers organize all the lessons and activities for students in a chronology. students follow the instructions of lecturers to prepare the content. students practice within the chatroom. lecturers give some quizzes or exams which can be conducted to help students memorize and recite dialogues, looking at pictures and describing them, role-playing, conducting group discussions in the chatroom. these activities help students get the chance to complete the tasks and practice what is in the acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 5 textbook. the student's success in interacting in the chatroom can be used as an assessment tool to assess the student's learning. they also help teachers make amendments, assist students in struggling areas, and plan how to perform better. 4.2 the efficiency of e-teaching for speaking skills for major students at ufls-udn table 1. the comments of students on e-teaching for speaking skills questions / statements stron gly agree (%) agree (%) neutral (%) disag ree (%) strongly disagree (%) learning speaking online is interesting 11 87 0 2 0 learning speaking online is comfortable because of being seated at home 93 2 1 2 2 students could study more effectively and productively 67 14 9 5 5 the website use of the school in learning speaking is stable and in good condition 75 12 7 3 3 student has the right to get in contact in case of any problems 87 7 2 4 0 students of the system could easily access the content of lessons 64 34 1 1 0 the knowledge which is provided within e-learning appropriate to the student’s needs 45 47 6 1 1 students could get education together in a virtual classroom 54 40 4 2 0 as can be seen from table 1, the students of ufls udn highly rated the effects of e-teaching on speaking skills. with the question “learning speaking online is interesting” and a five-point likert-type scale, for which 1 = “strongly agree” to 5 = “strongly disagree”, we have been found that all the students are interested in learning online. however, the result of the survey dropped at the scale 2 "agree" (87%). with the question “learning speaking online is comfortable because of being seated at home”, we have been found that the students gave the answer “strongly agree” (93%). during covid-19, the students of ufls – udn were in the home and attended classes actively with big support from the school. in fact, home is always a very comfortable place, especially for introverted students. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 6 table 2. the comments of the lecturers on e-teaching for speaking skills questions / statements stron gly agree (%) agree (%) neutral (%) disag ree (%) strongly disagree (%) the website use of the school in learning speaking is stable and in good condition 86 7 7 0 0 students could easily access the content of lessons 86 14 0 0 0 the knowledge which is provided within e-learning appropriate to the student’s needs 100 0 0 0 0 students could get education together in a virtual classroom 100 0 0 0 0 teachers are trained in information technologies and internet in order to gather with the students in virtual classrooms 100 0 0 0 0 besides, we have received the result with high rates for the last questions in the level of “strongly agree” from the lecturers surveyed. according to the educators interviewed, the majority clearly agree with the following statements: "the knowledge given by e-learning is suitable for the student's needs," "students should receive education in a virtual classroom," and "teachers are educated in information technology and the internet in order to gather with students in virtual classrooms" (100 percent ). in fact, the efficiency in e-teaching for speaking skills offers teachers and students of uflsudn many advantages: for the english major students of ufls-udn: getting interesting, comfortable feelings; studying more effectively and productively; having the right to get in contact in case of any problems; accessing the content of lessons easily; being provided the appropriate knowledge within e-learning; getting education together in a virtual classroom; acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 7 for the lecturers of ufls-udn: shaping the online classes to best suit their students; leaving them with knowledge and course satisfaction; being trained in information technologies and the internet in order to gather with the students in virtual classrooms. in general, using technical methods in e-teaching allows the learner to be trained. students (from various locations) could learn together in a virtual classroom. the lecturers could pose questions to the students in the classroom, and the students could answer through their computer screens. it allows for the quality and appropriateness of instructional resources to be reviewed and renewed. technology not only makes education more appealing by rich audio-visual presentations, but it also improves learning levels. e-learning allows students to gain skills without having to attend classes. as a result, they will save money on lodging and transportation. however, with open the suggestion “please give the ways to improve the efficiency of eteaching activities at ufls-udn” in the questionnaires, we propose suitable and feasible solutions as follows: the school should establish virtual labs which provide the chance to follow the developments in education. since many e-learning programs need shared engagement through technical resources and gathering with their students in virtual classrooms, teachers of e-learning programs must have extensive in-service preparation. 5. conclusion the findings indicated that the information technology infrastructure system of the school meets the needs of online teaching. most of the teachers mastered e-teaching equipment, especially supporting software, applying teaching methods suitable to the online teaching model to integrate polarize learners' learning activities. moreover, most of the students are selfconsciously participating in the form of e-teaching and doing exercises as well as answering questions posed by teachers in the learning process. the study also supposes some suitable and feasible solutions to improve the efficiency of e-teaching activities at ufls-udn in particular, at universities, faculties of foreign languages in viet nam in general for second-year students of english major. references andrade, m. s. (2015). effective e-learning and e-teaching – a theoretical model. in b. gradinarova (ed.). e-learning: instructional design, organizational strategy and management. intech. doi:10.5772/60578 alexander, b., adams-becker, s., cummins, m., & hall-giesinger, c. (2017). digital literacy in higher education, part ii: an nmc horizon project strategic brief. volume acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 8 3, 4, august 2017. austin, texas: the new media consortium. stanford digital repository. retrieved from: http://purl.stanford.edu/fv751yt5934 bhatti, m. s., asif iqbal, shaista noreen, rafia mukhtar, & zahida javed. (2021). investigating the role of ict for teaching english at elementary level. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 87-93. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/35 chandra, r., (2004). technology in the preparation of teachers, delhi: isha. davies, j. & graff, m. (2005), performance in e-learning: online participation and student grades. british journal of educational technology, 36(4), 657-663. farnsworth, r. e., (2001), the use of flexible, interactive, situation-focused software for the e-learning of mathematics, u.s.; massachusetts; 2001. frank, m., reich, n. & humphreys, k., 2003, respecting the human needs of students in the development of e-learning, computers & education, 40(1), 57-70. hoang, n. t., & le, d. h. (2021). vocational english teachers’ challenges on shifting towards virtual classroom teaching. asiacall online journal, 12(3), 58-73. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/39 nguyen, thi hong nhat. (2021). developing bottom-up listening skills in a google classroom-based efl module. asiacall online journal, 12(3), 47-57. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/45 pham, v. p. h., & vo, n. d. t. (2021). call in asia during covid-19 and models of elearning. proceedings of the 17th international conference of the asia association of computer-assisted language learning (asiacall 2021). vol. 533, pp. 1-10. amsterdam: atlantis press. isbn:978-94-6239-343-1; issn: 2352-5398 (cpci/isiindex to-be). doi: https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210226.001 yucel, a.s, (2006), e-learning approach in teacher training, turkish online journal of distance education, issn 1302-6488 volume: 7 number: 4 article: 11 van, l. k., dang, t. a., pham, d. b. t., vo, t. t. n., & pham, v. p. h. (2021). the effectiveness of using technology in learning english. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 24-40. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/26 wineburg, s., mcgrew, s., breakstone, j., & ortega, t. (2016). evaluating information: the cornerstone of civic online reasoning. stanford university, ca. biodata tran thi thuy oanh is a senior lecturer at university of foreign language studies – the university of danang, vietnam. she had a ph.d’s degree in english linguistics and spent a researching course at university of nice sophia antipolis, french republic. her current research fields are english linguistics, pedagogy and education. http://purl.stanford.edu/fv751yt5934 https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210226.001 asiacall online journal received: ..../...../..... issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: ..../...../..... vol. 12, no. 3, 2021 accepted: ..../...../..... pp. 28-38 online: ..../...../..... 28 the difference effects of paper dictionaries vs. online dictionaries trinh thi lan anh1*, tran thi kim ngan1, vo thuy bao ngoc1, huynh thi thu suong1 1 faculty of foreign languages, van lang university, vietnam * corresponding author’s email: trinhanh270520@gmail.com abstract the dictionary helps to learn foreign languages more easily and, with the invention of the online dictionary, users are now better supported and more effectively. therefore, many studies have been conducted to show the influence of paper dictionaries and online dictionaries on users and problems in using the two types of dictionaries. the present study was based on 300 junior students from van lang university in ho chi minh city. the results illustrated that students had a strong preference for online dictionaries. the survey also found that most students use the dictionary regularly as an effective tool to improve their language levels when it comes to boosting the vocabulary bank. finally, most students at van lang university tended to choose online dictionaries for learning new vocabularies, although some of them still do not deny the value of paper dictionaries. keywords: paper, online, dictionaries, students, university, differences, benefit, advantages, effect. 1. introduction 1.1 background of the study today, with the integration of cultures worldwide, language acts as a bridge between different regions of different countries in this modern era. according to d’astoli (2016), if seen in any aspect, the ability to communicate in a foreign language makes people able to be able to get a better understanding of each other. so people believe that a foreign language is essential to life and try to improve their knowledge about foreign language. however, many people have problems understanding the meaning, intonation, and usage in the learning process. therefore, the dictionary becomes an indispensable tool for those who are having problems learning foreign languages. 1.2 statement of the problem for these reasons, print dictionaries were born and became an effective tool for the student to find new words' meanings. it has been recognized over time by the undeniable upsides that it brings. kipfer (2013) claimed that print dictionaries are more detailed when it comes to explanation and pronunciation and are a good brain exercise that pushes learners' critical thinking and spellings during the searching process. what is more, our fast-growing digital society has led to the popularity of online dictionaries worldwide. according to shamar (2020), online dictionaries seem to be beneficial in terms of illustrating foreign terms through audio and visual methods. thus, both online and paper dictionaries are equally appreciated by learners for their own benefits. 1.3 the purpose of the study the purpose of this study is to clarify the value of using a dictionary in learning foreign languages. learners have the chance to recognize the validity of dictionaries when it comes to facing new words. besides, the research focuses on emphasizing each type of dictionary's strengths and weaknesses so that learners could make the right decision about which one to choose in the long run. mckeown (1993) mentioned that different dictionaries suit different kinds of users as many of them require english learners of high level to grasp new words completely. what is more, the conducted research provides learners the chance to enhance their english levels by deeply understanding how to use a dictionary correctly. according to ridley (2016), being able to make use of a dictionary in the right way enables students to enhance communication and upgrade their academic achievements at school. thus, english teaching quality is significantly improved. https://asiacall.info/acoj acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 29 1.4 the significance of the study this study's implication stems from the improper use of self-electricity by learners of a foreign language, even laziness to use a dictionary. from there, the reference will cause awareness for the readers as an opportunity to reaffirm the indispensable role of the dictionary in human life, and this method will encourage learners to be more interested in using appropriate dictionaries for themselves in the 4.0 era today for its benefits because underhill (qt. in ilson, 2012) mentioned that there are advantages when using dictionaries to learn a new language. 2. literature review many recent studies have focused on the problem of contrast between the helpfulness of online dictionaries and print dictionaries to english learners. rundell (2014) reported that since the dictionary began to change its form from the printed to the digital, people have discussed the negative sides of a paper dictionary, the positive sides of an electronic dictionary, and the potential usefulness of an electronic dictionary. based on the specific advantages that the computer dictionary, for example, the producer can easily upgrade the dictionary's quality, users can access and search large amounts of information quickly. people tend to favor online dictionaries over paper dictionaries. the online dictionary provides a special consultation service for users; for instance, the users do not need to look up each page to determine the word they need in alphabetic of a traditional dictionary (kim, 2003, p.5). the human tendency towards convenience has prompted students to many recent studies have focused on the problem of contrast use e-dictionaries more than ever and leads to electronic dictionaries' mass production (zarei & gujjar, 2012, p.631). li lan's (2006) survey shows that more than 70% of students use online dictionaries more often than traditional dictionaries, and she confirmed that the era of paper dictionaries is coming to an end (qt. in zarei & gujjar, 2012). amirian and heshmatifar (2013) reported that through an experiment, the students who use an online dictionary determine the definition and the meaning of new words more quickly and exactly than those who use a paper dictionary. it is believed that an online dictionary is a useful tool in learning a foreign language. li and xu (2015) conducted that the bulky and outdated paper dictionary gradually replaces the online dictionary because of fast retrieval and less time-consuming. the foreign language learners have had an awareness of online dictionaries' weaknesses and strengths; they often use many online dictionaries to overcome every online dictionary's blemish (jin & deifell, 2013). word reference reported that online dictionary is the most regularly visited since learners can share and look for helpfulness with the proper usage of phrases and sentences in a social context and particular culture in online forums. this instance showed that foreign language learners knew how to use reference sources flexibly to get the best effect (qt. in lantolf & thorne, 2006). in general, paper and online dictionary has its advantages and disadvantages and chooses which type depends on learners' needs and habits (hulstijn & atkins, 2015). according to filer (2017), today, technology information develops rapidly, many people have the advanced means of service to understand the new word or use. chen and dziemianko (2010) claimed that many people use online dictionaries and print dictionaries to understand the meaning of a new vocabulary. and this is arguably really important from the author's point of view. in addition, the author also affirms the essential role of dictionaries in three fields, such as form, meaning, and use. however, there is no denying that electronic dictionaries are also limited to screen size than paper dictionaries (koren, 1997). however, tang (1997) found that people still like to choose electronic dictionaries over paper dictionaries because of some of their positive features. for example, learners can easily carry it anywhere. besides, they can hear sample pronunciation from this modern medium. especially at the same time, looking up words with large volumes will be faster and more convenient. (dziemianko, 2010). furthermore, stirling (2003) mentioned that this method would help learners study earlier and more positively while discovering new vocabularies through the voice function of personal electronic dictionaries (qt. in filer, 2017). like the purpose of the current studies, kim (2003) researched the influence of computer dictionaries and print dictionaries on learners' l2 learning. this study was done by dividing 37 college students in korea into two groups. both groups will read and understand a short text; they will use a dictionary to look up and memorize the 14 required words. collecting data after studying the searching and learning words through the dictionary of 37 korean students, the results showed that when reading a short text, l2 learners tended to look up the computer dictionary higher than the paper dictionary. research also shows that computer dictionaries help absorb new vocabulary better than a paper dictionary by guiding and attracting learners' attention to new vocabulary. besides, we still can that the vocabulary retention rate of words that are looked up in a computer dictionary is not too different from those found in a paper dictionary. tulgar (2017) believes that using dictionaries is a particularly delicate problem for students of the faculty of foreign language as it is generally expected that students here will truly be proficient in the language so they can hear, speak, read, and write. therefore, technology development has influenced the students to use the dictionary to apply in learning. this study aims to clarify that university students of the faculty of foreign language in acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 30 turkey use their dictionaries and learn their favorite dictionaries. twelve students used the dictionary, were invited to participate in the interview studies at the end of the term. interviewing these participants was conducted individually and lasted about 20 minutes to ask them about their benefits, preferences, how often they viewed the dictionary, and what dictionaries they came to information (word meaning, pronunciation, grammar, etc.). the general results given after the study are that although most of the participants often use an online dictionary because it provides fast access in a short time, they also appreciate the benefits of a paper dictionary as it contains more information than an electronic dictionary. similar to this survey, yuzhen (2012) tried to analyze the habit of dictionary use in learning l2 vocabulary of a learner's reading context. it pertains to learners using english-chinese bilingual dictionaries to complete their difficulties with the new words. this study also involves the random acquisition of vocabulary from english-major students at chinese universities. the survey participants were asked to read a passage in english. they completed the task with one of three supports: a paper dictionary, an online dictionary, or no access to any dictionaries. after they finished, they were asked to take a surprise memorization test of any reading passages' vocabulary. after a week, the experiments were repeated. research shows that using a dictionary facilitates good vocabulary understanding for learners and increases the ability to absorb random words. there are not too many differences between paper dictionaries and online dictionaries, but online dictionaries show an advantage in retaining vocabulary. aust, kelley & roby (1993), in a similar survey, invited 80 university language learners to participate in a survey which compares the use of paper dictionaries and one of the online dictionaries based on frequency participation, learning time, the effectiveness of the dictionary, and the ability of users to understand. the result is that online dictionary users are more likely to understand more definitions than regular dictionary users. also, the advisory rate for online dictionary users is higher than for paper dictionaries. also, zarei & gujjar (2012) also conducted a study investigating the ability to support efl learners to learn the vocabulary of both kinds of dictionaries. four groups of men and women were selected for the survey by vocabulary test when they use a dictionary. after that, the groups were evenly divided into two groups of one female and one male just using the online dictionary, while other groups (female and male) used only the paper dictionary. the results showed that the participant's gender did not affect the learners' use, but the online dictionary's contribution to vocabulary learning was considerably tremendous than that of the paper dictionary. in a similar recent study, m. mohamad, rashid & w. mohamad (2017) create that learners in foreign language classes often use the dictionary as a learning aid. today, although there are many different types of dictionaries, online dictionaries are the most widely used. this study aims to find out the benefits of online dictionaries for esl learners and the difficulties they encounter each time using them. ten tesl tertiary students from a malaysian public research university volunteered to become participants. during the focused interviews, the questionnaires, and the emails used for the research, results have shown that although the e-dictionary offers some benefits in terms of vocabulary enhancement for learners, esl learners complete experience difficulties. this study shows that online dictionaries provide learners with the convenience of learning vocabulary. they can study at whatever place or the time they want, for example. also, an online dictionary helps learners learn the correct pronunciation of words, vocabulary instructions, determine the origin of the words, and more clearly than paper dictionaries. the main difficulties of the commonly listed online dictionaries are restricted internet access, the definition of the vocabulary is incomplete, lack of examples, the website is not reputable enough, etc. this study directly impacts next to language teaching and learning when today's students use online dictionaries in their study a lot. many studies have investigated the attitudes of english teachers or students when they’re using electronic dictionaries. dashtestani (2013) studied both teachers' and students' views about using online dictionaries to learn english. the survey participants were asked to answer the questionnaires of 73 efl teachers and 126 efl students. in which, 66 teachers and 81 students participated in the next interview. the study’s results showed that both efl students and teachers have positive attitudes towards using online dictionaries. besides, they also said that there are some limitations (a good example is that students will lose focus on learning due to electronic dictionaries on phones in class). this analysis shows that most iranian efl students prefer using online dictionaries on their mobile phones rather than using paper dictionaries. as mentioned above, the former studies gained different results about using online dictionaries versus paper dictionaries. the combination of traditional and digital dictionaries greatly benefits learners when it comes to bringing about high effectiveness in checking the words' definitions (daisy zou et al., 2017). she also argued that although they have their characteristics, they share equally important value on english usage. according to truong (2012), the most obvious difference between online and print dictionaries is represented. while paper dictionary only provides learners with fixed definitions, the online dictionary also gives suggestions on relating words to expand their vocabulary with the uploaded audio. the visual clues also have a crucial role in boosting learners' motivation and enhancing study quality. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 31 2.1 research gap it is clear that there are a large number of researches have been carried out to clarify the specific features of using online dictionaries versus using a print dictionary. however, there are still many gaps that have not been filled yet. one obvious matter we have to argue is which kind of dictionary suits english learners' levels. different types of dictionaries are all designed to check the words' meanings; however, the presentation styles have significant differences in the various levels of english learners. another crucial thing we need to do is find out how to fully take advantage of using each type of dictionary based on their owner's distinctive beneficial features. although these dictionaries bring about equally important value to learners, using them correctly seems to benefit them greatly. 2.2 research questions the study was conducted to validate the influence of paper dictionaries and online dictionaries on users. this study is designed to explore to provide answers to the following questions: 1. what are the people's perceptions of paper or online dictionaries using? 2. is there any difference between using an online dictionary and paper dictionaries? 3. research methodology 3.1 research context & sample 3.1.1 research context this survey was conducted at van lang university campus 1, where it specializes in training majors such as law, architecture, foreign languages, and construction. to catch up with the era that is to integrate with the world, the school realizes the importance of learning foreign languages. so learning a foreign language and passing exams is one of the mandatory requirements to ensure the output for students. depending on the student's major, each person is required to learn a foreign language in their curriculum with the professional subjects. foreign language students study books edited by the faculty's teachers, while other major students study the "jetstream" textbooks of jane revell and mary tomalin, published in 2016. the goal of the curriculum is to ensure output for students and equip students with background knowledge of foreign languages so they can confidently go to work. 3.1.2 population and sampling methods in terms of finding subjects to serve for research, we focus on research subjects who are junior students of van lang university because they are the most convenient research subjects. most researchers sampled based on accessibility, intimacy, as well as convenience at a given time or the willingness to join a certain group of people (etikan, musa, & alkassim, 2016, p.2). we selected the junior students because they are the same age, so they also have the same research methods subject as us, so they are easy to access, and they will be ready to participate in the survey. in addition, junior students have also entered the major, so it will be easy to differentiate their goals in using the dictionary. three hundred junior students of van lang university are drawn from 600 students in the first semester to serve for research. they are junior students studying a language other than their native language (english, french, chinese, japanese, and so on), aged 20 to 25. at the time this study took place, they are or have learned another language. they have also read paper dictionaries or used online dictionaries to look up to their needs. 3.2 research design type of research: we are going to conduct some surveys about using dictionaries to learn english among van lang university's students. the print questionnaires and some interview questions are used to get the learners' opinions or ideas about what kind of dictionary they usually use. the questionnaires are handed out to around 300 students of the faculty of foreign languages. the survey is conducted within the university campus, and the collected data can be in both written form and recorded form. reviews of the research design or used theories: the research is followed by a range of questions from questionnaires to interview questions to collect more information. the research would be more objective and accurate. the research is designed following the form of a direct survey on a large number of students. the reason that research design is the best: we need a lot of personal ideas to identify the trend towards using dictionaries in learning english. the more answers we get, the more accurate the survey is. by using the surveys, questionnaires, or quizzes, we can get information from many sources, but we can still save time because it does acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 32 not take much time to fill in the forms or answer the interview questions. doing such a survey is also simple because of its flexibility when it comes to getting to know people's points of view about a specific topic. according to defranzo (2015), surveys can be performed in many forms, which enable conductors to gain information from various sources and enrich the paper. type of data used to answer the research questions: recorded ideas or opinions, as well as written information from handed out forms, are used as ingredients in the research. all collected da ta is used and analyzed carefully before being put in the research. * instruments the crawl is based on the google form tool. it has a built-in tool that calculates the results based on a pie chart and outputs each response percentage. there are a total of 21 questionnaires and are divided into two sections to clarify each research question. more specifically, questions 1-3 confirm whether the subject's information is relevant to the study. questions 4-6 determine the subjects' perception of online and paper dictionaries generally. question 7 identifies the specific reasons people buy and use that type of dictionaries. questions 8-9 investigate object perceptions of research subjects regarding dictionary use in the university environment. question 10 asks about the subject's view of the paper dictionary exclusion. questions 11-12 ask about how often users use dictionaries and what types of dictionaries are often used by users. questions 13-19 seek out users' opinions about specific aspects of the two dictionaries. questions 20-21 explore the frequency of time that users spend using a dictionary. 3.3 the procedure of the study questionnaires will be shared out on tuesday, 03.11.2020, for 200 students at van lang university, and we will also interview 15 students on thursday, 05.11. 2020. questionnaires were collected on friday 06.11.2020 and interviewed on 05.11.2020. fifteen students will be interviewed in vietnamese, and this recorded by a mobile phone. then, it will be translated into english. 4. findings and discussion 4.1 the demographic data of the participants participants were junior students of van lang university at the first campus 1. 300 students were selected randomly from a total of junior students of campus 1. there are four faculties: faculty of law, faculty of architecture, faculty of construction are three faculties according to the common english curriculum of the whole school, and the faculty of the foreign language department, students are divided into many different foreign language majors. in year 3 of the curriculum, most students have begun to have access to specialized knowledge. based on the data obtained from the survey, 51.7% of them belong to the faculty of foreign language, 19.3% were students of the faculty of architecture, 12.3% belong to the faculty of civil construction, and 16.7% were students of the faculty of law. the difference is because the amount of foreign language students is more than the other. 51.70% 19.30% 16.70% 12.30% percentage of faculties faculty of foreign language faculty of architecture faculty of law aculty of civil construction acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 33 4.2 research questions 1: what types of dictionaries do university students prefer? table 1: the users' general perception about the usefulness. online dictionary paper dictionary usefulness (on the scale 1-5) 4.58 3.6 table number 1 shows the respondents' perceptions about the helpfulness of the online dictionary (od) and the paper dictionary (pd). according to the table, the usefulness of an online dictionary (4.58) seems to overwhelm a paper dictionary (3.6). table 2: the perception of the student about the dictionary at vlu. od pd number percent number percent popular in vlu supported to maintain 282 287 94% 95.7% 18 13 6% 4.3% the table also shows that a large number of students support maintaining online dictionaries on the university campus (94%), while the number of students supporting paper dictionaries in the same environment only accounts for a small number (6%). when asked about the popularity of two types of dictionaries, the online dictionary seems to be more common with 287 responses (95.7%), while only 13 people (4.3%) vote for the popularity of paper dictionaries. as we can see from the table above, the online dictionary receives bigger support and popularity than the online dictionary when it comes to research at van lang university. 4.3 research questions 2: is there any difference between using an online dictionary and a paper dictionary? chart 1: criteria the chart above shows the factors that users consider when it comes to using a dictionary. besides cost, formality, and word information, other factors influence people's decisions on choosing a dictionary. it can be seen clearly from the chart that word information has the biggest influence on people's decisions when they pick a dictionary (91%) and it is perhaps the most important thing when it comes to deciding which one to buy. cost is the second thing people considering as another key thing to buy a dictionary (63%). the differences between prices of dictionary can have a big impact on people's buying decisions because they want to buy something useful at reasonable prices. another factor that students really care about when they decide to use a dictionary is formality 63% 45.70% 91% 4% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% cost formality word information others criteria criteria acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 34 (45.7%). people also have many other choices about which factor influences their decisions on buying dictionaries, but it only accounts for a small proportion (4%). table 3: the users' perception about the importance of dictionaries. yes no number percent number percent important 292 97.3% 8 2.7% the table above shows the results concerning people’s opinions about the importance of the two types of dictionaries and whether we should eliminate the paper dictionary. the collected data reflects that many students recognize the importance of dictionaries in their lives (97.3%) while others (2.7%) refute it. table 4: the users' perception about eliminating paper dictionaries. a number of users agree on eliminating paper dictionaries for their own reasons (144). at the same time, a few more students disagree with the idea of removing paper dictionaries from the education environment. it can be seen that respondents' opinions vary significantly; however, no one can indeed deny the role of the dictionary, and the paper dictionary is still strongly supported to thrive. table 5: users’ review of the aspects of a dictionary. od pd number percent number percent preference 284 94.7% 16 5.3% check 283 94.3% 17 5.7% time-saving 289 96.3% 11 3.7% economical element 289 96.3% 11 3.7% presentation style 274 91.3% 26 8.7% portability 290 96.7% 10 3.3% pronunciation improvement 289 96.3% 11 3.7% effect 288 96% 12 4% the table above shows the feedback about two types of dictionaries on some specific areas, namely: preference, check, time-saving, economic element, presentation style, portability, pronunciation improvement, and effect. first, many respondents prefer online dictionaries (94.7%) to paper dictionaries (5.3%) because the online dictionary is more common and easier to use. next, when being asked about which type of students usually use to check new words' meanings, the online dictionary also gets more responses (94.3%) than the paper dictionary (5.7%). what is more, time-saving is another area that being noticed about the characteristics of these two types of dictionaries. the online dictionary appears to be more time-saving (96.3%) compared to the paper dictionary (3.7%). besides, yes no number percent number percent eliminating pd 144 48% 156 52% acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 35 the online dictionary also has a reputation for being more economical (96.3%) because people do not have to pay any fees to use the service while using paper dictionaries charges users a lot more money. furthermore, many more people (91.3%) have voted for online dictionary presentations because it is easy to study and enables users to check meanings easily. on the contrary, only a small number of students vote for the paper dictionary's presentation style (8.7%). moreover, the collected data shows that an online dictionary is more portable (96.7%) thanks to the advanced apps, whereas only ten people (3.3%) believe that a paper dictionary is portable. when it comes to improving pronunciation, an online dictionary seems to be more advantageous (96.3%) because learners can enhance their pronunciations through audio. finally, it is undeniable that using an online dictionary is more effective than a paper dictionary for all the reasons mentioned above. the below chart shows the frequency of dictionary use among respondents at van lang university. of all the students questioned, 41 people (13.7%) reported that they use dictionaries almost every day for checking and learning new words' meanings. another 22 (7.3%) said that they use a dictionary sometimes. many students (79%) admitted that they only use a dictionary when they are in need, such as to prepare for exams, homework, or when they're in special situations. so we can see that using a dictionary regularly has not been a study habit among vlu students yet. chart 2: frequency of use the chart below indicates the amount of time that users usually spend on a dictionary. it is clear that people usually spend around 15 minutes to more than an hour using the internet (from 6.3% to 7.7%). a large number of others admitted that the amount of time they spend using a dictionary depends on the number of words that they need to check (79%). from all the data above, it is clear that people's opinions about using dictionaries vary on their purposes and circumstances. chart 3: time of use. 13.70% 7.30% 79% 0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% 70.00% 80.00% 90.00% everyday sometimes only when you need frequency of use frequency 7.70% 6.30% 7% 79% 0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% 70.00% 80.00% 90.00% 15 minutes 30 minutes more than an hour depending the amount of words time acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 36 4.4 discussion this study had the same results as previous research results of rundell (2014) when it showed that both types of dictionaries have different pros and cons in understanding, receiving, and storing vocabulary. besides, the capacity of the online dictionary is more effective than one of the paper dictionaries. more importantly, this study shows that online dictionaries provide learners with the convenience of learning vocabulary, such as studying wherever or whenever they want. simultaneously, the online dictionary helps learners learn the correct pronunciation of words, vocabulary guidance, determine the origin of vocabulary, and so on, which more clearly than the paper dictionary. since then, it shows that using the dictionary facilitates the learners' understanding of the vocabulary and increases the ability to absorb random words. there are not too many differences between paper dictionaries and online dictionaries, but online dictionaries show the advantage in terms of vocabulary retention. according to tulgar (2017), after the study, most participants often use online dictionaries because it can determine all information they need in a short time; moreover, they recognize the usefulness of paper dictionaries. according to yuzhen (2012), the main difficulty of the commonly listed: online dictionaries is restricted internet access, incomplete word definition, lack of examples, insufficiency of website reputation, etc. (a good example would be a student distracting from learning due to the use of electronic dictionaries on the phone in class). this research directly influences the teaching and learning of languages as students nowadays use online dictionaries to study a lot. 5. conclusion this study aims to show the advantages of online dictionaries and paper dictionaries in the current era through assessment of consumers, particularly students k.24 of year 3 in the faculties of law, construction, architecture and foreign languages from van lang university in ho chi minh city. the researcher test to recognize which type of dictionaries will be chosen while the user wants to look up its meaning. would students like to choose electronic dictionaries or paper dictionaries for their learning purpose? the survey revealed that although electronic dictionaries and print dictionaries are beneficial to students, most of them like to easily select electronic dictionaries as a modern tool to look up new vocabularies. many students felt that it is convenient and useful when applying online dictionaries, which can create a new application for learners' pronunciation. this is not available on paper. however, paper dictionaries' important role is not still denied because some students believe that paper dictionaries help explain exactly the word's meaning. besides, because most students like to choose online dictionaries, this study encourages learners to equip with several modern tools. it can be a tablet or a smartphone to serve in maximizing the effectiveness of learning new words through the online dictionary. this will definitely help van lang students improve their pronunciation skills shown in that when students check the meaning of a word, they also understand their correct pronunciation. this is a different point with print dictionaries. this encourages many students to prefer electronic dictionaries to paper dictionaries for their learning in foreign languages. in the future, we hope that we can expand the participants and scope of research with a larger number in all different faculties at van lang university. this will give the study paper exact results and show how to choose a suitable form for students while using dictionaries for a foreign language in the 4.0 era today. references amirian, s. m., & heshmatifar, z. (2013). the impact of using an electronic dictionary on vocabulary learning and retention of iranian efl learners. international journal of research studies in educational technology, 2(1), 35-44. aust, r., kelley, m. j., & roby, w. b., (1993). the use of hyper-reference and conventional dictionaries. educational technology research and development, 41(4), 63-73. biba, j. (2019). 5 unsung literacy benefits of using a print dictionary. scholastic. retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com/parents/books-and-reading/raise-a-reader-blog/childrens-dictionary.html?fbclid =iwar1yyo3ulllx3wezjrhokickgvjdsi7hchv-13vswa0qgtfmibsfzhxt2_w d'astoli, p. (2016). the importance of learning foreign languages in today's world. linkedin. retrieved from http://www.linkedin.com/pulse/importance-learning-foreign-languages-todays-world-paul-d-astoli daisy, z. (2017). hybrid use of paper-based and electronic dictionaries highly effective for word learning. the hong kong polytechnic university. retrieved from https://www.polyu.edu.hk/cpa/milestones/en/201703/research_innovation/hybrid_use_of_paper_based_and _electronic_dictionar/index.html. https://www.polyu.edu.hk/cpa/milestones/en/201703/research_innovation/hybrid_use_of_paper_based_and_electronic_dictionar/index.html. https://www.polyu.edu.hk/cpa/milestones/en/201703/research_innovation/hybrid_use_of_paper_based_and_electronic_dictionar/index.html. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 37 dashtestani, r. (2013). efl teachers’ and students’ perspectives on the use of electronic dictionaries for learning english. call-ej, 14(2), 51-65. deepak, n, s. (2020). kannada-english dictionary online after four decades. deccan herald. retrieved from http://www.deccanherald.com/metrolife/metrolife-your-bond-with-bengaluru/kannada-english-dictionary-o nline-after-four-decades-899393.html. dziemianko, a. (2010). paper or electronic? the role of dictionary form in language reception, production and the retention of meaning and collocations. int. j. lexicography, 23(3), 257-273. etikan, i., musa, s. a., & alkassim, n. s. (2016). comparison of convenience sampling and purposive sampling. american j. of theoretical and applied statistics, 5(1), 1-4. filer, b. (2017). paper or electronic dictionaries: a comparison. transformation in language education. tokyo: jalt. futurelearn. why are dictionaries important? english for academic study. (2020). retrieved from http:// www.futurelearn.com/courses/english-academic-study/0/steps/41870 jin, l., & deifell, e. (2013). foreign language learners' use and perception of online dictionaries. merlot journal of online learning and teaching, 9(4), 515-533. kim, n. (2003). the effect of the computer dictionary and the paper dictionary on l2 learners' vocabulary acquisition. snu working papers in english language and linguistics, 2, 1-18. kipfer, b, a. (2013). 9 reasons why print dictionaries are better than online dictionaries. the week all you need to know about everything that matters. retrieved from http://www.theweek.com/articles/462575/9-reasons-why-print-dictionaries-are-better-than-online-dictionari es kondal, b. (2018). the benefits of using dictionary skills among the third year pharmacy students. international journal of management and social sciences, 7(11), 1-6. koyama, t., & takeuchi, o. (2003). printed dictionaries vs. electronic dictionaries : a pilot study on how japanese efl learners differ in using dictionaries. language education and technology, 40, 61-80. hulstijn, j. h., & atkins, b. s. (2015). using dictionaries: studies of dictionary use by language learners and translators (vol. 88). (b. s. atkins, ed.) germany: walter de gruyter gmbh co kg. latest news. online dictionary aims to broaden research into south african english. (2020). accessed 10 oct. 2020. retrieved from http://www.ru.ac.za/latestnews/onlinedictionaryaimstobroadenresearchintosouthafricanenglish.html lew, r. (2015). research into the use of online dictionaries. international journal of lexicography, 28(2), 232-253. lantolf, j. p., & thorne, s. l. (2006). sociocultural theory and the genesis of second language. uk: oxford university press. li, l., & xu, h. (2015). using an online dictionary for identifying the meanings of verb phrases by chinese efl learners. lexikos, 25, 191-209. mohamad, m., rashid, n., & mohamad, w. (in press). the advantages and disadvantages of e-dictionaries to enhance vocabulary learning of esl learners. the asian conference on education & international development 2017. rundell, m. (2014). macmillan english dictionary: the end of print? slovenščina 2.0, 2(2), 1-14. sharma, m. (2020). is the print dictionary losing meaning?. hindustan times. retrieved from http://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi-news/is-the-print-dictionary-losing-meaning/story-edtrzjzvjhizo7q lpl54xk.html shaw, n. (2020). new lockdown words added to dictionary include crafternoon and oobleck. walesonline. retrieved from http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/new-lockdown-words-added-dictionary-18945162 timofeeva, o., & säily, t. (2011). words in dictionaries and history. amsterdam/philadelphia: john benjamins publishing company. truong, d. (2012). online vs print dictionary. visualgui. retrieved from https://visualgui.com/2012/09/11/online-vs-print-dictionary/ http://www.deccanherald.com/metrolife/metrolife-your-bond-with-bengaluru/kannada-english-dictionary-online-after-four-decades-899393.html. http://www.deccanherald.com/metrolife/metrolife-your-bond-with-bengaluru/kannada-english-dictionary-online-after-four-decades-899393.html. http://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi-news/is-the-print-dictionary-losing-meaning/story-edtrzjzvjhizo7qlpl54xk.html http://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi-news/is-the-print-dictionary-losing-meaning/story-edtrzjzvjhizo7qlpl54xk.html acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 38 tulgar, a, t. (2017). dictionary use of undergraduate students in foreign language departments in turkey at present. universal journal of educational research, 5(12b), 51-57. yuzhen, c. (2010). dictionary use and efl learning. a contrastive study of pocket electronic dictionaries and paper dictionaries. international journal of lexicography, 23(3), 275-306. yuzhen, c., (2012). dictionary use and efl learning. a contrastive study of pocket electronic dictionaries and paper dictionaries. international journal of lexicography, 25(2), 216-247. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijl/ecr031 zarei, a, a., & gujjar, a, a. (2012). the contribution of electronic and paper dictionaries to iranian efl learner's vocabulary learning. international j. soc. sci. & education, 2(4), 628-634. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijl/ecr031 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 1 blog-based peer response for efl writing: a case study in viet nam pham vu phi ho phamvuphiho@gmail.com nong lam university, viet nam siriluck usaha siriluck@sut.ac.th suranaree university of technology, thailand abstract electronic peer response or e-peer response has recently been introduced to help l2 student writers improve their writing. however, few studies have been conducted to see how the new medium of the blog platform in the world of the internet users (bloggers) today can be applied effectively in a real efl context. twelve 2nd year english major students taking a 15-week academic writing course at a vietnamese university in ho chi minh city, vietnam, participated in this study. the students used blogs to post their essays, were trained in a 6-step procedure of peer response; then they provided and received comments two times from their peers on the first and the second drafts for revisions. the data were collected during 5 weeks on cause/effect essays including drafts 1 – 3, students‟ comments, semi-structured interviews, and learning journals. the quantitative analysis showed that the 4 most common types of comments generated via the blog-based peer response were “clarification”, “suggestion/ advice”, “explanation”, and “alteration”. the study also found that the comments did affect the students writing quality based on both the qualitative and quantitative analyses. finally, most students expressed positive attitudes toward using blog-based peer response in the writing classroom. the study highlights a relatively new form of technology that can be used to help efl students become better writers. keywords: blog, peer response, blog-based peer response, computer mediated 1. introduction with the emergence of the process approach to writing in the late 1960s and early 1970s, writing has been seen as a developmental process of inquiring, discovering, and problem solving rather than a single action resulting in a finished product (wennerstorm, 2006). it is a result of employing strategies to manage the composing process of gradually developing a text. it involves a number of activities such as setting goals, generating ideas, organizing information, setting appropriate language, making a draft, reading and reviewing it, then revising and editing it (hedge, 2002; hyland, 2003, oshima & hogue, 2006). the writing process approach views the writing activity as dynamic, nonlinear, and recursive. the writing process approach encourages student writers to “engage in brainstorming activities, outlining, drafting (focusing on meaning), rewriting (focusing on organization and meaning), and editing (focusing on style and grammar)” (liu & hansen, 2005: 3). the process approach gave greater attention to teacher-student encounters around texts and encouraged teachers to support writers through multiple drafts by providing feedback and suggesting revisions during the process of writing rather than at the end of it (hyland & hyland, 2006). in short, the main purpose of the process approach is to empower and to motivate the student writer through the gradual discovery and development of a unique authorial “voice” (wennerstrom, 2006; reid, 1995) and emphasizes the writer as an independent producer of text (hyland, 2003). mailto:phamvuphiho@gmail.com mailto:siriluck@sut.ac.th asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 2 to help l2 students become independent writers, peer response, also known as peer feedback, peer review or peer editing, has been introduced at the revision stage of the process approach to bring the students to work together to provide response on one another‟s writing in both written and oral formats through active engagement with one another‟s progress over multiple drafts (liu & hansen, 2005). it is a learner-centered, application of the social-cultural theory in the learning process in terms of collaborative learning (hyland & hyland, 2006). students can learn from one another when they provide and receive response from their peers/instructor. in addition, peer response helps student writers with the sense of multiple readers (liu & hansen, 2005). nunan (1993:100) asserts that “if we want to ensure that our esl writing classes prepare students for their life outside the classroom, we must give them opportunities to experience collaborative writing,” adding that collaborative writing is essentially a social process through which writers look for areas of shared understanding in “real-world” contexts, writing is not a solitary enterprise; it is a social act. more recently, hyland and hyland (2006) indicate that peer response has been seen as a key element of students‟ growing control over writing skills in genre-oriented approaches, where social cultural theories of scaffold instruction and learning as a social practice are important. also, from a socio-cognitive perspective, peer response can be seen as formative developmental process that gives writers the opportunities to discuss their texts and discover others‟ interpretations of them. besides, instructors are now very conscious of the potential of peer response which helps create a supportive teaching environment for modeling ideas about good writing and developing the ways students talk about writing, especially for mediating the relationship between students‟ wider cultural and social worlds and their growing familiarity with new literacy practices. as technology develops and computer facilities become widely available, the role of the computer in delivering and mediating feedback has become a focus for research. some researchers claim that the technological developments can empower students in the learning process and make writing classes more collaborative. to cite warschauer et al. (1996), computer-mediated communication (cmc) allows students to take more active and autonomous roles when seeking feedback since they can ask questions whenever they wish and take the initiative in discussions. student conferencing makes discussions more “student-centered”, fosters a sense of communicating, encourages a sense of group knowledge, and increases student participation. also, cmc may empower disadvantaged and less able students to be equal in participation with those students who often dominate the discussions and may be particularly motivating l2 students in the learning activities (warschauer, 2002). some researchers also claim that cmc can lead to better writing products and more focused and better quality peer response (braine, 1997; sullivan & pratt, 1996). in conclusion, computer-mediated communication peer response has been able to make peer response more effective to l2 student writers. 2. literature review 2.1 writing quality in cmc environment sullivan and pratt (1996) implemented a qualitative and quantitative research to examine students' attitudes towards writing with computers, writing apprehension, and writing quality. thirty-eight students whose native language is spanish from the university of puerto rico at mayaguez, participated in the study. the researchers made use of the daedalus computer program developed by the daedalus group inc. the process methodology emphasized multiple drafts, peer and teacher responses to drafts, and dialogue learning logs. the results showed that writing environment had no effects on attitudes toward writing with computers or writing apprehension. also, writing quality did improve in the computerassisted classroom. braine (1997) conducted a study to compare esl student writing in two contexts: a networked computer class and a traditional lecture-style class. the aim was to see which setting promoted better writing, more improvement in writing, and more peer and teacher feedback. sixty-nine students wrote three major assignments on the same topic during the academic quarter. the process approach was followed asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 3 throughout the course, with small group discussions, peer reviews, teacher feedback, occasional teacherstudent conferences, and multiple drafts of essays. the study found that holistic scores for first drafts indicated writing quality in networked classes was moderately better than in traditional classes. however, final drafts in traditional classes showed a slightly higher mean improvement than in networked classes. in 2001, braine was interested in comparing a local-area network (lan) and traditional classes writing to explore which context produced better writing and more improvement in writing. eighty-seven chinese undergraduates participated in the study. the peer reviews in both the lan and the traditional classes were allocated 100 minutes. the study found that although first drafts in lan classes were qualitatively higher than in traditional classes, final drafts in traditional classes were of a higher quality. furthermore, final drafts in traditional classes showed greater improvement. 2.2 comments and effects of e-peer response on revision rodriguez (2003) was interested in computer-mediated peer response and its impact on revision. twelve students participated in the study. the students wrote their first draft individually on a word processor in the language lab, and sent it to a peer by e-mail. the students then read one of the essays written by a peer, and wrote a 150to 200-word feedback paper for the writer. the feedback comments were sent as attachments through e-mail. the participants read the feedback on their own work, revised their first draft, and sent the modified version (second draft) to the instructor. results indicated that students used reacting, advising and announcing language functions when providing feedback, and focused mostly on content. liu and sadler (2003) investigated to see if there were some differences between the effect and affect of peer review on l2 writing in electronic and traditional modes. forty-eight students participated in the study. the two groups followed the same basic syllabus, but the activities for the computer-enhanced group were performed on computers, for example, using microsoft word for in-class writing assignments, using the commenting features in word when writing journal assignments, and using a moo for class discussions. the findings showed that the overall number of comments, the percentage of revisionoriented comments, and the overall number of revisions made by the technology-enhanced group were larger than those by the traditional group. however, the study found that face-to-face interaction resulted in a more positive response with more focused feedback and more questions and interactions among peers. tuzi (2004) investigated the impact of e-feedback on the revisions of l2 writers in an academic writing course. twenty l2 writing students participated in the study. in the learning process, the l2 writers would post their essays onto the writing website with their user accounts, and they could also provide comments to the other authors as well. the students had approximately 10 days to read any e-feedback they received from their peers, teachers, and website visitors, and revise their papers before the final drafts were due. the students could also obtain oral or written feedback from their peers and assistance from visiting the writing center. the study found that students preferred oral feedback to e-feedback. however, e-feedback had a greater impact on revision than oral feedback. additionally, e-feedback affected l2 writers‟ revisions at a higher structural level. in order to prepare students to be better peer reviewers, stanley (1992) examined the effect of training students to become better peer evaluators in university esl freshman composition classes. the training sessions lasted 7 hours during the first 4 weeks of a 15-week semester. during the training sessions, the students engaged in role-play, analyzing the genre of peers‟ essays and discovering rules for effective communication. results showed that the four response categories that most often produced revision among the coached group were pointing remarks, advising remarks, collaborating, and questioning. students who received coaching looked at each other‟s writing more closely and offered writers more specific guidelines for revision than did the uncoached group. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 4 min (2005) conducted a study aimed at training students to become successful peer reviewers. participants in the study were 18 efl sophomore students in the researcher‟s composition class at a large university in southern taiwan. they were introduced to the practice of peer review at the beginning of the fall semester. the training session was composed of two phases: 4 hours in class and 30-minute teacher – student conference. the researcher required the students to compose the last essay at home and bring their drafts to class for peer review. the study found that the numbers of comments and words produced posttraining were significantly higher than those prior to training. in addition, the students were able to provide a greater amount of feedback on the global features after training. they all pointed out that the four-step procedure helped them become better reviewers, although following the four steps was both timeand energy-consuming. 2.3 literature gap in employing cmc for peer response recently, many researchers have conducted studies which employed quite a few tools of technology. li (1999); rodrigez (2003); lightfoot (2006) made use of e-mail to assess students‟ writing and interactions. sullivan and pratt (1996); braine (1997 and 2001) employed lan (local area networked) to compare the two modes of peer responses. jones et al. (2006) used the maxqda software for the on-line tutoring modes either asynchronous or synchronous. sadler and liu (2003) took advantage of moo (multi-user domains object-oriented) systems to compare the effectiveness of traditional peer response versus electronic peer response. however, very few studies, if any, have examined the use of blogs, which are quite popular among internet users today, to investigate asynchronous peer responses to see if it helps students improve their writing quality. in addition, no research has been conducted in a vietnamese context to apply blog-based peer responses in writing classes. the advantage of using blogs for writing classes is that when students publish their writing online, they will take more care of their writing quality, “since the report stage is public, students will naturally want to be accurate” (willis, 1996 in sangarun, 2003: 26). according to the blog search site technorati (2006), there were over 35.3 million blogs in the world and there appeared to be approximately 75,000 new blogs every day. gartner (2007) predicted that there would be nearly 100 million bloggers in 2007. in vietnam, according to vietnamnet (2007), there were more than one million vietnamese using the blog services of yahoo! 360o, at least in one sort of blog. if other kinds of blogs are accounted for, the number could be far higher. the online publications vnexpress (2006) and tuoitre (2007) stated that many vietnamese people, especially students have become bloggers to connect to their classmates, share information about their studies, and post their assignments on their blogs. thanhnien (2005) also described many students‟ writing on their blogs related to their learning activities and their assignments, specially their reflections about their everyday learning activities. therefore, the current researcher has chosen to incorporate the use of blog-based peer response into this study to help students enhance their writing quality. 2.4 rationale for the study in general, writing instruction in vietnam has traditionally been based on finished products that focus on form over meaning and the finished text rather than on the process in which writing takes place (tran, 2000; nguyen, 2002; nguyen, 2004; lien, 2006). tran (2000) claimed that in writing courses, when assigning a whole composition, the instructor asked the students to write on a topic only once. there exists always the pressure of time and little chance for improvement after the students produced their first drafts. in other words, students have had only one chance to complete their writing assignments with no opportunities to revise. also, the time provided for their writing is limited. in addition, the student writers have only one audience to write for the instructor himself. consequently, the writing process does not occur in real life. nguyen (2004) investigated factors leading to success in the use of group work in foreign language classes. she found that group work practice was still unsatisfactory for two main reasons. the first was part of the students' characteristics their low proficiency levels, lack of asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 5 motivation, and preference for the traditional learning style. the other was related to part of the instructors' implementation of group work, the english program, and the teaching materials. lien's survey (2006) showed that the learners‟ concept about learning english was product-based; they perceived a lack of grammar knowledge that made learning english difficult. luu (2006) and tran (2006) posited that the current educational system of compositions has brought student writers to learning by rote with no chances for creative writing. helping vietnamese l2 students to write more effectively in english through the process approach, which is believed to enable student writers to become independent, self-editors, is by no means easy. three research questions are addressed in this study: (1) what types of comments are most frequently produced by the students during the peer response activities? (2) do the comments affect the students‟ writing quality? (3) what attitudes do students express on the use of blog-based peer response? 3. methodology 3.1 participants participants selected in the study were 12 sophomores majoring in english in the instructor/researcher class. there were 9 females and 3 males, and their ages were ranked from 20 to 22 with the mean at 20.67 (fig. 2). they all were native speakers of vietnamese and had passed the national college entrance exam (english major) administered by the ministry of education and training in vietnam before being admitted to the faculty of foreign languages of a public university in ho chi minh city, vietnam. their english proficiency, as measured by the test of english as a foreign language (toefl) exam, ranged from 420 to 507. none of the participants had received any training in peer response via the blog prior to the study. 3.2 setting the students of this study were english majors and the period of this study took place while they were in the second semester of the second year. they all got involved in two previous semesters of academic writing in which they had learned how to write paragraphs of narration and description. in addition, they had learned three genres of essays: logical division of ideas, supporting an opinion, and comparisoncontrast essays as the normal curriculum of the faculty of foreign languages. the focus of this classroom was to develop students‟ writing skills in cause/effect and chronological order/ process essays. this course met twice a week for 15 weeks. the instructor/researcher adopted and modified the “writing cycle” (tsui & ng, 2000) in designing his class of academic writing. the writing cycle was described as follows: topic selection, brainstorming, writing the first draft, posting that draft on the blog, giving and receiving peer comments, revising writing the second draft, second round of peer comments, further revision for writing a third draft, teacher comments (as a normal activity of the writing process), then final revision to write the fourth draft. however, in order to observe the effects of peer comments, only the drafts 1 -3 were counted for data analysis. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 6 the writing cycle figure 1 working in the computer lab, the students were required to search for information to support for their essays. four topics, two at the paragraph level (reviewed as the normal curriculum of the faculty) and two at the essay level, were written during the course of the semester – “how to write a good paragraph”; “the causes of traffic accidents in vietnam”; “the benefits of living in a big city”; and “how to maintain good relationship with friends”. each topic could be revised up to three times, two after receiving peer comments and the other after the instructor comments. 3.3 procedure before the class started, the participants took a paper toefl test for estimating their english proficiency. the results of the test were used for grouping the participants into three different groups of four each. the students were grouped by mixed ability and shared ability levels (richards & lockhart, 2000). in order to mix the students‟ levels of proficiency, two students who obtained highest scores were mixed with the two lowest proficiency students (group 1); two second highest proficiency students were mixed with two topic selection (instructor and students) brainstorming writing first draft peer comments (focus on content & organization + peer_editing sheet) writing the second draft peer comments (focus on forms and content & organization + peer_editing sheet) third draft teacher comments (focus on content & organization and forms) fourth (final) draft asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 7 second lowest proficiency students (group 3), and finally, the four medium proficiency students were put together (group 2). after the instructor/researcher determined the three groups, the group members selected a monitor “to get the ball rolling” for each group. this was shown in the figure 2 below: participants‟ information group nicknames sex role ages toefl scores 1 thienphuoc (s1) male 21 420 sunflower_forever (s2) female 21 507 starmeomeo (s3) female monitor 20 503 thanh_le1608 (s4) female 20 403 2 bluesun (s5) female monitor 22 430 haquyen (s6) female 20 443 bebi (s7) female 20 443 trumthong (s8) male 20 490 3 hoatrongda (s9) female 20 493 lanphuongkt1 (s10) female monitor 21 427 nhoc_ht (s11) male 19 501 bocaukhongduathu (s12) female 22 423 figure 2 the 15-week academic writing course was sequenced as follows. each week, the students had a class meeting for 3 hours in the computer lab (compulsory), and about other 3 hours in the lab (optional) for providing and receiving comments. as stated in the curriculum of the faculty of foreign languages, the first 4 weeks were spent reviewing writing at the paragraph level; other 5 weeks were used for learning to write a cause/effect essay; 1 week for the midterm test; and the last 5 weeks were for learning to write a chronological order/process essay. during the first week of the course, students visited the website http://360.yahoo.com to sign up for an account (fig. 3) for their own weblog or blog (if someone who already had an email account with yahoo, he/she was not required to sign up). the students were trained to set their blogs for selected friends only (group members) so that only the designated group members could read and provide comments on their writing entries. they were trained to be familiar with the appropriate computer usage, accessing the internet, and how to provide comments online. two assignments of paragraph writing were done via the blogs without any specific peer response training. the purpose was to help students become accustomed to the required computer techniques. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 8 sign up for 360.yahoo.com figure 3 3.4 peer response training the peer response training took place during the third writing cycle, after the first draft of the cause/effect essay posted on the blogs, and consisted of two phases: in-class training and one-on-one student teacher conferences. the in-class training lasted 3 hours during the third writing cycle of cause/effect essay. the peer-edit sheet (oshima & hogue, 2006) provision was used as guidelines to help students read and provide comments (see appendix a). the one-on-one student teacher conferences lasted from 15 to 20 minutes beyond normal class meetings after the first round of commentaries on the first drafts of the cause/effect essay. 3.4.1 in-class training the in-class training, based on 11 guidelines of berg (1999), started after the first post of the third writing cycle. during the in-class training, the instructor/researcher first helped the students understand the importance of peer response in the writing process; then he helped the students provide comments on some essays composed by former students based on a 6-step procedure as follows: 1. evaluation: (stanley, 1992; tuzi, 2004) the peers valuated some parts of the writer, or some sentences or phrases or some ideas. the evaluation could be positive or negative. however, in some cases, praise was used to reduce the tension because some students might not feel comfortable in critiquing other‟s writing for fear that the writer might not receive their criticism as well (liu & hansen, 2005). therefore, positive evaluations were encouraged. students could evaluate the writing: generally: “this is really good”, “i like this paragraph” specifically: “this is a great thesis statement”, “this is a not clear thesis statement” 2. clarification: (stanley, 1992; zhu, 2001; min, 2005) peer readers identified or located a particular problem in order to help the writer realize and revise his/her essay. they could point to: asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 9 specific ideas: “where you say… what do you mean?”, “could you explain your thesis statement in more details?” particular word choices: “what do you mean by …?”, cohesive gaps: “you say „…‟ how does this sentence connect to the one before?” unity of the paragraphs: “do you think this sentence or phrase is united to the main idea of this paragraph?”, “do you think this sentence „………….‟ directly explain or prove the main idea?” 3. alteration: (tuzi, 2004; liu & hansen, 2005) the peers provided comments in an imperative tone instead of advice. ex: “i try to break the door down → tried to break.” or “change your thesis into x” 4. suggestion/ advice: (zhu, 2001; tuzi, 2004; min, 2005) peer readers suggested ways to change the words, content, and organization of essays. the advice could be general or specific: specific advice: “your thesis statement should be explained more clearly”, “you might include an example/fact/statistic here”, “you should change this transition signal „……….” to”……..” to show the contrast idea. general advice: “you should introduce your introduction paragraph in the form of a funnel, or historical background, or surprising statistics, or dramatic story”, “you need more ideas on this paper”, “write more reasons to support your opinion”. 5. explanation: (zhu, 2001; min, 2005; tseng & tsai, 2007) peer readers explained why they thought a given term, idea, or organization was unclear or problematic, which should or should not be used in the essay. this step included the advice and clearer information for the problems. ex: „you should change "despite … into although" (despite + n/n phrase, although + clause)', „i think you should reduce these two sentences because they talk about the conveniences of computer, not about the good education in a big city. 6. confirmation: (zhu, 2001) peer readers tried to confirm the information of a particular feature either for revision or nonrevision. however, there was no suggestion for revision. in the case of questioning, the peer readers might not be sure about a particular feature for revision; then they asked the writer to pay thought again on a specific feature to see if he/she needed to change. ex: “your essay has a thesis statement, and topic sentences”, “will wait for you or wait for you?” 3.4.2 one-on-one student – teacher conferences the one-on-one student-teacher conferences, out of normal class meetings, were to help students learn from their own commentary experience if necessary for improvement of the quality of the comments. after the first round commenting on the cause/effect essay, the instructor/researcher had close looks at the comments of each students and held one-on-one student-teacher conferences for 15 to 20 minutes. some good comments of other students were also shown as models. in addition, student-teacher conferences were to check students‟ comprehension of instruction and feedback (min, 2005). furthermore, during the student – teacher conferences, the instructor/researcher helped address students‟ problems concerning such things as unclear comments from their peers as well as explain some problems that the group members did not know for sure about some specific grammatical structures or particular ideas. for example, one reader commented on starmeomeo‟s essay about a grammatical point of tense used in a conditional sentence “so if we have ability and certificate, many career positions wait for us”. the reader suggested revision by pointing out: “is this a conditional sentence? many career positions will wait for asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 10 you or wait for you?” in this case, both the reader and the writer were not sure about the accuracy of the grammar; so the writer sought help from the instructor. the instructor/researcher helped her to clarify what kind of idea she really wanted to express and confirmed this grammatical point. 3.5 inter-rater training the trained inter-raters were two of the researcher‟s colleagues who have worked in the same university. two of them had taught efl writing for approximately 4 and 5 years, and during the period of this study, they were enrolled in ma programs at foreign universities located in ho chi minh city. the training included 2 phases: rating the students‟ essays and coding the comments. 3.5.1 rating students’ essay training the researcher and the two trained inter-raters met two times before the course of academic writing began. first, the inter-raters were given the analytic scoring rubric (see appendix b) which was explained by the researcher (adapted and modified from oshima and hogue, 2006). second, five hard copies of the essays of former students were given to the inter-raters for marking independently. the essays were assigned scores from 1 to 10 scores. half-point increments were also considered (e.g. 1.5; 2.5; 3.5; 4.5…, 9.5). if the discrepancy is less than or equal to 1 point between two inter-raters, the two readers met to reach an agreement. if the two readers could not reach the agreement, and the difference in this case is small (≤ 1 point), an average was calculated between the two readers‟ scores. the researcher also adopted the method of berg (1999) in dealing with discrepancy in scoring. a discrepancy in scoring was considered to exist when scores were more than 1 point apart, in which case a third rater (the researcher) would read that essay using the same scoring rubric. an average was then calculated based on the third reader‟s score and one of the two raters‟ whose score was closer to the third reader. third, the researcher compared the scores from those two raters to check the consistency. in the first round of scoring, only two papers were consistent. other two were discrepant by 0.5 and 1.0. the researcher asked the inter-raters to compare their rubrics point-by-point to find out the discrepancy and discuss the issues. they then reached their agreements on those papers. afterward, 5 different essays were given to the two inter-raters for scoring. this time, only one paper was discrepant at a score difference of 0.5. this training lasted for 3 hours. the second round of inter-rater training took place one week before the essays of the participants were given. the purpose was to make sure that the scoring of the two trained inter-raters was still in correlation. the procedure of the training was the same as the first round, except the time was shorter, just 2 hours, due to the familiarity of the scoring process. the researcher used the analytic scoring scheme for the following reasons. first, analytic schemes are seen as far more useful tool for training and standardization of new examiners, as inexperienced raters can more easily understand and apply the criteria than holistic scales (weir, 1990; weigle, 2002). hence, it was proper for the two trained inter-raters in this study. second, analytic scoring scales are devised in an attempt to make the assessment more objective because they encourage the raters to be more explicit about their impressions (weir, 1990). third, analytic scoring schemes are particularly useful for l2 student writers as well because they clearly and distinctly address the different aspects of their writing abilities. then, the student writers will be more aware of and thus focus more on the problem areas (weigle, 2002). finally, analytic scoring scales can be more reliable than holistic scoring in terms of additional items added to a discrete-point test, so a scoring scheme in which multiple scores are given to each script tends to improve reliability (hughes, 2003; weir, 1990). 3.5.2 coding comment training apart from the scoring rubric training, the researcher and the two inter-raters met for a 3½-hour for coding comment training. first, two copies of the coding scheme (see appendix c) were given to the coders and explained carefully by the researcher. since the comments were sometimes complex, asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 11 comprehensive discussions occurred during the training. after one hour of discussion, six sets of comments from two essays by former students were given to the coders. coders were given 3 sets each. the two coders worked independently to code those comments. they marked types of comments (6 types) and areas of comments (global and local areas) into the “grid for comment analyzing” (fig. 4). the most inconsistent types they made were the distraction of “suggestion/advice and alteration”. for example the first coder considered the comment “this sentence should be changed into passive voice” as the type of “suggestion/advice” while the other found it as “alteration”. then the researcher made a compromise that it was in the “alteration” type and if the comment included the subject such as “you” before the hedging devices would be seen as “suggestion/advice”. the researcher and the coders also tried to make sure that a complex comment on one issue should be counted as 1 nature of comment, either revisionoriented or non revision-oriented (described in details in data analysis). 3.6 data collection procedure after the in-class peer response training, the students were required to provide comments on the first drafts of the cause/effect essays of their group members via the blogs. the students could make it in the computer lab of the university or at an internet café or at home if they had internet. the students were given 4 days for peer comments and 3 days for revisions of each draft. then the instructor/researcher collected drafts 1 to 3, and peers‟ comments via the blogs for analysis. the average number of words produced for the first draft and third drafts were 451 and 588, respectively. the two inter-raters carefully read the drafts to assess the essay quality. the interraters also identified the types of comments made by the student writers. in addition, the researcher triangulated “methods” through writing journals after the revision stage, and semi-structured interviews at the end of the course to obtain in-depth information from the students. 3.7 semi-structure interviews semi-structured interviews were conducted around two weeks after the training from may 6th to may 20th, 2008. in order to select better respondents, the researcher adopted the methods of oppenheim (1999) for the interviews. three key students (monitors) of the three groups and a rich informant were selected. each student was asked about 10 structured questions (see appendix d) and some other questions emerged based on the responses during the conversations. the semi-structured interviews were tape-recorded and each lasted for 20 to 30 minutes. 3.8 data analysis both quantitative and qualitative methods were used. regarding the quantitative analysis, the researcher compared the number of types of comments, the scores of the first drafts and the third drafts. regarding the qualitative analysis, the researcher explored the students‟ attitudes on this training as described in their writing journals after they revised their essays. the purpose of the writing journal was to provide students a space to reflect their opinions on the blog-based peer response activities. the students were encouraged to express their own honest opinions about the training. also, the data from the semi-structure interviews after the training were also accounted for analysis. 3.9 coding procedure for the quantitative analysis, two inter-raters coded the comments blindly (without students‟ names on the papers) based on the grid for data analyzing (fig. 4). a rubric-coding scheme (see appendix c) was provided to the inter-raters as guidelines for their coding the comments. they first tallied the number of written comments including types of comments via the blogs from drafts 1 to drafts 2. in terms of types of comments, seven types of comments (6 in-class training and 1 (statement) was not) were coded in terms of evaluation, clarification, alteration, suggestion/ advice, explanation, confirmation (as described in the in-class training) and statement were counted. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 12 the category of “statement” was not counted in the in-class training because this kind of comment was neither of a revision-oriented nor non-revision oriented nature. instead, they were of a social solidarity nature. for example, after commenting on an essay, thienphuoc wrote “this is just my opinion, i hope it will help you a lot” or sunflower said “these are some points i give you. i hope they help you much”. the reliability of each type of comments reached from 0.93 to 0.98. grid for comment analyzing figure 4 (adapted and modified from liu & hansen, 2005) examples of applying coding scheme for comment analyzing: example: i think this part is off topic.// you are talking about “chances for education”, why do you talk about transportation?// suppose that you live in a big city, for example in district 1, but your school is at thu duc district, do you think that you spend a lot of time or a little?// in this comment, there was only one meaningful unit (nature of comment) but three types of comments. “i think this part is off topic” was coded as global (area), clarification – unity nickname: ………………………… draft …………. grid for comment analysing types of comments no. of types global areas local areas no. of areas revisionoriented nonrevisionoriented revisionoriented nonrevisionoriented evaluation generally specifically clarification specific ideas particular word choices, phrases, or sentences cohesive unity alteration suggestion/ advice generally specifically explanation confirmation statement total asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 13 (type), and revision-oriented (nature); “you are talking about “chances for education”, why do you talk about transportation?” was coded as clarification – specific of idea (type); “suppose that you live in a big city, for example in district 1, but your school is at thu duc district, do you think that you spend a lot of time or a little?” was coded as explanation (type). if two comments were addressed to one issue, only one of them was counted as a comment. obviously, the better comment was considered while the other was out of concern. in the following examples, the second comment was counted in the coding scheme because it at least pointed out the light for revision. comment 1: in the sentence: “for me, who have been living in a big city all my life, living in a suburb also …” what does it mean? comment 2: in the sentence: "for me, who has been living in a city all my life, living in a suburb..." is not right in grammar and not logical. you should rewrite it such as "for me, a person who has been living in a city all my life, considers that living in a suburb..." 3.10 rating procedures the same rating procedures were made as in the rating training process. drafts 1 and drafts 3 were rated by analytic scoring rubric (see appendix b). this was done after names of students and other identifiers, nicknames, were removed from all papers. all papers looked similar because they were laser printed. the papers were rated by the two inter-raters using a 10-point scoring guide. the essays were rated from 1 to 10. half-point increments were also considered (e.g. 1.5; 2.5; 3.5; 4.5…, 9.5) to be more precise. this numerical scoring was applied to match the numerical scoring system of the university in particular, and of the scoring system of the whole country in general. if the discrepancy was less than or equal to 1 point of the two trained inter-raters, a discussion between the two readers was held to reach an agreement. there was no discrepancy higher than 1 point in this rating procedure of this case study. the correlations of the two inter-raters‟ scores were significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). 4. findings the findings would be discussed according to three research questions for this study. research question one: what types of comments (evaluation, clarification, alteration, suggestion/advice, explanation, and conformation, and statement) are most frequently produced by the students during the peer response activities? asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 14 table 1 types of comments (draft 1) types of comments that students received from their peers during the peer response session 1 evaluation clarification alteration suggestion/ advice explanatio n confirmatio n statement students mean = 3.58; sd = 2.31 mean = 10.75; sd = 5.07 mean = 3.08; sd = 2.28 mean = 10.67; sd = 4.52 mean = 3.67; sd = 3.34 mean = 2.67; sd = 2.54 mean = 2.33; sd = 1.67 s1 5 17 3 18 13 2 2 s2 2 10 2 8 1 2 5 s3 2 22 3 15 6 4 2 s4 2 16 7 18 2 10 1 s5 5 6 3 5 3 2 5 s6 1 8 0 7 4 4 3 s7 9 8 7 14 3 2 4 s8 2 5 1 8 5 2 0 s9 4 10 3 7 1 1 3 s10 3 9 4 10 1 1 1 s11 6 7 0 11 3 1 1 s12 2 11 4 7 2 1 1 total 43 129 37 128 44 32 28 of 12 first drafts (drafts 1) of 12 students, there were totally 441 comments delivered over 7 types of comments (table 1). the mean of each essay receiving comments was 36.75. the total number of “clarification” comments was 129 (29.25%), followed by 128 of “suggestion/ advice” (29.02%). “explanation” type was in the third place of 44 (9.97%). next to “explanation” was “evaluation” type of 43 (9.75%). “alteration” and “confirmation” types were of 37 (8.39%) and 32 (7.25%). finally, “statement” type was last with 28 (6.35%). asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 15 types of comments types of comments 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 ev al uat io n cl ar ifi ca tio n al te ra tio n su gg est io n/ ad vi ce ex pl ana tio n co nf irm at io n st at em en t series1 figure 5 the most frequent types of comments generated during peer response activities of drafts 1 were “clarification” (mean = 10.75) and “suggestion/advice” (mean = 10.67) in each draft. “explanation” (mean = 3.67) was third most common type. the mean of “evaluation” was 3.58, indicating that students tried to keep the harmony in commenting. the fifth rank of comments went to “alteration” of which the mean was 3.08, followed by “confirmation” at 2.67. a part from those six types of common comments, “statement” which was not categorized because it was neither revision oriented or non-revision oriented (nature of comments), was provided by readers (mean = 2.33). this showed the interactions of students during the peer response activities. the findings suggested that the most common types of comments favored by students during the peer response activities were “clarification” and “suggestion/ advice”. the discrepancy between those two was nearly equal (129 vs. 128). “explanation” was also favored by students in the first drafts. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 16 table 2 types of comments (draft 2) types of comments that students received from their peers during the peer response session 2 students evaluation clarification alteration suggestion / advice explanation confirmation statement mean = 2.92; sd = 2.07 mean = 9.67; sd = 4.74 mean = 4.08; sd = 3.85 mean = 9.33; sd = 3.89 mean = 3.67; sd = 3.11 mean = 3.17; sd = 2.52 mean = 2.50; sd = 1.62 s1 2 6 4 11 10 0 4 s2 4 16 13 16 8 2 5 s3 2 16 0 14 5 1 5 s4 1 18 8 12 6 7 2 s5 2 7 3 8 2 5 3 s6 4 11 5 6 3 6 1 s7 8 4 8 3 4 2 4 s8 1 8 1 6 3 7 1 s9 2 7 3 8 0 1 1 s10 1 9 1 13 1 1 1 s11 3 4 1 9 2 2 2 s12 5 10 2 6 0 4 1 total 35 116 49 112 44 38 30 the total number of comments on draft 2 appeared to be slightly fewer than that of drafts 1 (424 vs. 441) (table 2). the mean number comments that each essay received was 35.33. the most common type was toward “clarification” at 116 (27.36%). the mean of each essay receiving “clarification” comments was 9.67. this was followed by “suggestion/ advice” with a total of 112 (26.42%) and a mean of 9.33. “alteration” was 49 (11.56%; mean = 4.08) which was higher than that compared with the first drafts (8.39%), and ranked the third common type after “clarification” and “suggestion/ advice” while it was in sixth in drafts 1. “explanation” was the same amount as in the first drafts of 44 (mean = 3.67), but it was higher in percentage (10.38% vs. 9.97%) and favored as the fourth common type in drafts 2 while it was in the third in drafts 1. the fifth common type of comments went to “confirmation” of 38 (8.96%; mean = 3.17). the sixth ranking type of comments “evaluation” included 35 comments (8.25%; mean = 2.92) while it ranked quite higher in the first drafts of 43 (9.75%). it appears that the students seemed to prefer more specific comments than general evaluative statements. “statement” type was least in the commentary activities (7.08% = mean = 2.50). compared to the first drafts, the findings indicated that students were still relying primarily on “clarification” and “suggestion/ advice” types during the peer response sessions. “alteration” was found to be favored more in the second drafts if the same issues were repeated from the first to the second drafts. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 17 types of comments types of comments 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 ev al ua tio n cl ar ifi ca tio n al te ra tio n su gg es tio n/ ad vi ce ex pl an at io n co nf irm at io n st at em en t series1 figure 6 research question two: do the comments affect the students‟ writing quality? table 3 pre-test – post_test mean s.d std. error mean t df sig. (two-tailed pair 1 pretest posttest -1.292 0.4981 0.1438 -8.983 11 .000** a. pretest refers to the first drafts b. posttest refers to the third drafts *p < 0.05 **p < 0.01 as described in the rating procedures, two trained inter-raters independently rated students‟ essays blindly. the inter-rater correlation was significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed) making the inter-rater reliability of the first drafts 0.73. also, the correlation of drafts 3 was significant at the 0.01 level (2tailed) with a reliability of inter-raters at 0.86. discrepancies were discussed between the two inter-raters for the first draft because there were no discrepancies higher than 1 point, the researcher did not serve as the third rater. the mean score of the 12 first drafts (pretest) was 5.91 and the third drafts (posttest) was 7.21 (table 7). no essay scored was less than 5 on the 10-point scale. matched paired test showed that the improvement in mean scores of the pretest and posttest was statistical significant (p < 0.01). the findings indicated that the peer response via the blogs helped student writers enhance their writing quality through their revisions after receiving comments. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 18 research question three: what attitudes did students express on the use of blog-based peer response? the attitudes of students on blog-based peer response were described qualitatively based on the semistructured interviews (see appendix d) after the training and the writing journals after the revisions. the researcher transcribed the interviews from tape recorders and then translated the interview transcripts and the writing journals into english. additionally, the researcher asked two other vietnamese, one has attended the phd and the other attended the ma program, to do the back translation after the texts were categorized for verification of the translation. most students expressed positive attitudes toward applying blogs to the peer response activities though some of them had some initial difficulties with the technology. time saving and conveniences of blogbased peer response were also reported. r so far you learn how to post writing on the blog, provide comments on peers‟ essays, and revise your writing. what do you think about it? s3 i now like to apply it more because at first i was not familiar with it, so i thought it was complicated, i did not like it. however, after getting used to it, i found that my writing improved. before taking this course, i also studied in group with some of my friends, sitting together to discuss and correct mistakes for one another‟s essay, but we just did it on papers, not on blog. that way consumed a lot of time because we had to spend the whole morning for gathering, waste of time. working via the blog was more convenient because i posted my writing on the blog; then dated with friends to be online. i did not need to travel from bien hoa to thu duc (around 20 kms from her home to the university). s5 i have enjoyed accessing the internet so far. i also have had a blog for a long time, but i did not know what to use it for, or to take advantage of its full usefulness. thanks to this course, i found the blog useful to post my writing for my group members to read and comment; so i realize it is good.” s10 in my opinion, it is very good because my friends could provide comments any time. when my friends are in good mood, they can provide better comments on my essay.” in the writing journal entries, students stated that they had gained high positive attitudes on the usefulness of blog-based peer response in their writing classroom. in addition, the harmony among the group members was also reported in their entries. students also confirmed that they learned from one another when reading their peers‟ essays. s11 learning to provide comments via the blog is rather interesting and it is very useful to the vietnamese [students]. it also helps not only me but also my friends to improve the writing styles of each person… s6 to me, this is a new learning approach and it should be applied widely to all other subjects. … this is a new method of learning which is worthy for my effort and pursuit… s12 to me, this way of learning is interesting and relaxing... i learn a lot due to the enthusiastic comments from my peers in my group. i also learn new things from reading my peers‟ essays… s2 i found that this way of learning is very interesting and useful. it helps me get closer to my friends. my peers commented on my writing every well… i appreciated my friends a lot and i hope that we still develop to help improve our writing skills better and better. s9 ... now the person who taught me writing was not only the teacher, but also my friends in my group and i myself… during the peer response sessions, the students sometimes debated to defend their stance over some features if they had some disagreements on the issues. however, the discussions were helpful to one asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 19 another to improve knowledge of writing. in this vein, hyland and hyland (2006) stated that from a socio-cognitive perspective, peer review can be seen as a formative developmental process that gives writers the opportunities to discuss their texts and discover others‟ interpretations of them. in addition, warschauer, et al. (1996) claimed that computer-mediated communication (cmc) allowed students to take a more active and autonomous role when seeking feedback since they can raise questions whenever they want to and take the initiative in discussion s3 i really like to have discussions, discussing, not arguing. once i debated seriously with one of my friends, because when she commented, i thought i was right. i was afraid that i might be wrong if i revised based on her suggestion. then i went to the classroom to debate with her. we used our old books (former materials) to check. we also looked for some other materials [related to that point]… i finally found i was wrong. afterward, i agreed with her on her subsequent comments, so there was no longer any serious debating. s10 at that time, my concept was conservative. i thought my writing was clear in expression. i did not know how to add more ideas [as my peer commented]… then we met in the in the classroom to discuss about the problem. despite the positive response of students using the blog for peer response activities, there were some restrictions which should be taken iton consideration such as internet expense and the time consuming. r is there any inconvenience when you post your essay via a blog? s3 there are also some inconveniences because my friends do not have the internet connection at home, so they need to go to the internet café to discuss. in fact, i often respond via the blog then we discuss the issues in the classroom. s1 i think the blog is useful to respond because it‟s easy to read. i can copy and correct it easily. i don‟t spend a lot of time. it is easy to observe my writing and comments. however it‟s not convenient if i must go to the net-shop (internet café) out my house (assuming that i don‟t have computer and connect internet at home). it also costs a lot of money. s6 this method consumed rather much time and money as well… s12 … the first thing to mention is that this learning approach consumes much time… 5. discussion 5.1 types of comments generated via blog-based peer response the first research question of this case study was to investigate which types of comments were most frequently produced by the students during the peer response sessions. a six-step procedure was taught to students before they performed peer response. quantitative analysis revealed that through two drafts, the students were able to produce most on “clarification” and “suggestion/ advice” types. the means of those two types of comments were much higher than any of the others. the findings seemed to echo (1) stanley‟s (1992) findings that pointing remarks (clarification) and advising remarks (suggestion/ advice) were favored by students during the peer response sessions; (2) zhu‟s (2001) that non-native speakers employed “announcing” and “questioning” (clarification) most frequently; (3) and rodriguez‟s (2003) that students used “advising” (suggestion/ advice) and “announcing” (clarification) when providing feedback. however, these findings differ from liu and sadler‟s (2003) in which “clarification” and “suggestion” were generated in fewer numbers than “alteration” and “evaluation” in the technology enhanced group. the findings of this study, based on the coding data of this case study, indicated that student writers helped their peers clarify the problems first; then provided suggestions for revision orientations. therefore, the correlation of these two functions showed that the students conducted their comments comprehensively. in other words, the students got quite involved in the blog-based peer response activities. besides, “explanation” and “alteration” were also considered. “explanation” which was favored (third in drafts 1) fourth in drafts 2, the number of comments stayed the same (44), indicated that the students took their responsibilities in their comments in order to help one another revise their asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 20 essays. in terms of interaction, the students produced more engagement in the “explanation” type because it included a suggestion and an explaining statement. the type of “evaluation” in drafts 1 seemed to be rather high (9.75%), and positioned fourth after “explanation”. this finding seemed to correlate with tuzi‟s (2004) and liu and sadler‟s (2003) findings that students were more comfortable writing praise comments. in this case study, “evaluation” ranked fourth most common type in drafts 1 while it was second most commonly used type for the l2 writers in tuzi‟s (2004) and liu and sadler‟s (2003). however, “evaluation” in this study decreased remarkably in drafts 2 (8.25%) and took the last position in the table of types of comments (table 2). it showed that the students in the second drafts focused more on the quality of their comments, not just as perfunctory work. this finding supports sullivan and pratt‟s (1996) and liu and sadler‟s (2003) conclusions that students in the computer-assisted classroom demonstrated more focus on their written comments. 5.2 comments affect the students’ writing quality the researcher employed the triangulation method of trained inter-raters, semi-structured interviews, and writing journals to ascertain validity of the findings. this case study adopted the analytic scoring rubric of oshima and hogue (2006) and employed two trained inter-raters as discussed in the rating procedures. although this analytic scoring rubric is generally not popularly used by researchers, it was objective and proper for inexperienced raters (weir, 1990; weigle, 2002). the findings of this study showed that the writing quality of students, compared the means of pretest and posttest, did improve and was statistical significant (p<0.01) by the paired t-test. the results bolstered the conclusions reached by sullivan and pratt (1996) and braine (1997; 2001) that the writing quality did improve in the computer-assisted classroom from the first to the final drafts. there were some additional reasons indicating the improvements of the writing quality. first, the most common comments types were “clarification”, “suggestion/ advice”, “explanation” and “alteration” which were considered as specific and provided lights for revisions. second, as the students reported in the semi-structured interviews and their reflections in the writing journals, the process showed that the group members enthusiastically helped one another improve their writing revisions by providing effective comments. r could i have known that your group members in your group provided comments on your essays enthusiastically to help you revise your writing? s3 yes. my group included 4 members. three of them enthusiastically commented on my essays for example thienphuoc... the other one was not unenthusiastic, but i found that her comments were not as qualified as thienphuoc‟s whose comments not only related to grammar, spellings… but also to content. he did very well and i found it helpful. s5 at first, the comments in drafts 1 seemed not very good. but with drafts 2, i found that everyone tried to do his/her best. s11 … my peers in my group commented carefully on my writing which helped me revise my later draft much better than the previous one… s6 i really like to receive comments from my peers in my group. every time i read the comments from you, though the comments were more negative than positive… s12 ... i learned a lot due to the enthusiastic comments from my peers in my group. i also learned new things from reading my peers‟ essays… third, the students themselves indicated that they believed their writing quality improved in content, organization and grammar/structure issues from drafts 1 to drafts 3 after blog-based peer response sessions. their stated beliefs might be the basis for motivation to get them involved in the learning process. r in your point of view, do you think that the quality of your writing improve from draft 1 to draft 3 thanks to the comments of your peers via the blog? asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 21 s3 i especially found the improvement from draft 1 to draft 3. i myself knew that my draft 1 was not good in cohesion. then thienphuoc showed me [on his comments]. i started to revise some mistakes from draft 2 because my writing lacked supporting ideas. i knew how to state the [main] idea, but i did not know how to support it; so i wrote it to expect my friends to provide comments to help me revise… [my writing now is] good in both content and organization… i found my writing from draft 1 to draft 3 is far more improved‟ s5 so far my writing is much better compared with draft 1. at that time, i wrote as an impulsive act: wrote what i thought. but now i know how to organize my ideas from introduction to body and the conclusion. s10 i feel that i am able to write faster than before. i know how to organize the ideas, which idea does not support the main idea. that is the biggest mistake that i had since last semester. s1 the fact that after receiving comments from my peer, i recognize that i make a lot of mistakes in grammar and content. i must write 2 or 3 times. rewriting reduces mistakes. now my writing is more coherent and smooth. clearly, thanks to my peer‟s comments, my writing skills are improved. the final reason might come from the positive attitudes in using the blog-based peer response as described in the third research question in the findings and interpretation (no.4). this reason was supported by hyland and hyland‟s (2006) contention that electronic feedback through peer response increases student writing output, enhances student motivation, provides a nonthreatening environment, makes papers more readily available for sharing, and allows instructors greater opportunity to monitor peer response. in addition, dörnyei (2001) claimed that cognitive approaches place the focus on the individual‟s thought, beliefs, and interpretational processes that are transformed into action. therefore, when the students preferred this one specific kind of media (blog), they took part in their learning process. 5.3 students’ attitudes on the use of blog-based peer response students expressed positive attitudes based on the semi-structured interviews and writing journals. the findings of this study contradicted those of digiovanni and nagaswami (2001) and tuzi (2004) who concluded that the students preferred traditional peer response to e-peer response. it was worthy knowing the students‟ attitudes on e-peer response in order to get the most collaboration in the learning process. in a “student-centered” approach, the students are considered as the central subjects in the teaching/learning process. there should be high agreement from both the instructor and the students to gain effective results in the learning. pedagogically, when the instructor obtains a high degree of agreement from his or her students, he/ she would have better chance of successful student collaboration in the classroom activities; hence, the success of teaching would follow. there were three possible reasons for the positive attitudes expressed by students using blog-based peer response. first, the students experienced working in a technological environment. one student writer, bocaukhongduathu (s12), said, “i found it really wonderful: learning via the computer. i feel that i like it! the ways of commenting online to another‟s, my friends correct mistakes [in my writing] for me, i feel like it…”; another student, bebi (s7) said, “actually, i feel very comfortable when learning in such a way, not tense at all… since i have joined this course, i could learn more things, especially about computer.” the other student, nhoc_ht, (s11) said, “this is the first time i did my writing via the blog and received the comments from you. i am very happy…” second, many students said that they found it beneficial to receive comments from their peers to revise their later drafts. lanphuongkt (s11), said, “my peers in my group commented carefully on my writing which helped me revise my later draft much better than the previous one. i appreciated my friends a lot and i hope that we still develop to help improve our writing skills better and better.” she also compared what she could not do in the past and what she could do after this course of academic writing in her interviews as she replied, “i know how to organize my ideas more easily, knowing which idea do not support the main idea. that‟s the biggest mistake i had since last course.” this finding was supported by warschauer‟s (2002) that student discussion activities asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 22 brought them to be more “student-centered” , fostered a sense of community, encouraged a sense of group knowledge, and increased student participation…” finally, the fact that the students found their writing quality improved from the first to the third drafts might result in positive attitudes towards the learning process, specifically in blog-based peer response activities. two restrictions reported by the students in the writing journal entries and the semi-structured interviews were internet expense and time-consuming. the restriction on the internet expense might be resolved in the future since the vietnamese government (ministry of education) was promoting it in some selective universities in 20062007 (h.mai, 2006), and has implemented, gradually in most of universities in vietnam since 2008. however, the restriction about time consuming did not seem to be the problem because the findings showed that the students worked hard to provide comments on their peers‟ essays and were rewarded with good quality revisions. that is, it was worth the time. 6. conclusion this case study found that the students who took part in the blog-based peer response and obtained a 6step training procedure employed four most frequent types of comments which were “clarification”, “suggestion/ advice”, “explanation” and “alteration”. it indicated that “clarification” should be followed by specific “suggestion” or “explanation” in order to “set lights” for revisions. second, these 4 common types of comments did significantly affect the students‟ writing quality in mean scores of the pretest and posttest. finally, this case study found that students expressed positive attitudes toward blog-based peer response activities. these three findings seemed to mutually support one another. furthermore, the findings indicated that this popular medium of technology, the blog, could be applied in the academic writing classroom in vietnam, particularly at nong lam university, ho chi minh city. although the findings of this study could not be generalized to other contexts due to small number of participants and the lack of a control group, writing instructors/researchers could test the strength of the blog-based peer response and the 6-step training procedure in the training in experimental studies. in spite of variety of blogs provided widely on the internet, the instructor should select the most popular one used by the community of the local students in order to promote the participation in the learning process. further research also needs to explore how far the students might incorporate the comments in their revisions, which types of comments are most favored by the writers in the revision stage. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 23 references berg, e. c. (1999). the effects of trained peer response esl students‟ revision types and writing quality. journal of second language writing, 8 (3), 215 – 241. braine, g. (1997). beyond word processing: networked computers in esl writing classes. computers and composition, 14 (1), 45-58. braine, g. (2001). a study of english as a foreign language (efl) writers on a local-area network (lan) and in traditional classes. computers and composition, 18 (3), 275-292. dörnyei, z. (2001). teaching and researching motivation. harlow: pearson education ltd. gartner (2007). predicts 2007 blog. retrieved on nov. 21st, 2007 at http://weblog.gartner.com/weblog/weblogindex.php. hedge, t. (2002). teaching and learning in the language classroom. oxford: oxford university press. hyland, k. (2003). second language writing. cambridge: cambridge university press. hyland, k. & hyland, f. (eds.)(2006). feedback in second language writing. new york: cambridge university press. hughes, a. (2003). testing for language teachers. cambridge: cambridge university press. jones et al. (2006). interactional dynamics in online and face-to-face peer-tutoring sessions for second language writers. journal of second language writing, 15 (1), 1-23. lien, k. (2006). oct. 12th, 2006. bay nam hoc o pho thong: tai sao khong biet noi tieng anh?. retrieved nov.17th,2006,from http://www.tuoitre.com.vn/tianyon/index.aspx?articleid=166558&channelid=13. lightfoot, m. j. (2006) a comparative analysis of e-mail and face-to-face communication in an educational environment. the internet and higher education, 9 (3), 217-227. liu, j. & hansen, g. j. (2005). peer response in second language writing classroom. u.s.a: the university of michigan press. liu, j. & sadler, r. w (2003). the effect and affect of peer review in electronic versus traditional modes on l2 writing. journal of english for academic purposes, 2 (3), 193-227. luu, q. thanh (2006, august, 12th). de ra kieu ay thi con nhieu tai tieng. retrieved on june 3, 2007 from http://www.tuoitre.com.vn/tianyon/index.aspx?articleid=155515&channelid=87 michaels, b. (2007). quotations from writers. retrieved on june 11, 2007 at http://www.kimskorner4teachertalk.com/writing/general/quotes.html#qideas. mai, h. (2006, nov. 4th). ket noi giao vien voi tuong lai thong tin. retrived on june 20th 2007 from http://www.tuoitre.com.vn/tianyon/index.aspx?articleid=170582&channelid=13#top. min, h. t. (2005). training students to become successful peer reviewers. system, 33 (2), 293-308. nguyen, t. k. thu (2002). error feedback in l2 writing classes: how explicit does it need to be? master of tesol research, university of social sciences & humanities, hcmc. nguyen, t. t. ha (2004). the use of group work in foreign language classes: factors leading to success. master of tesol research, university of social sciences & humanities, hcm city, vietnam. nunan, d. (ed.), (1993). collaborative language learning and teaching. great britain: bell & bain ltd. oppenheim, a. n. (1999). questionnaire design, interviewing and attitude measurement. london: biddles ltd. oshima, a. & hogue, a. (2006). writing academic english (4th ed.). new york: pearson education, inc. richards, c. j. & lockhart, c. (2000). reflective teaching in second language classrooms. uk: cambridge university press. reid, j. (1995). teaching esl writing. upper saddle river, nj: prentice hall regents in carter, r. & nunan, d. (eds.) (2002). teaching english to speakers of other languages. cambridge: cambridge university press. rodriguez, r. r. (2003). computer-mediated peer response and its impact on revision in the college spanish classroom: a case study. doctoral dissertation, college of arts & sciences and college of education university of south florida. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/87554615 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/87554615 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=publicationurl&_tockey=%23toc%236537%231997%23999859998%23322086%23flp%23&_cdi=6537&_pubtype=j&view=c&_auth=y&_acct=c000054425&_version=1&_urlversion=0&_userid=5092761&md5=51a5df1bb801391784080dba76a21873 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/87554615 http://blog.gartner.com/blog/predicts2007.php http://weblog.gartner.com/weblog/weblogindex.php http://www.tuoitre.com.vn/tianyon/index.aspx?articleid=166558&channelid=13 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/10967516 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=publicationurl&_tockey=%23toc%236554%232006%23999909996%23631596%23fla%23&_cdi=6554&_pubtype=j&view=c&_auth=y&_acct=c000054425&_version=1&_urlversion=0&_userid=5092761&md5=52325a656761c540dfb5573348c41f9b http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=publicationurl&_cdi=7302&_pubtype=j&_auth=y&_acct=c000054425&_version=1&_urlversion=0&_userid=1750281&md5=7b76512033965cc371afddf291583b75 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=publicationurl&_cdi=7302&_pubtype=j&_auth=y&_acct=c000054425&_version=1&_urlversion=0&_userid=1750281&md5=7b76512033965cc371afddf291583b75 http://www.tuoitre.com.vn/tianyon/index.aspx?articleid=155515&channelid=87 http://www.kimskorner4teachertalk.com/writing/general/quotes.html#qideas http://www.tuoitre.com.vn/tianyon/index.aspx?articleid=170582&channelid=13#top asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 24 stanley, j. (1992). coaching student writers to be effective peer evaluators. journal of second language writing, (1), (3), 217-233. sullivan, n. & pratt, e. (1996). a comparative study of two esl writing environments: a computerassisted classroom and a traditional oral classroom. system, 29 (4), pp. 491 – 501, 1996. sangarun, p. (2003). task-based instruction should be implemented in thai university english language classrooms. suranaree journal of social science, vol. 10 (1); january-march, 2003. technorati (2006). state of the blogosphere, april 2006 part 1: on blogosphere growth. retrieved on nov. 21st, 2007 at http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000432.html. thanhnien (2005). luu but thoi @. retried on nov. 21st, 2007 at http://www.tuoitre.com.vn/tianyon/index.aspx?articleid=78679&channelid=7. tran, ngoc bao (2000). a combination of skills & strategies and genre analysis approaches in designing a course to improve magazine writing. master of tesol, university of social sciences and humanities, hcm city, vietnam. tran, p. l. phan (2006, august 26th). đổi mới cách đào tạo giáo viên văn. retrieved on june 3, 2007 at http://www.tuoitre.com.vn/tianyon/index.aspx?articleid=158342&channelid=13. tseng, s. c. & tsai, c. c. (2007). on-line peer assessment and the role of the peer feedback: a study of high school computer course. computers & education, 49 (4), 1161-1174. tsui, b.m. amy & ng, maria (2000). do secondary l2 writers benefit from peer comments? journal of second language writing (9), (2), pp. 147–170. tuoitre (2006, august 11). loi gioi thieu: blog 360 do nhung sac mau cuoc song. retrieved on nov. 21st, 2007 at http://www3.tuoitre.com.vn/tusach/book/articleview.aspx?articleid=200055&channelid=371. tuoitre (2007). ban tron: day van, hoc van: toi chang he bang hoang. retrieved on june 3, 2007 at http://www.tuoitre.com.vn/tianyon/index.aspx?articleid=156949&channelid=13. tuzi, k. (2004). the impact of e-feedback on the revisions of l2 writers in an academic writing course. computers and composition, 21 (2), 217-235. vietnamnet (2007). yahoo khong man ma voi thi truong vietnam. retrieved on nov. 22nd, 2007 at http://www.vietnamnet.vn/cntt/2007/11/754558/. vnexpress (2006, august, 11). bai van dat diem 10 chep tu bai van mau. retrieved on june 3, 2007 at http://vnexpress.net/vietnam/xa-hoi/2006/08/3b9ecf84/. warschauer, m. (1996). computer assisted language learning: an introduction. retrieved on june 4, 2007 at http://www.ict4lt.org/en/warschauer.htm. warschauer, m. & turbee, l. and roberts, b. (1996). computer learning networks and student empowerment. system, 24 (1), 1-14. warschauer, m. (2002). networking into academic discourse. journal of english for academic purposes, 1 (1), 45–58. weigle, c. sara (2002). assessing writing. cambridge: cambridge university press. weir, j. cyril (1990). communicative language testing. uk: prentice hall international (uk) ltd. wennerstrom, a. (2006). discourse analysis in the language classroom – volume 2. genres of writing. usa: the university of michigan press. zhu, w. (2001). interaction and feedback in mixed peer response groups. journal of second language writing, 10 (4), 251–276. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/10603743 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/10603743 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=publicationurl&_tockey=%23toc%236569%231992%23999989996%23322135%23flp%23&_cdi=6569&_pubtype=j&view=c&_auth=y&_acct=c000054425&_version=1&_urlversion=0&_userid=5092761&md5=3e22c0fe975c1dcad30f51218f479af9 http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000432.html http://www.tuoitre.com.vn/tianyon/index.aspx?articleid=78679&channelid=7 http://www.tuoitre.com.vn/tianyon/index.aspx?articleid=158342&channelid=13 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03601315 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=publicationurl&_tockey=%23toc%235956%232007%23999509995%23666499%23fla%23&_cdi=5956&_pubtype=j&view=c&_auth=y&_acct=c000054425&_version=1&_urlversion=0&_userid=1750281&md5=093fc1e192064138ddd4e9c88055b4f9 http://www3.tuoitre.com.vn/tusach/book/articleview.aspx?articleid=200055&channelid=371 http://www.tuoitre.com.vn/tianyon/index.aspx?articleid=156949&channelid=13 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=publicationurl&_tockey=%23toc%236537%232004%23999789997%23503311%23fla%23&_cdi=6537&_pubtype=j&view=c&_auth=y&_acct=c000054425&_version=1&_urlversion=0&_userid=5092761&md5=2b2b900cef4343c16932692680806564 http://www.vietnamnet.vn/cntt/2007/11/754558/ http://vnexpress.net/vietnam/xa-hoi/2006/08/3b9ecf84/ http://www.ict4lt.org/en/warschauer.htm asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 25 appendix a peer-editing worksheet of cause/effect essays peer editor: …………………………… date: ……………………….. 1. what kind of introduction does this essay have (funnel, entertaining story, etc.)? …………………………………………………………………………………. how many sentences does it contain? ………………………………………… does it capture your interest?  yes  no where is the thesis statement placed? ………………………………………… 2. how many paragraphs are there in the body? number: …………….. the topics of the body paragraphs are as follows: 1. ……………………………………. 3. ……………………………….. 2. ……………………………………. 4. ……………………………….. (if there are more or fewer paragraphs, add or delete lines.) 3. what kind of supporting details does the writer use in each body paragraph? 1. ……………………………………. 3. ……………………………….. 2. ……………………………………. 4. ……………………………….. 4. check each paragraph for unity. is any sentences unnecessary or “off the topic”?  yes  no if your answer is yes, write a comment about it (them) …………………………………………………………………………………. 5. check each paragraph for coherence. does each one flow smoothly from beginning to end?  yes  no what key nouns are repeated? ……………………………………………….. what transition signals can you find? ……………………………………….. ……………………………………………………………………………….. 6. what expressions does the writer use to link paragraphs? if there is none, write none. (if there are more or fewer paragraphs, add or delete lines.) to introduce the first body paragraph …………………………………………. between paragraphs 2 and 3 …………………………………………………… between paragraphs 3 and 4 …………………………………………………… between paragraphs 4 and 5 …………………………………………………… to introduce the conclusion: …………………………………………………... 7. what kind of conclusion does this essay have – a summary of the main points or a paraphrase of the thesis statement? ………………………………………………………………………………….. does the writer make a final comment?  yes  no what is it? ………………………………………………………………………………….. is this an effective ending (one that you will remember)?  yes  no 8. in your opinion, what is the best feature of this essay? in other words, what is this writer‟s best writing skill? ………………………………………………………………………………….. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 26 appendix b scoring rubric maximum score actual score content – 2.5 points the essay fulfills the requirements of the assignment. the essay is interesting to read. the essay shows that the writer used care and thought. 0.5 1.0 1.0 ___ ___ ___ total 2.5 organization – 4.5 points the essay follows the outline, and it has an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. introduction: the introduction ends with the thesis statement. body each paragraph of the body discusses a new point and begins with a clear topic sentence. each paragraph has specific supporting material: facts, examples, quotations, paraphrased or summarized information, etc. each paragraph has unity. each paragraph has coherence. transitions are used to link paragraphs. conclusion: the conclusion summarizes the main points or paraphrases the thesis statement, begins with a conclusion signal, and leaves the reader with the writer's final thoughts on the topic. 0.5 0.5 0.5 1.0 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ total 4.5 grammar and sentence structure-2.5 points estimate a grammar and sentence structure score. 2.5 total 2.5 mechanics-0.5 points punctuation: periods, commas, semicolons, quotation marks (0.3), capitalization (0.1), spelling (0.1) total 0.5 grand total 10 adopted from oshama & hogues (2006) asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 27 appendix c grid for comment analysing types of comments no. of types global areas local areas no. of areas revision-oriented non-revisionoriented revision-oriented non-revisionoriented evaluation generally this paragraph is too short to prove your idea. you have a clear writing, i like it. this sentence does not make sense i like this sentence a lot specifically your thesis statement is not very good. "you have 3 clear supporting sentences." this word "…" is not clear for your meaning here your grammar structure of this sentence is nice clarification specific ideas i don‟t understand what you mean in “for me, who have been living in a city all my life” no example for this category no example for this category no example for this category particular word choices, phrases, or sentences no example for this category no example for this category “what do you mean by "night school”? this sentence is wrong in grammar. no example for this category cohesive “you say „…‟ how does this sentence connect to the one before?” no example for this category these two sentences need a transition signal. no example for this category unity i think this part is off topic. you are talking about “chance for education”, why do you talk about transportation? your supporting ideas are connected to the topic sentence no example for this category no example for this category asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 28 alteration your thesis statement should be "living in a big city brings us many benefits" no example for this category “their” should be changed to “our” no example for this category suggestion/ advice generally in each benefit, you should give us more convinced ideas to support your writing. no example for this category i think when you write a paragraph or an essay you should use simple word. no example for this category suggestion/ advice specifically you should support for this idea, don‟t talk about another idea. no example for this category i think that you should use an adjective there as “social problems”, and “electronic libraries”. no example for this category explanation i think these two sentences should be reduced because they talk about the conveniences of computer, not about the good education in a big city. no example for this category you should change "despite … into although" (despite + n/n phrase, although + clause)'. 'i think "so " is used to connected two clauses.' no example for this category confirmation are you sure all people prefer living in a big city? you have a thesis statement, and topic sentences. “wait for you or will wait for you?” no example for this category statement no example for this category this is just my opinion, i hope it will help you a lot. i understand what you mean. no example for this category no example for this category total asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol. 4 no. 1 october 2009, pham vu phi ho and siriluck usaha 29 appendix d questions of the semi-structured and in-depth interviews i will ask a few questions about the peer response activity in which you gave responses to your peers, and you received comments about your writing as well. in addition, the use of the blog for peer response is also in the consideration. apart from my guided questions, you can provide more of your ideas if you feel necessary to express your thoughts. please give me all your thoughts on each question. 1. do you think that peer response is helpful to you? 2. so far you have learned how to post writing on the blog, provide comments on peers‟ essays, and revise your writing. what do you think about it? 3. do you expect your friends to comment on content, organization or on grammar, structure, and spelling? 4. do you think that the quality of your writing has improved through draft 1 to draft 3 thanks to the comments of your peers via the blog? 5. do you like to post your writing on the blog for your friends to read and comment? 6. do you learn any thing from your peers when you read and provide comments on your peers‟ essays? 7. are your peers' comments useful to you for revising your essay? 8. could i have known that your group members in your group provided comments on your essays enthusiastically to help you revise your writing? 9. what do you focus on when you write your comments? 10. what areas (global or local) do you prefer to provide comments as well as to receive comments from your peers? 11. do you benefit from giving comments to others? if so, what are the benefits? if not, why not? 12. if you have two options: (1) the teacher comments on your essay only without peer comments; (2) peer comments then the teacher comments, which one do you prefer? 13. would you like it if there were only peer comments but not teacher comments? why? 14. do you usually understand your peers‟ comments and corrections? 15. what do you do if you do not understand your peers‟ comments? 16. does your teacher/peer give you positive or encouraging comments? 17. do you feel that your peers‟ comments have helped you to succeed in this course and improve your writing? why or why not? 18. in what way do you wish that your peers would change or improve their comments? 19. what do you think of the blog-based peer response? 20. do you often read your peers‟ comments and corrections via the blog? 21. is it convenient to provide comments on your peers‟ essay via the blog? 22. is there any inconvenience when you post your essay via a blog? 23. in the future, when you finish this course, will you still make use of your blog to post your writing? citation asiacall online journal received: 24/05/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 26/08/2021 vol. 12, no. 5, 2021 accepted: 01/09/2021 pp. 17-23 online: 02/09/2021 citation| chau, t. q. & nguyen, t. t. h. (2021). a theoretical study on the genuinely effective technology application in english language teaching for teachers and students. asiacall online journal, 12(5), pp. 17-23. a theoretical study on the genuinely effective technology application in english language teaching for teachers and students chau thuc quyen1, nguyen thi thanh hong2* 1ho chi minh city university of foreign languages information technology, vietnam 2hoa sen university, ho chi minh city, vietnam *corresponding author’s email: hong.nguyenthithanh@hoasen.edu.vn abstract it is strongly believed that advanced technology has created considerable influences on fields generally and english language teaching and learning particularly. therefore, a myriad of latest applications, modern devices, and inventive soft wares have flooded the educational market for the last two decades, especially during the time the whole world has suffered from the serious effects of coronavirus. this paper mainly focuses on the strengths and weaknesses of technology integration in english language teaching and suggesting some practical solutions to overcome the difficulties. keywords: technology integration, teaching creativity, learning engagement, authentic resources, advantages and disadvantages, technology application 1. introduction language generally and english has been considered one of the most meaningful elements influencing international communication activities, and students worldwide have tried to improve their english language proficiency and practical communication (grabe & stoller, 2002; ahmadi, 2018). according to the personal viewpoint of the writers, we firmly agree with the perspective of ahmadi (2017) and clements & sarama (2003) that one of the decisive and vital contributions for students' performance is the lecturers' method used in their classes to facilitate the language learning process. furthermore, the language teaching method has been drastically changed due to the remarkable influences of technology development, as argued by carol (2003). especially, the instructors' teaching methodology can be supported thanks to the application of technology significantly in terms of preparing activities sufficiently to satisfy both visual and auditory senses (becker, 2000; solanki and shyamlee, 2012; pourhosein gilakjani, 2017, teh, 2021; and tran et al., 2021) and providing countless authentic and interesting learning resources to students (bull & ma, 2001; harmer, 2007; genç lter, 2015; and larsen-freeman & anderson, 2011), improving students' cooperation and confidence (bennett et al., 2000; patel, 2013), enhancing their language productivity and improvement (alsulami, 2016; rodrigues & vethamani, 2015) as well as meeting their distance learning demand for students and teachers’ safety during corona virus’ pandemic (hoang & le, 2021; pham & vo, 2021; chau, 2021). this study is aiming to present the strong and weak points of technological application in teaching english context and figure out some solutions. https://asiacall.info/acoj mailto:hong.nguyenthithanh@hoasen.edu.vn https://asiacall.info/acoj chau, t. q. & nguyen, t. t. h. vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 18 2. literature review a. definition of technology and the use of technology in english language teaching obviously, technology or advanced technology has not been an unfamiliar terminology and has been defined by different researchers in fields. especially, i̇şman (2012) describes it as the interrelationship between humans and machines and the environment where people prefer the application of appropriately technical processes into their practical tasks. meanwhile, "technology integration" is the term suggested by hennessy, ruthven, and brindley (2005) and pourhosein gilakjani (2017), encompassing the technology application ways of teachers in performing their teaching english activities effectively to encourage the students’ learning engagement in the classrooms. b. previous studies to support the advantages of the technology application in the english teaching context as mentioned in the following content, some studies have been performed for the advantages of technology utilization in the english language teaching and learning context. firstly, technology is an effective tool for teachers to enhance their learners' cooperation (costley, 2014; gillespie, 2006; rahimi & bigdeli, 2014; hashim, 2006) generally and their peer reading work particularly (keser, huseyin, & ozdamli, 2011). thanks to the support of technology, teachers have easily adapted their teacher-centered to learner-centered approach and played the better role of facilitator in guiding their students' learning via providing cooperation tasks, collecting information, and interacting with material sources actively. moreover, the writers agree with mouza (2008) and sabzian, pourhossein & sodouri (2013) that technology application can also boost the students' confidence via the cooperation among them and teachers by assisting their teachers' technical teaching process. secondly, as regards teaching sufficiency, bennett, culp, honey, tally, and spielvogel (2000) strongly emphasize that appropriate selection and utilization of computer technology can contribute dramatically to the improvement of teachers’ teaching and learners’ learning in schools by providing a large number of opportunities for them to explore the endless useful materials from the internet. furthermore, according to raihan & lock (2012), susikaran (2013), patel (2013), lian (2014), and arifah (2014), they argue that computer technology and its application in classrooms completely can effectively enhance both teaching and learning environment in terms of learners’ linguistic knowledge, background knowledge, and interpretation to meet the educational demands of students as compared with lecture-based classes. thirdly, technology integration in classrooms directly leads to conveniently authentic material resource exposure, as supported by warschauer (2000a), drayton, falk, hobbs, hammerman, and stroud (2010) peregoy and boyle (2012), and parvin & salam (2015). this point can be explained that technology application from the teachers can create abundant opportunities for their students to practice social interaction to boost their language skills and their life skills cognitively and meaningfully. fourthly, technology application may lead to greater english skills improvement for students generally, as demonstrated by a study conducted by alsulami (2016). in this study, the positive influences of technology on learning english as a foreign language among 36 female efl students at effatt college were investigated via questionnaires with likert scale questions included four specific questions regarding technology tools that enhance learning the english language. the analyzed data using the statistical package for social sciences (spss) showed the results that kinds of computer soft-wares, social networking websites, acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 19 online videos, audio tools (i.e., youtube, skype, mp3 players), and smartphones and tablets apps have a positive impact on learning english as a foreign language. furthermore, according to the argument of rodrigues & vethamani (2015), computer-mediated activities provide unlimited and effective online platforms for esl learners to practice their oral conversations in an individualized learning environment at their own pace and time. therefore, students in the experimental group can enhance their english-speaking proficiency, learning autonomy, and self-confidence despite unstable internet connection compared to the students in the control group within the 12-weak intensive english program. moreover, based on the result of the study carried out by yunus and colleagues (2013), information and communication technologies (icts) play a major role in boosting english reading and writing skills for esl students in a secondary school, malaysia. based on the data collected from 23 teachers there via a semi-structured interview, the findings of the study reveal that ict application may not only contribute to the greater english speaking and writing skills but also facilitating the students' attention during their learning process, as well as their vocabulary knowledge. finally, technology application has also demonstrated its extremely important role in enhancing the demand for long-distance learning during corona virus’ pandemic (hoang & le, 2021; pham & vo, 2021). according to hoang & le (2021), despite the difficulties in online group learning between lecturers and students, an online learning solution should be preferred in such emergency situations. furthermore, we appreciate learning online via kinds of teaching online programs, including zoom cloud meeting, microsoft teams, vsee, voov, google classroom and google hangout, etc. such high-tech utilizations have demonstrated their significant role in vigorously changing from in-class teaching to online teaching to meet the distance learning demand of students during this severe time of coronavirus outbreak. c. perspectives towards disadvantages of technology utilization in classrooms there are constantly two sides to everything, and technology integration in classrooms is not an exception where both teachers and learners have faced during the time because multimedia utilization sometimes is not as positive as we may think. first of all, the writers agree with solanki & m phil (2012) that over technology implication limits the students’ cognitive thinking potential when they depend too much on it by searching, clicking, and finishing as fast as they can lazily avoid the thinking enhancing, information discovering, and problem-solving steps suggested by the teachers. moreover, the students’ imaginable thinking might be restricted by inappropriate utilization of technology from the teachers. this means overloaded technology use in the class might cause students' abstract thinking in transferring their personal recognition to the better rational interpretation after the lessons cognitively and metacognitively when they focus only on the sounds, images, and videos. secondly, according to solanki & m phil (2012), the application of technology in classes sometimes causes the useless dependence for teachers when teachers may have become slaves to the technology instead of playing their leading role in teaching practices, especially elderly ones when they cannot keep up with the extremely fast development of the current era of technology. ultimately, over-stressed of technology is the other burden on the shoulders of the teachers besides their long-life learning responsibility. finally, to the writers’ practical situations, technical problems can be considered as one of the disadvantages mentioned here because not all technical difficulties can be solved effectively https://asiacall.info/acoj chau, t. q. & nguyen, t. t. h. vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 20 in the classrooms, which delay the teaching and learning process of both teachers and students in some cases. 3. conclusion technology implication is favorable in the teaching and learning context generally; however, teachers should choose and apply it appropriately with specific targets for particular skills. according to solanki & m phil (2012), zoheb (2017), and ahmadi (2018), we have highlighted the important and significant role of multimedia utilization, and we should not forget the perfect and irreplaceable position of teachers in the classes where interaction can be enlarged to cultivate the students’ communicative competence, to boost the students’ cognitive thinking and imaginative potential by actively technology implication and control. based on the opinion of ahmadi (2018) and the writers, in order to avoid the useless dependence on technology integration for the teachers in the classrooms, the educational organizations, including private and national schools and universities and teaching foreign language centers for all levels should have suitable technical application training programs with specific technique utilization to support teachers for stress-reducing caused by their limited understanding of technology. especially, the schools should have effective technical staff who are ready to support teachers in their classrooms as fast as they need to ensure the learning process of the lessons. agreeing with the viewpoint of ahmadi (2018), teachers, should self-study by searching updated information on teaching and learning english technology integration and study from other colleagues to upgrade their skills of technological application through various kinds of teaching online programs including zoom cloud meeting, microsoft teams, vsee, google classroom and google hangout and the other outstanding websites in assisting them to design funny and attractive interaction activities for students like kahoot and quizzes. references ahmadi, m. r. (2017). the impact of motivation on reading comprehension. international journal of research in english education. http://www.ijreeonline.com ahmadi, m. r. (2018). the use of technology in english language learning: a literature review. international journal of research in english education, 3 (2), 115-125. doi: 10.29252/ijree.3.2.115 alsulami, s. (2016). the effects ò technology on learning english as a foreign language among female efl students at effatt college: an exploratory study. canada – studies in literature and language, 12 (4), 1-16. arifah, a. (2014). study on the use of technology in elt classroom: teachers’ perspective. m.a. thesis, department of english and humanities, brac university, dhaka, bangladesh. becker, h. j. (2000). findings from the teaching, learning, and computing survey: is larry cuban right? education policy analysis archives, 8(51). doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/epaa.v8n51.2000 bennett, d., culp, k. m., honey, m., tally, b., & spielvogel, b. (2000). it all depends: strategies for designing technologies for educational change. paper presented at the international conference on learning technology, philadelphia, pa. http://www.ijreeonline.com/ http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/epaa.v8n51.2000 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 21 bull, s., & ma, y. (2001) raising learner awareness of language learning strategies in situations of limited recourses. interactive learning environments, 9 (2), 171-200. doi: 10.1076/ilee.9.2.171.7439 chau, k. g. (2021). the effect of ict on learners’ speaking skills development. international journal of tesol & education, 1(1), 22-29. clements, d. h., & sarama, j. (2003). strip mining for gold; research and policy in educational technology-a response to fool’s gold. educational technology review, 11 (1), 7-69. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej673505 costley, k. c. (2014). the positive effects of technology on teaching and student learning. arkansas tech university. drayton, b., falk, j. k., stroud, r., hobbs, k., & hammerman, j. (2010). after installation: ubiquitous computing and high school science in three experienced, high-technology schools. journal of technology, learning, and assessment, 9 (3), 1-57. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej873677 gençlter, b. (2015). how does technology affect language learning process at an early age? procedia social and behavioral sciences, 199(2015), 311 – 316. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.07.552 gillespie, h. (2006). unlocking learning and teaching with ict: identifying and overcoming barriers. london: david fulton. https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/20064464 grabe, w., & stoller, f. l. (2002). teaching and researching reading. new york: pearson education. doi: 10.4324/9781315833743 harmer, j. (2007). the practice of english language teaching. england: pearson. www.worldcat.org/title/practice-of-english-language-teaching/oclc/149005881 hashim, z. (2006). open and distance learning: the effectiveness of online discussion forums in promoting the use of english for communication. asiacall online journal 1 (1) 22, 33. hennessy, s., ruthven, k., & brindley, s. (2005). teacher perspectives on integrating ict into subject teaching: commitment, constraints, caution, and change. journal of curriculum studies, 37 (2), 155-192. hoang, n. t., & le, d. h. (2021). vocational english teachers’ challenges on shifting towards virtual classroom teaching. asiacall online journal, 12(3), 58-73. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/39 i̇şman, a. (2012). technology and technique: an educational perspective. tojet: the turkish online journal of educational technology, 11(2), 207-213. tojet.net/articles/v11i2/11222.pdf keser, h., uzunboylu, h., & ozdamli, f. (2011). the trends in technology-supported collaborative learning studies in the 21st century. world journal on educational technology, 3 (2), 103-119. larsenfreeman, d., & anderson, m. (2011). techniques and principles in language teaching. oxford: oup. lian, a. b. (2014). " new learning" and call: a diy paradigm. asiacall online journal, 9, 14-26. mouza, c. (2008). learning with laptops: implementation and outcomes in an urban, underprivileged school. journal of research on technology in education, 40 (4), 447472. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej826086 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej673505 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej873677 https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/20064464 http://www.worldcat.org/title/practice-of-english-language-teaching/oclc/149005881 https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/39 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej826086 https://asiacall.info/acoj chau, t. q. & nguyen, t. t. h. vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 22 parvin, r. h., & salam, s. f. (2015). the effectiveness of using technology in english language classrooms in government primary schools in bangladesh. fire: forum for international research in education, 2(1), 4759. http://preserve.lehigh.edu/fire/vol2/iss1/5 patel, c. (2013). use of multimedia technology in teaching and learning communication skill: an analysis. international journal of advancements in research & technology, 2 (7), 116-123. peregoy, s., & boyle, o. (2012). reading, writing and learning in esl: a resource book for teachers. new york: allyn & bacon. pham, v. p. h., & vo, n. d. t. (2021). call in asia during covid-19 and models of elearning. proceedings of the 17th international conference of the asia association of computer-assisted language learning (asiacall 2021). vol. 533, pp. 1-10. amsterdam: atlantis press. isbn:978-94-6239-343-1; issn: 2352-5398 (cpci/isiindex to-be). doi: https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210226.001 pourhossein gilakjani, a. (2017). a review of the literature on the integration of technology into the learning and teaching of english language skills. international journal of english linguistics, 7 (5), 95-106. doi: https://doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v7n5p95 pourhossein gilakjani, a., & sabouri, n. b. (2017). advantages of using computers in teaching english pronunciation. international journal of research in english education (ijree), 2 (3), 78-85. doi: 10.18869/acadpub.ijree.2.3.78 raihan, m. a., & lock, h. s. (2010). technology integration for meaningful learning-the constructivist view. bangladesh educational journal, 11 (1), 17-37. rahimi, a., & bigdeli, r. a. (2014). ict and efl students’ self-regulation mastery: educational meat or poison. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859). riasati, m. j., allahyar, n., & tan, k. e. (2012). technology in language education: benefits and barriers. journal of education and practice, 3 (5), 25-30. rodrigues, p. d. & vethamani, m. e. (2015). the impact of online learning in the development of speaking skills. journal of interdisciplinary research in education, 5 (1), 43-67. sabzian, f., pourhossein g., a., & sodouri, s. (2013). use of technology in the classroom for professional development. journal of language teaching and research, 4 (4), 684-692. doi:10.4304/jltr.4.4.684-692. solanki, d., & shyamlee1, m. p. (2012). use of technology in english language teaching and learning: an analysis. 2012 international conference on language, medias and culture ipedr vol. 33(2012)©(2012)iacsit press, singapore. 150-156. susikaran, r. s. a. (2013). the use of multimedia in english language teaching. journal of technology for elt, 3 (2). https://sites.google.com/site/journaloftechnologyforelt/archive/3-2-april-2013/1-the-useof-multimedia-inenglish-language-teaching teh, w. (2021). communicative language teaching (clt) in the context of online learning: a literature review. international journal of tesol & education, 1(2), 65– 71. retrieved from http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/23 tran, t. q. t., nguyen, t. m. n., luu, t. t., & pham, t. b. n. (2021). an evaluation of english non-majored freshmen’s attitude towards efl learning at can tho university http://preserve.lehigh.edu/fire/vol2/iss1/5 https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210226.001 https://doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v7n5p95 http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/23 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 23 of technology. international journal of tesol &amp; education, 1(2), 72–98. retrieved from http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/35 warschauer, m. (2000a). the death of cyberspace and the rebirth of call. english teachers’ journal, 53, 61–67. [online.] available: http://www.gse.uci.edu/markw/cyberspace.html yunus, m. & nordin, n. & salehi, h. & choo, h. s. & embi, m. a. (2013). pros and cons of using ict in teaching esl reading and writing. international education studies, 6 (7), 119-130. zoheb, h. (2017). exploring the impact of technology in teaching english: tesol in the context. european journal of english language and literature studies, 5 (10), 19-28. biodata author 1 i, chau thuc quyen, am a permanent lecturer at foreign languages department, huflit, vietnam. i have nearly 9 years in teaching english for both english majored and english nonmajored students in colleges, universities, and foreign language centers in ho chi minh city. i have special interest in learners’ metacognition, assessment vs. self-assessment, and the application of technology in improving learners’ specific english skill performance. author 2 nguyen thi thanh hong (hong nguyen) got an ma degree in tesol in ho chi minh city university of social sciences and humanities (ussh) in 2018. she is currently a lecturer at hoa sen university (hsu). she has conducted two graduation theses on the field of pronunciation and speaking of elt in 2012 and 2018. she has had 10 years of teaching english in universities, colleges, foreign language schools as well as in companies. her main interests concerning her english teaching career include pronunciation, listening, speaking and technology enhanced language learning. http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/35 http://www.gse.uci.edu/markw/cyberspace.html asiacall online journal received: 13/03/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 16/04/2021 vol. 12, no. 4, 2021 accepted: 26/04/2021 pp. 9-17 online: 17/05/2021 difficulties and some suggested solutions in studying online of the students in van lang university during the covid-19 pandemic nguyen thu nguyet minh1, tra van dong1*, nguyen phuong hac2 1 van lang university, ho chi minh city, viet nam 2 ho chi minh city university of food industry, ho chi minh city, viet nam *correspondent author’s email: dong.tv@vlu.edu.vn abstract the essay helps readers better visualize the difficulties and propose online learning solutions for students at van lang university . our team created a google form and surveyed more than 100 people. after the results, our team conducted the complex analysis as well as proposed solutions. there are objective and subjective causes that come from students and schools. however, the essay will mainly focus on the difficulties from the student's perspective. the possible challenges teachers and students face in an online learning environment must be considered to ensure the student's success. therefore, there are two roles in e-learning that must be considered when discussing ways to improve these challenges. the first is the role of the teacher, and the second, the role of the students (le & truong, 2021). keywords: difficulties of online learning, difficulties from the perspective of students. introduction covid-19 has led to school closures around the world. globally, more than 1.2 billion students are out of the classroom. as a result, education is conducted remotely and on digital platforms. krajka (2021) claim that the corona virus created a chance for schools to employ the distance teaching and learning. to meet significant needs, many online learning platforms provide free access to their services, including platforms such as google meets, microsoft teams... in vietnam, to combat the spread of coronavirus and maintain healthy social distancing, schools across the country have temporarily closed and changed significantly, with the special development of e-learning, which quickly shifts from in-person learning to distance learning; however, most vietnamese students have difficulty learning online due to limitations in interaction, equipment, communication with teachers, and the stress of learning online for too long. moreover, they find it difficult to interact with others in one lesson and are unable to answer flexible questions; from the experience of our team, students of van lang university, most students have difficulty studying online at the university, and this will be tested with the support of individual examples. there have been a few studies about e-learning and its drawbacks: (nguyen & duong, 2021) mailto:dong.tv@vlu.edu.vn acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 10 vietnam is rapidly developing in terms of the internet with increasingly high speed and low cost. this leads to vietnam is the 6th largest internet user in asia and 12th globally with 64 million people in 2018. socially, vietnam is also in a "golden population period". the number of people under 30 years old in 2014 was 45,462 million, accounting for 50.2% of the population general statistics office year 2016 people with easy access to information and communication technology. therefore, vietnam is considered a country with great potential for developing e-learning. according to market research organization ambient insight, vietnam is in the top 10 countries in the forecasted e-learning development rate for 2014-2016. vietnam's e-learning market is estimated at no less than $2 billion and has a growth rate of 40%. however, most focus on exam preparation, foreign language training, and soft skills. although universities in vietnam have been interested in e-learning quite early, until recently, the overall situation has not prospered and still has some problems. those challenges include institutional, cultural, technological, educational, and ethical aspects: • vietnam has had macro policies from the party and the state on promoting the application of information technology in higher education. however, the implementation of policies in practice is not good, especially in the field of distance education. • inadequate legal framework. there are only regulations on general e-learning conditions (circular 12/2016 / tt-bgdđt) and the concept of e-learning in the regulation on distance learning (circular 10/2017 / tt-bgdđt). the application of e-learning for formal training and postgraduate training does not have a clear legal basis to apply. • universities do not have funding for development investment in the context of non-state funding. projects are usually carried out with foreign funding (hanoi university of science and technology project and hanoi open university institute from korean support). due to the lack of linkages between universities, the spillover effect of these meager investments remains low. the capacity of lecturers and educational management staff has not met the requirements of e-learning development, both in terms of technology and content. in short, the development of e-learning, especially in higher education in vietnam, is limited compared to its potential. there are a lot of experiences in those researches of the authors about online learning and the disadvantages of online learning during the pandemic. however, there is no information available on problems in distant learning of students at van lang university. thus, this study about learning online at van lang university is really important. once the causes are found out, solutions to the problem can be worked out (pham & vo, 2021) the purpose of the research the purpose of the study was to help the students in van lang university find appropriate solutions for personal difficulties of learning online during the pandemic and help the teacher with better acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 11 ideas in planning the lessons through students' experiences. besides, this study also helps van lang university find out the best method for teaching online in the pandemic period. the research is carried out in an attempt to find out answers to the following research questions: • what is the reality of learning online of students in van lang university during the covid19? • what are the difficulties in learning online of the students at the school? • what is the suggested solution for those difficulties? the significance of the research the result of this study may suggest a hypothesis for further research into common disadvantages that students face when learning online, through which they can promote a number of solutions to overcome. in addition, the result of the study could be useful for teachers who are responsible for making plans to help improve the online lesson, to transmit knowledge effectively to students. by conducting a test of 100 students ranging from first-year to senior year, our group can point out some drawbacks of the online study at van lang university and find a way to improve the quality of online learning and interactions between teachers and students as well. our school does not conduct distance learning programs like others, so when an epidemic breaks out, the preparation of the school and students in online learning is more or less affected. therefore, our research topics focus on the common issues of online learning such as networking, the devices that students use to learn, the interaction between teachers and students, and effectiveness after a lesson. the method in this section, you can get what the actual process that we have taken to reach our purpose was. mainly, the population, the sampling technique, some restrictions, the procedures, materials, and important methods are also mentioned in the research. moreover, this section also contains necessary details for other researchers to help them conduct similar studies and make it easier for readers to grasp the research. online learning is becoming popular during the time of the epidemic outbreak. however, do the students of the van lang university find it difficult to overcome? we research difficulties and offer appropriate solutions for both students and schools (le & truong, 2021) sampling techniques most students at van lang university have their own laptops and are interested in learning online during a coronavirus outbreak. therefore, we believe they can easily cooperate to complete the survey. the study is conducted on 100 students currently studying at the main campus of van lang university. we choose van lang university students because we are also studying and working at the school at the present time. so we understood the difficulty of an outbreak, and the school turned to online learning. the scope is open to all students from all majors at school as the disease affects the whole school, and above all, we need to come up with solutions not only for students acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 12 but also for the school. we sent students survey links and answer sheets to answer 13 multiple choice questions about how difficult it is to learn online and received many comments about this inconvenience and many more questions about this inconvenience. the solutions of the students were presented in the survey. for survey purposes, we have selected students from a variety of majors, including full-time and part-time education. the group then divided into three small groups and discussed providing 13 stories about the school's students. the key is online learning practice (5 questions), difficulty (4 questions), and some solutions (4 questions). the story has four options, three referees are interested in the main, and the last sentence is "other" is "other" that contains student opinion and might give me a good idea for their contest. i. the next step, we created stories on google after linking with students in all the articles through the school's social networks. we have collected and analyzed 100 statements. we have two votes (situation, problem, solution) and finally conclude in the discussion set (le & truong, 2021) restrictions online learning is a fairly wide range and studied by many experts. in addition, online learning depends on the purpose of each individual. since we are students at van lang university, this project taken at our school would be more suitable and convenient for researchers and those surveyed. moreover, due to time constraints, we could not learn in-depth about technology, lesson details, or teachers' difficulties. results & discussion we analyze three items: current situation, difficulties, and suggested solutions from the survey results obtained. the current situation will include a figure analyzing student trends when studying online during the epidemic season. the difficulties section will include two figures that analyze students' problems while studying online, and the suggested solution section will include two figures that show how to solve the problems of online learning for both students and teachers of van lang university. the two figures above analyze how van lang university students' interest in online learning and how online learning affects their academic performance. 60% of respondents feel that they are quite interested in online learning (fig. 1). this is more than the number of people who do not pay too much attention and are very interested in learning online. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 13 figure 1 shows the interest of students in online learning. this leads to the situation when being asked: how does online learning affect the quality of your learning? the majority of responses are normal (65%). this means that the quality of online learning, as well as schooling, is not much different. it is worth noting that 20% of the respondents think that online learning adversely affects their learning performance (fig. 2). this can be explained by the fact that most students have never studied online with their friends and teachers before. so even if they have sufficient preparation or lectures, they are still not ready psychologically and feel uncomfortable communicating with teachers and classmates. on the other hand, the quality of networking and learning equipment of students who do not meet the lecture requirements (learning with phones and tablets instead of laptops) is another reason affecting students' academic results. figure 2 shows how online learning affects the learning quality of students. as can be seen in figure 3, up to 70 students find it inconvenient to study online using smartphones. meanwhile, only four people find it difficult to learn online using tablets. this is easy to see because tablets have many advantages over smartphones. for example, it has a larger screen, more stable configuration. this makes learning with this device even more convenient than with smartphones. still, 20 students surveyed said it was still difficult to use a laptop, even though it was optimal for online learning. laptops cannot switch to 4g networks like tablets or smartphones, the students said. in addition, the remaining comments do not think that there is inconvenience 60%15% 22% 3% quite interest not too much very interest others 13% 65% 20% 2% better normal worse others acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 14 when using the above devices. some students use all three devices for effective online learning, with results displayed graphically figure 3 shows the limitations of online learning devices for students. through survey data, up to 45% are students. they get tired of having to focus on the device for a long time. in addition, some people reported feeling headaches, dizziness, and eye strain when studying for a long time. this concentration prevents some students from acquiring new knowledge effectively (20%). or it may be that the internet connection is not stable while studying with the students. this opinion accounts for 30% of the students surveyed. these results were correspondent to bui et al. (2021) who found that the students often faced with technical problems as they took online classes, such as poor internet connection, poor computer skills, and outsidenoise during their studies. this explains the problem of asynchronous network infrastructure, leading to an unstable network, making it difficult for students in remote areas to access lectures as well as connect with lecturers. the research results are shown through the statistical diagram figure 4 shows how students feel after an online lesson. 70 4 20 6 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 smartphones tablets laptops others smartphones tablets laptops others do not retain much knowledge, 20% tired of working too long on the screen, 45% cannot interact easily with the teacher, 30% others, 5% acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 15 as illustrated in figure 5, it is easy to see that nearly 60 students are proposing to shorten their course average online time. as analyzed above, 45% of students feel tired when online classes take too long (more than 2 hours per subject). however, 45 students were asked to keep their study time when asked. figure 5 shows students' suggestions for the average time of the online study. this is consistent with the survey where 65% of respondents said the quality of learning online has not decreased (figure 2). in addition, due to the unstable network connection, interrupted interaction between students and faculty as well as comparison (figure 4) leads some students to suggest extending the time to study online to keep up. teachers account for 30%. chart (figure 6) research shows that it is very important to categorize subjects to apply online learning method through our survey. up to 35% of respondents think that some subjects should be included in online learning form. however, because some subjects are inclined in theory and practice, there are 37% of respondents saying that learning should be alternated between online and classroom learning. in addition, there are still many opinions that should only study online when there is a social gap (27%). this explains why 15% of students answered that they do not pay too much attention to online learning as (figure 1) listed above. 5 58 34 3 should last longer should shorten remain the same time as a lesson inschool others 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 16 figure 6 shows students' suggestions for online learning after the quarantine. the main purpose of this project is to find out solutions for the difficulties of students in van lang university in learning online during the pandemic. so after surveying more than 100 students, we found some difficulties and analyzed them in the results section. so this will be a summary of the ideas of the topic, which is mainly about the difficulties of online learning for students at the school, and the solutions that many students accept, as well as the reasons why to the difficulties and limitations of the topic. finally, there will be theoretical and practical applications of our group's topic. as mentioned above, the topic of our group was discussed among the members and divided into three sections, but the original purpose of the topic was to study the difficulties and find solutions. for example, students were unable to keep up with lectures due to unstable internet connection, or tired from sitting on computers for too long, to untangle students in online learning at the school and help lecturers and the school organize subjects more conveniently and effectively. conclusion after discussion, our team synthesized four questions corresponding to 5 difficulties of online learning for van lang university students in the context that the school had to switch to online learning due to the epidemic. questions related to the internet connection where students learn online, the devices that students use to learn, the difficulties in online group learning between lecturers and students as well as the interaction between members in the classroom, and finally, the psychology of the students after going through a regular online lesson. in addition to the four difficulties that were discussed and selected by our team, suggestions for solutions to overcome those difficulties were also included in the survey and achieved positive results from the students. suggested solutions related to the average online learning time, the selection of appropriate equipment to meet online learning needs, recommendations for upgrading the internet connection where students study. and finally, the most important, it is suggested whether or not to continue the online learning form after the social isolation order. some subjects should be put intoonline … should alternate between studyingonline and learning in class of the samesubject, 37 should only continue studying onlinewhen there is a social isolation order, 26 others, 2 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 17 as mentioned in restriction, our research topic is still limited due to limited time and simple research tools (google form). in addition, the team did not go into in-depth analysis of the technologies applied in online learning, as well as narrow the scope of the survey only to van lang university, and students studying at the school, aiming at propose reasonable and timely solutions to overcome difficulties during the isolation period. recommendations further research our research paper was conducted within a month and brought about certain results. however, there are many other related issues that the group has not had time to expand. hopefully, this research paper will serve as a foundation for further research groups to study more about online learning at universities nationwide. in addition, our team hopes that this research topic will be useful for van lang university in effectively implementing online learning for some future subjects. references bui, t. x. t., ha, y. n., nguyen, t. b. u., nguyen, v. u. t., & ngo, t. c. t. (2021). a study on collaborative online learning among efl students in van lang university (vlu). asiacall online journal, 12(3), 9-21. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/32 krajka, j. (2021). transforming language education to the online mode during covid-19 times –on approaches used in pandemic language teaching, asiacall2021 & vltesol. asiacall online journal, 12(1), 88. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/46/15 le, h. t., & truong, c. t. t. (2021). tertiary students’ perspectives on online learning during emergency remote teaching (ert) in the context of covid-19: a case study, proceedings of the 17th international conference of the asia association of computerassisted language learning (asiacall 2021), isbn: 978-94-6239-343-1, issn: 23525398, pp. 203-210. doi: https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210226.025 nguyen, h. u. n., & duong, l. n. t. (2021). the challenges of e-learning through microsoft teams for efl students at van lang university in covid-19, asiacall2021 & vltesol. asiacall online journal, 12(1), 51. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/46/15 pham, v. p. h., & vo, t. n. d. (2021). call in asia during covid-19 and models of elearning, proceedings of the 17th international conference of the asia association of computer-assisted language learning (asiacall 2021), isbn: 978-94-6239-343-1, issn: 2352-5398, pp. 1-10. doi: https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210226.001 https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/32 https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/46/15 https://dx.doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210226.025 https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/46/15 https://dx.doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210226.001 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol.4 no.1 october 2009, dilip p. barad 47 experimenting ict in teaching english language and literature dilip p. barad dilipbarad@gmail.com bhavnagar university, india abstract a gale of change is blowing in the pedagogy of english language teaching (elt) ict has initiated new possibilities into the classroom. the role of the teacher, the nature and context of learning, as well as the function and relative importance of course content have all been challenged and redefined. this research paper aims at sharing practical experiments with ict in teaching english language and literature. it deals with the pragmatic aspects of using ict with the student community of business management and humanities. the extensive use of web 2.0 components, internet, blogs, e-groups, smss, emails, socializing portals, e-dictionaries, e-encyclopedia, power point presentations, webcasting, and audio-video, as teaching tools have been made in the classroom. the student community was motivated to make use of cyber cafes and gprs mobiles to interact with the teacher. the paper is divided in two parts. the first part of the paper deals with the experiments carried out to develop business english skills. the second part is dedicated to teaching literature while the third part deals with general inferences of these experiments, its limitations and opportunities. keywords: ict, elt, english language, literature in english, experiment, teaching through technology we live in an era of information explosion. once there was famine of information, today we are drowned in the deluge of information. a gale of change is blowing in the pedagogy of teaching english language and literature (tell). information and communication technology (ict) is a catalyst agent. ict has initiated new possibilities into the classroom. the marriage between education and internet technology has made a deep impact on perspectives about teaching and learning. technology, today, has revolutionized in such a way that the methodology use by educators to teach a foreign or secondary language has changed. in fact, the relationships between teachers and students have undergone a phenomenal change. (barad, 2009). the role of the teacher, the nature and context of learning, as well as the function and relative importance of course content have all been challenged and redefined. therefore, technophobic teachers have no place in this new world order. technology or multimedia is not a teaching method or theory, but rather it is a tool that aids educators by improving access to different types of media already in use. technology is used to simulate real-life situations and helps learners to have control over the learning process (o‟leary, 1998). therefore, there must be complementary relationship between sla research and call practice to create a successful language learning environment (carol, 1996). krashen (2007) claims that using computers for free voluntary surfing will encourage students to wander through the internet and read what interests them. krashen also claims that it will result in higher levels of literacy. computer assisted language learning provides new opportunities for learners to engage in active communication that facilitates the development of second language competence (peterson, 2005). multimedia-assisted language learning and internet-based instruction contribute to efl students‟ cross cultural competence (kim, 2005). computer-enhanced language learning will enable learners to pool their knowledge in effective ways and enhance peer correction and language repair work. computers enable learners to work at their own pace. (hoven, 1999). this research paper aims at sharing practical experiments with ict in teaching english language and literature. the paper deals with pragmatic aspects of using ict with the student mailto:dilipbarad@gmail.com asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol.4 no.1 october 2009, dilip p. barad 48 community of business management and humanities. the extensive use of web 2.0 components, internet, blogs, e-groups, smss, emails, socializing portals, e-dictionaries, e-encyclopedia, powerpoint presentations, webcasting, and audio-video were experimented with inside the classroom as teaching tools. the student community was motivated to make use of cyber cafes and gprs mobiles to interact with the teacher. the research paper deals with very pertinent questions how far is ict useful to student community? what is the role of ict in teaching english language and literature? what kind of methods can be used to overcome students' problems? can it empower student community? can it improve their proficiency of learning? to begin with, the students should be able to comprehend fully what has been taught to him/her and then should be able to reproduce it, not only in exam but in day to day life also. if the students fail to do so, he is neither empowered nor has his proficiency level improved. the experiments shared in this paper have successfully worked with the student community. what i have not attempted in this paper is the relationship between theory and application. michael levy (1997) writes in computer-assisted language learning that he is motivated by a desire to better understand the relationship between theory and application; however the approach taken in the paper is more application based than theorizing. first and foremost, let us review english teaching in the class of commerce and business management. here, ict is of great use. as compared to the class of literature, language classes of commerce and management students are more receptive and responsive in using technology. this receptivity of commerce & management students helps the teacher to go beyond horizons in experimenting innovative practices in the classroom. i implemented some innovativeness in teaching text (novel), share market, questionnaire, report writing, letters to editors, business letters and more through web resources, web portals, online surveys, emails, and smss. the teachers of english in colleges other than those teaching literatures in english are like fish out of water. these teachers are stuffed with literary theories as they pursue careers in commerce or science or engineering colleges, they may feel like aliens on the earth. similar were my feelings when i joined commerce and bba college in 1996. thanks to technology that it saved me from being alienated or feeling like a fish out of water. slowly and steadily within three years of my service, i developed some innovative methods to teach business english as well as literary text to management/business students. experiment 1 it was sherlock holmes‟s „the hound of the baskervilles‟. that text haunted students as well as teachers of saurashtra university. but in my class, we enjoyed it. while teaching – „sherlock holmes‟s the hound of the baskerville’, i prepared an ohp transparency of the pencil sketches published during its first publication in a magazine from that time. at that time i did not have laptop or lcd projector to make it more effective. however, i used google image search to aid the presentation. i found innumerable sketches that depicted various scenes of the novel. the text was very difficult. the language was relatively tough, thereby making it difficult for commerce students to understand. the proof of its difficulty lies in the fact that saurashtra university removed it from its syllabus the very next year because of several complaints received from its teachers. if my students and i enjoyed this text, it was only because of the graphics provided in the novel. internet helped me in getting these sketches. later on we viewed the movie the hound of the baskerville (lanfield, 1939) in the classroom. movies always seem to help in remembering things which are difficult to envision otherwise. it was not easy to retrieve an english-based movie in the small town where i taught. web portals like youtube.com and video.google.com helped me a lot. the effect was that most of my students fared well in the textual questions in examination, whereas, the students of other colleges complained that the paper was difficult. web resources used in this experiment http://image.google.com; http://image.google.com/ asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol.4 no.1 october 2009, dilip p. barad 49 http://video.google.com; www.youtube.com method use of ohp projector with printed transparencies of sketched of images related to important scene from the novel. cd/dvd player with tv for viewing movie downloaded from web portals. experiment 2 secondly, it was questionnaire and report writing. these are purely commercial and management topics. guide books have several stereotype examples. neither was i happy teaching it nor were my students doing well. i resorted to websites. luckily, i found cross-tabsurveys.com and monkeygizmo.com for the latest questionnaire. surveygizmo.com & moodle survey were used for report writing. i registered my email id with cross-tabsurveys.com. regularly they sent me the latest questionnaire to survey customer satisfaction in the field of mobiles, telecom service providers, dth, television soap operas, socioeconomic condition of people working in various fields. i took these examples in the classroom. as they all were current topics, it interested students more than those given in books. the latest examples in books are also at least a year old, whereas examples from the internet were as live as something happening atthe-moment. today‟s teacher should not be up-to-date, but up-to-the moment, because things are changing very fast. as i saw that students were very much interested in such questionnaires, i asked them to register with the same website. all of us received new questionnaires for online surveys. we participated in the survey collectively and then prepared a „report‟ of the results. „report writing‟ is taught as an independent topic. if it is associated with the questionnaire and the outcome of the survey is written as a report, it makes it a lot easier to understand both of these topics. as i saw that most of the students have started going to cyber café and are working sincerely, i created an e-group for all of the students. i used yahoo groups to organize my e-group. through this group we circulated reports made on the basis of the questionnaires. i received good responses and emails started flowing in good numbers. on several occasions, i chatted with students to guide them. the discussions become livelier in the classroom. students discussed emails received by one another. i concluded that students had acquired capabilities to prepare rather good questionnaires and reports. thus, online questionnaires and reports shared through e-groups have helped me teach these topics effectively. the results were amazing. their language use displayed remarkable improvement. previously, they had made mistakes in writing questions. however, that has now changed. one of the most common mistakes made was the use of verbs before subjects in interrogative sentences. this placement of verbs before subjects was, and is, problematic because of the l1 effect. in the „gujarati‟ language, the subject is followed by verb, even in interrogative sentences. while drafting the report, the students seemed to shift from using simple past tense to present continuous tense. report writing through emails on discussion forums within the groups made them conscious of using the correct form of tense. thus they acquired skills in writing questions and reports in simple past tense. the students‟ overall performance improved, which encouraged me to try new things. web resources www.cross-tabsurvey.com, www.monkeygizmo.com, www.surveygizmo.com, moodle survey (www.dilipbarad.com/tell) method synchronous and asynchronous mode with the help of emails, yahoo e-groups and chat applets (yahoo messenger, skype and google talk.) http://video.google.com/ http://www.youtube.com/ http://www.cross-tabsurvey.com/ file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.monkeygizmo.com,%20 file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.surveygizmo.com,%20 http://www.dilipbarad.com/tell asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol.4 no.1 october 2009, dilip p. barad 50 experiment 3 thirdly, the most difficult part of commercial english is the share market report. the situation was that many students knew more about share marketing than me. it is always humbling to teach those who know better than you. the first thing i did was to invest hard cash in the share market, then i started reading business magazines and newspapers. but still the share market played hide and seek with me. i found that i confused myself and my students in the share market class. students were none too pleased. my reading and investment gave me good knowledge of the share market, but still i was not able to deliver well. my way of judging my teaching was by reading the faces of my students at the end of each class. if there was a mark of satisfaction, i would conclude that i had done well. in the share marketing class, i missed this satisfaction on the faces of the students. i resorted to the internet. internet, like alladin‟s gin, was ready to help me. i found websites like www.moneycontrol.com and www.moneybhai.com. these websites gave me an idea to play the game of portfolio management and thus the idea to teach share marketing. moneybhai.com is a free online virtual stock market trading game portal owned and operated by moneycontrol.com, which is also run by tv18 group. i asked students to register with this website and start playing the portfolio management game online. we played this game for 8 weeks and then the winner was awarded a prize. this website gave very good services free of cost. every day it sent emails showing the status of portfolios. all the students received emails with their standing in the market. they had to forward these emails to me. i organized their emails and made tables of their daily profit and loss. this was discussed in the classroom. i got such a magnificent success with this experiment that even today some of the students have continued playing the game and they keep notifying me of their progress. better than that, some of them made their career in it by joining companies like indiabulls, sharekhan, and stock holding. these students write in their emails that it was this online game that helped them generate interest in share marketing and secure a job in a similar field. i am not satisfied with this experiment because they received jobs in this field, but rather, i am satisfied with the way technology has clicked in the classroom and provided a space of real learning to take place. they acquired careers in this field because they were well versed in business english. this soft-skill helped them score well in bulats (www.bulats.org). thus, one of the hardest nuts to crack, the goliath of business english – share market report – was conquered with the help of knight called ict. web resources www.moneycontrol.com, www.moneybhai.com, yahoo e-groups. method asynchronous by e-groups and synchronous through chat applet. experiment 4 & 5 other topics, such as letters to editors, modern forms of communication, and advertisement, were also taught and learned effectively through ict. for instance, while teaching modern forms of communication, i used to make live demos of sending and receiving emails from the classroom. our egroups helped a lot in order to better understand this topic. instead of writing artificial letters on imaginary topics, we experimented with writing „real time‟ letters. this was not done through hard copy letters, but email was used as a medium to send business letters. i asked students to bring their „actual‟ inquiries or complaints. the students had several inquiries to be made to companies regarding their products and several complaints regarding their services. we discussed these topics in the class. more often the grievances were related to after-sales services in electronics items and mobile phone billings. at the end of the day, emails were drafted collectively and sent from the classroom with the help of the gprs internet connection. when we received a reply from companies, we discussed those emailed letters in class. the companies normally set their emails to autoreply. most of the auto-replies were drafted in three small paragraphs with an ideal beginning, middle and end. it helped me a lot in teaching not only the structure of a business letter but also the type of language file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.moneycontrol.com,%20 file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.moneybhai.com,%20 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol.4 no.1 october 2009, dilip p. barad 51 used in business letters. the use of courteousness in tone and the typical vocabulary of business letters were better learned through this method. this practice helped students to acquire business letter writing skills. there is always a difference in letters printed in books and letters that are actually written in a business environment. we were able to understand this difference which helped students to learn this skill far better than before. to teach „letters to the editors‟, i adopted an innovativeness in sending real sms/emails to the editor of the times of india news daily. first we discussed some topics of common interest which were daily news items. then, the views of the students were summarized. students discussed in groups and the group leader presented the “gist” of their discussion. the main points of the discussions were sent through sms/email directly from the classroom. when our letters to the editor were published in the newspaper, it was a moment of great satisfaction. and it happened several times. we furthered this practice in discussing business magazines and wrote to them as well. the entire practice interested students because it was sent through sms and email. if i would have told them to write a letter and send it through the post offices (snail mail), it would have not generated the same interest, and it would take weeks to get it printed in a newspaper/magazine. this practice encouraged many of students to sms their views to news channels, newspapers and magazines. when they were printed, we celebrated it with a live discussion about it. the best result i received through this practice was the fact that some of the students are freelance journalists with leading newspapers and news channels. they give credit to this method of learning language for journalism for getting job in the field of journalism. while experimenting such diverse things, i did not realize that i was unconsciously teaching esp (english for special purpose) to the students. by and large, they learned english for journalism, english for business letter, english for smss, english for literature etc. web resources www.eg4u.com/en/business-english/communication/business-letter www.eslgo,com/classes/business/classes-mehtod, sms texts, emails. method ms office word for editing, encarta e-dictionary and thesaurus for drafting sms and email, sms test & email to the editors of newspapers and magazines. ict has helped a lot in improving teaching skills. but that is not as important as the fact that it has helped students improve their proficiency in learning literary text, questionnaire, report writing, letters to editors, emailing, smsing and share market reporting. as an end result, they felt empowered in business english. due to a lack of reliable testing tools, it is difficult to measure how far these experiments have helped students to improve their business english skills. however from their placement and progress we may infer that these web 2.0 tools have helped them to improve their language proficiency. part 2 shifting from the classroom of commerce and management to literature, i would begin by saying that foreign literature could never be taught effectively without ict. our teacher used to teach without ict, but only to those who were powerful in expression and had a great command over vocabulary. one must be good at giving convincing logical, philosophical arguments to succeed in teaching literature. those lacking such skills may fail to deliver. the actual problem is not with teachers or students; it lies within the basic pattern of occidental and oriental thinking. the western (occidental) collective consciousness is different from that of the eastern (oriental). their origin of literature is deeply rooted in greek culture, myth and legends, indian subcontinent in vedas, ramayana, mahabharata and puranas. the western critical insight became more argumentative and relied on logic, whereas eastern ideas mostly resided on faith. coming in to the 20 th century, we see a deep chasm in western and eastern thinking. darwin, freud, marx, and the world wars had changed the way the western world was looking at things. to a greater extent, it shattered their faith in their belief system. file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.eg4u.com/en/business-english/communication/business-letter file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.eslgo,com/classes/business/classes-mehtod, asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol.4 no.1 october 2009, dilip p. barad 52 because of such reasons, our teachers as well as students, at times, grapple in darkness to understand their literary concepts and –isms. i faced several such problems as a student as well as a teacher. here, ict was of incredible help to me in reaching out to students and helping them to learn easily. experiment 6 collective reading the comprehension hypothesis (krashen, 2004) claims that language acquisition does not occur when learners focus on form. it happens only when they engage with the messages they are conveying and understanding. the hypothesis states that the process of comprehension and acquisition are closely related. thus, collective reading leads towards better comprehension of literary concepts and in turn it helps in better acquisition and understanding of literature. the students rarely read the things prescribed in the curriculum. let us come out of the illusion that students will go to libraries and read. even when websites are referred to in a classroom, approximately 10% of the students will actually visit and read the website. the problem in not reading web-resources nor the lack of eagerness to learn, but a lack of infrastructure in obtaining easy access to the internet. i have made one point very clear in the beginning that business students are more receptive to technology than literature students. somehow, literature students find it awkward to spend time on technology and learn e-skills. so the best way to enhance reading skills and to empower literature students in the subject knowledge is to have the practice of „collective reading‟. this can be done through word or power point file projected on the screen and read collectively. it can also be done by refereeing to web sites in the classroom or even by using cds, eencyclopedia, e-dictionaries, and e-thesaurus, etc. the learning of literature becomes very lively and interesting if all the students are learning the same thing at the same time. this not only develops reading skills, but it also gives a very good understanding of the subject. it also helps in developing cognitive reading skills. the interpretation of a literary text is a key component in the study of literature. the collective reading also provides some space for individual interpretation. to give an example that came in handy, along with websites, is microsoft‟s encarta encyclopedia. after using it for one year, i have come to conclusion that all the teachers of english literature should make extensive use of such an encyclopedia is the classroom. encarta made teaching and learning very easy because of its rich resources which include multimedia and images. similarly, while teaching any concept of literature or any creative work these e-resources helped to retrieve any sort of ready reference. the literature class then becomes live as all the students are gaining similar information at the same time. similarly, live internet connection while teaching literature also has an added advantage. for instance, while teaching modern critical theories like post modernism, post colonialism, deconstruction, post structuralism etc, search engines like bing.com, and google.com are incredibly helpful. even if we wanted to discuss the latest in the field of literature, we could click and find websites like www.contemporarywriters.com and get up-to-the-moment information to share with students. all difficult –isms of the 20 th century are well explained in encarta and at www.reference.com. thus, collective reading of websites, online references, e-encyclopedia, powerpoint and word files helped in learning: (i) myths and mythology of greek and roman, (ii) poems and plays, (iii) literary theories and (iv) modern –isms. web resources www.google.com www.bing.com www.reference.com, www.contemporarywriters.com, www.gutenberg.org, microsoft encarta, encarta dictionary and thesaurus, file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.google.com file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.bing.com file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.reference.com, file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.contemporarywriters.com, file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.gutenberg.org,%20 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol.4 no.1 october 2009, dilip p. barad 53 method: projection of word, power point files, websites, dictionary, thesaurus etc. through lcd on large screen. experiment 7 teaching plays / novels through movies with the help of power point using powerpoint for presentation is, now, no longer a new experiment. even children studying in schools are good at it. the more important aspect is how effectively we can make use of it in a literature classroom. we have a good resource of vcds/dvds/audio books which are related to the text (novel/play) we have in our syllabus. we used to give vcd/dvd to students to view it. not always the movie, play or audio book is interesting to view/listen. very long plays and listening to audio books are at times boring. viewing plays for more than three hours or listening novels three hours daily for several weeks is not healthy practice in using ict tools in literature classroom. so, not all students were watching movies or plays. i thought of an innovative idea. i prepared a powerpoint presentation of important scenes in the movie and play and discussed its importance in the classroom. instead of watching a whole play at once, we can cut the play into bits and pieces. we read a section of the text and some was viewed. we additionally used video and sound editing software. these edited video and audio clips were very effectively used in a powerpoint presentation. we also used video libraries from web resources. web resources mentioned below are full of rich resources for videos useful in teaching english language and literature. the result was unbelievable. the teacher has to struggle with preparing all of these slides, which is not easy task. but the learning of novels/plays becomes not only interesting but it really reaches out to the students. web resources www.youtube.com http://video.google.com www.keepvid.com www.yappr.com audio books e-resources video and sound editing software. method powerpoint presentation with audio and video clips. experiment 8 teaching poetry apart from novels and plays; in the teaching of poetry ict tools can be a great help. teaching poetry is not every teacher‟s cup of tea. it definitely is not mine! of all the genres of literature, it is the most difficult. the real beauty and meaning of poetry lies in its recitation. not all teachers are good at reciting. and even someone that is good at reciting may face problems with various poems, ballads, epics, lyrics, sonnets, etc. so again, alladin‟s gin came to my help. i found websites like www.librivox.org which has a very good collection of poems in audio version, recited by the native speakers. it is web portal where anybody can upload their recitation and it is free to download. as we search for a particular poem, we attain several recitations. we can freely download all of them and choose the best one for our classroom. teachers and students can also upload their own versions of literary works and recitation to the site. thus, it motivated students to sing poems, record it and upload to the site. then they invite their friends and relatives to listen it. the entire exercise becomes interesting. we use sound editing software like audacity for recording and editing recited poems. this program is a freeware and easily downloadable. it‟s easiness in operation helped our students to work efficiently on it. students enjoyed working with these tools and what made me happy was that the students were and still are learning literature through technology. file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.youtube.com http://video.google.com/ file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.keepvid.com file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.yappr.com asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol.4 no.1 october 2009, dilip p. barad 54 web resources www.librivox.com, www.podcast.com. e-resources sound editing software – audacity. audio books. method audio poems downloaded from librivox.com poems recorded in audacity, converted into mp3 format for mobile phones and shared among students for listening experiment 9 teaching critical theories and criticism critical theories and criticisms are not an easy path to tread on. the philosophical base of these theories makes it more difficult to understand the concept. similarly, there is also difficulty in teaching applied criticism. the best approach to improve proficiency of students in criticism is through „applied criticism‟. so there are two things at stake, one, learning theories and second, apply those theories in practical criticism of a literary work. in traditional classroom, critical theories are taught in a lecture method and then some texts are given in photocopies to apply those critical theories. the first part of teaching theories is okay but the second part can be made more interesting with some web resources. we tried it with contemporary writers. after learning critical theories, students were asked to read recently published novels. at one point we made compulsory that the writer should have his website or web space where a reader could interact with him/her. that was not a difficult task. most of the contemporary writers had a very good presence on web space. for this experiment we took three novels (five point someone, three mistakes of my life and one night @ call centre) of chetan bhagat. students read the novels, read the blog on which readers had given various comments on the text, and then they were asked to give their comments on the blog (www.chetanbhagat.com). the writer, chetan bhagat, used to read these comments and attempted to vindicate his stand. the students learned to understand the text from various points of view, including the writers. they also applied several critical theories on the text. the peer comments were also very interesting. the response was satisfactory. at the end of the experiment, what i found was that students‟ are attracted to blogging and websites because of the glamour attached to it. but this exercise helped them in developing their critical insight. they realized that a work of art has innumerable dimensions and it can be variously interpreted. this was enough for me to teach them various critical theories. their receptivity has grown manifold. web resources writer‟s blog, www.chetanbhagat.com, www.wikieducator.org/literary_criticism method blended learning learning theories in traditional method and applying criticism on the blogs of the writer reviewing comments of readers and peers. experiment 10 synergism of wikieducator and moodle to teach literature through web 2.0 tools, i have prepared a unit of literary theories and criticism on „aristotle poetics’ and other critics on wikieducator (www.wikieducator.org/literary_criticism). this is open space, free platform for open editing, preparing content and easy for student to access. the link of file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.librivox.com,%20 file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.podcast.com. file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.chetanbhagat.com,%20 file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.wikieducator.org/literary_criticism http://www.wikieducator.org/literary_criticism asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol.4 no.1 october 2009, dilip p. barad 55 this unit is shared with students through e-group and classroom interaction. in this unit, at the end of topic, self-assessment questions (saqs) are given. here, i have synergized wikieducator with moodle. i gave the link from wikieducator to my moodle site (www.dilipbarad.com/tell). for saqs, students are directed to moodle, where in multiple choice questions, scorm, cloze, match the items, true or false etc kind of questions are asked to test their progress. they go through the exercise, see their progress graph within a second and return back to wikieducator to continue with the unit. wikieducator and moodle both give incredible opportunities to explore web resources. the teacher can give links to various useful websites for further readings. students get ready made bibliographies to refer to which is very important in the study of literature. at the click of a mouse, thousands of articles and books are before their eyes. this sort of synergism helps students to improve their reading skills, increase their subject knowledge and instant assessment of their progress. if students can check their progress before moving to next stage of learning, it helps them a lot. classroom examinations are not very effective as there is time-gap between the test and its result. a lot of time has passed by the time the teacher has manually checked all of the answer books and then gives the individual feedback; whereas, on moodle, within seconds, places the assessment before the eyes of the students with feedback and the right answers. the liberty with which students and teachers can work in this environment gives ample space for teaching and learning. this synergism can help in both the language and the literature learning. web resources www.dilipbarad.com/tell (moodle interface) www.wikieducator.org/user:dilipbarad (wikieducator) www.wikieducator.org/literary_criticism method reading on wikieducator self-assessment on moodle part 3 inference let me lead you to the conclusion after giving my inference on these experiments. the question may come to mind; what are the benefits of all these experiments? well, there is a limit to everyone‟s memory. no one can remember all the information in the world. with such e-resources and the internet very handy in the class room, i, as a teacher of language and literature feel confident. as my memory is not over-burdened with facts and figures, i am mentally free to give more time for discussion and explanation. i feel that ict has improved my proficiency in explaining subtle mysteries of literature. as a result, my students are also empowered to understand language and literature in a better way than they used to do in the traditional lecture method. i am not saying that traditional lecture method is out of date and it should be replaced, but the outreach in that method is limited to a few students. to believe that all the students are physically sitting before us and enjoying our oratory and are „listening‟ in real sense is nothing but an idiot‟s idea. lcd projection aids to their better sensory perception. they are listening, they are reading and they are also seeing the material. it is well known to one and all that there are various kinds of learners, viz., auditory, visual and kinesthetic. teaching with the help of ict tools helps address various needs of the learners. an individual cannot be divided in the water tight compartments of these learning styles. in an individual there is a mingling of all these types of learners. some part of oneself is visual; the other is auditory and kinesthetic. when a teacher uses ict tools in the classroom, it helps a lot as three senses work together to increase student‟s proficiency. this leads to student‟s expression power, as they themselves have seen and listened to poems, pictures, graphics, text etc, they can express themselves quite well in examination. in traditional lecture method only one sensory perception – listening – is functioning. at the same time we can concentrate more on the number of students on the point of discussion. psychologically speaking it has had a better impact to empower and improve their proficiency level. http://www.dilipbarad.com/tell file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.dilipbarad.com/tell file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.wikieducator.org/user:dilipbarad file://ad.wiu.edu/groups/macomb%20campus/arts%20and%20sciences/foreign%20languages%20and%20literatures/folder/asiacall/asiacall_on_line_journal_october_2009/www.wikieducator.org/literary_criticism asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol.4 no.1 october 2009, dilip p. barad 56 last but not the least, these experiments led us towards atl, deriving a term form atm – any time money, any time learning. the students will be freed from the shackles and learn things of their interest, any time and from anywhere. they may be travelling and listening to mp3 recordings and still participate in this type of learning. if they are ill or because of social preoccupations are not able to attend classes, there is no need to worry because they can access the website and catch up with the missed class. the true spirit of democracy lies in freedom. these experiments lead towards a democratic freedom in teaching and learning. i will conclude with a short overview on the threats in this ict enabled teaching-learning system. first and foremost, the teacher should not be technophobic. he/she should be well versed in the art of using techno-gadgets, internet, e-resources etc. a teacher who is adamant „not to change‟ is one of the biggest hurdles in this type of system. secondly, the place where he works should have proper infrastructure. the world still has such places where a constant supply of electric power is a dream. even in the most advanced part of the world, hi-speed internet connectivity is not possible. third, students‟ eagerness and willingness to be a part of this system; if they are ready to learn a little bit of internet surfing and emailing, it can come as an added advantage to the success of an ict enabled teaching system. the students therefore should be more adaptive and responsive to this method. lastly, ict can never replace a teacher. a man is a better teacher than a machine. neither text nor technology can replace a teacher. a good teacher will always be good, whether he uses ict or not. but if he uses it, it could improve the proficiency level of his students and empower them with better understanding of language and literature. as always, there are limitations to these experiments. what worked successfully in my environment may not work with an equal success rate in another environment. it is possible that several teachers and researchers have conducted such experiments. their results may vary but one should not stop experimenting. though there is the danger of repeating the same experiments time and again, and henceforth, to avoid repetition, bibliographic records of such experiments should be maintained. we should keep in mind what michael levy (1997) said by quoting r.w. last in computer-assisted language learning “a sense of whole is imperative … practitioners and researchers of call have not really assimilated the work that has been done.” to assimilate the work that has been done one has to experiment keeping the following findings of liu min, moore zena, graham leah, & lee shinwoong (2002) in view. they have done a path breaking study: a look at the research on computer-based technology use in second language learning: review of literature from 1990-2000, wherein they examined research articles published in the decade – 1990 to 2000. their findings are equally true for my experiments. thus, i end my paper with the findings of lie et el (2002): research needs to have a solid foundation in theories; software needs to be based upon relevant pedagogical and design principles for them to be effective; studies need to use well-established and reliable measures; research focus should go beyond anxiety, attitudes, vocabulary acquisition, language production; more research needs to be conducted in the less explored skills areas such as speaking, listening, and culture. references barad, d. p. (2009). pedagogical issues related to speaking and listening skills & sound editing software: audacity. elt weekly, 1(27). retrieved august 13, 2009, from http://eltweekly.com/more/2009/07/26/eltweekly-issue27-contents/. carol. a, chapelle. (1998). multimedia call: lessons to be learned from research on instructed sla. language learning and technology. 2(1), 22-34. hoven, d. (1999). a model for reading and viewing comprehension in multimedia environments. language learning and technology. 3(1), 88-103. kim, i (2005). teaching english cross-communication styles through internet-based instruction. paccall journal 1(1), 165-181. krashen, s. (2004). applying the comprehension hypothesis: some suggestions. presented at http://eltweekly.com/more/2009/07/26/eltweekly-issue27-contents/ asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) vol.4 no.1 october 2009, dilip p. barad 57 13thinternational symposium and book fair on language teaching (english teachers association of the republic of china), taiwan. krashen, s. (2007). free voluntary web surfing. the international journal of foreign language teaching. 3(1), 2-9. lanfield, sidney.(dir.) (1939). the hound of the baskervilles. levy, michael. (1997) computer-assisted language learning: context and conceptualization. new york. oxford. liu, m., moore, z., graham, l., & lee. s. (2002). a look at the research on computer-based technology use in second language learning: review of literature from 1990-2000. journal of research on technology in education, 34(3), 250-273. july 25, 2009. < http://jabba.edb.utexas.edu/it/seclangtechrev.pdf>. o‟leary, m. (1998). review of technology-enhanced language learning. language learning and technology. 1(2), 20-22. peterson, m. (2005) learning interaction in an avatar-based virtual environment: a preliminary study. paccall journal 1(1), 29-40. http://jabba.edb.utexas.edu/it/seclangtechrev.pdf asiacall online journal received: 11/01/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 30/01/2021 vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 accepted: 5/02/2021 pp. 51-57 online: 06/02/2021 51 the practice of online english teaching and learning with microsoft teams: from students’ view tran vu mai yen1, nguyen tran uyen nhi1 1 university of foreign language studies, the university of da nang, viet nam correspondence: tran vu mai yen, university of foreign language studies, the university of da nang, viet nam. e-mail: tvmyen@ufl.udn.vn abstract with the covid 19 epidemic's complicated happenings recently, promoting online teaching at universities in vietnam has been an essential solution to ensure students' learning progress. at member institutions of the university of da nang, the selection and use of microsoft teams for online teaching have met the ministry of education requirements in the context of epidemic prevention and got certain results on the quality of teaching and learning. this study describes the effectiveness of online teaching on microsoft teams (ms teams) in non english major classes through students' feedback. we conducted a survey on fifty non-english major students at the university of education-the university of da nang who attended online english courses from may to july 2020 to evaluate teaching and learning activities with ms teams. the study also analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of online english teaching and proposes solutions to improve efficiency in the innovation of teaching methods and forms of teaching. keywords: online teaching, microsoft teams, non-english major students, teaching and learning innovation 1. introduction in this digital era, it is undeniable that online learning, known as e-learning, has gradually proven to be an indispensable tool in education, especially tertiary. with online courses, learners can popularize and improve their knowledge. during the extended school break due to the covid 19 epidemic, member institutions of the university of da nang quickly deployed online teaching and learning on the ms teams platform. this has been considered a timely solution that helps keep teaching uninterrupted and provided teachers and educational administrators an opportunity to promote creativity in online training. this article analyzes the effectiveness and challenges of the ms teams application in the classroom environment. it also suggests solutions to improve online teaching and learning quality at the university of danang. 2. literature review 2.1. benefits of online learning it is said that with rapid developments in technology, distance education has become easier (mcbrien et al., 2009). online learning is considered as “learning experiences in synchronous or asynchronous environments using different devices (e.g., mobile phones, laptops, etc.) with internet access (dhawan, 2020). while online, distance learners can join virtual lectures from anywhere, interact with instructors and other fellow students. online learning can make the teaching and learning process more flexible, more innovative, and more studentcentered (dhawan, 2020). learners who can form their self-regulated learning skills frequently utilize time management, reviewed material regularly, seek help from professors or peers, meet deadlines, and have the skill acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2; 2020 52 of metacognition to reflect upon their own learning (you & kang, 2014). online learning comes with a lot of benefits. one of the most appealing benefits of online education is that it allows students to work at a time and a suitable place for their learning needs. since everything is available online, accessing class materials and submitting work is very convenient. synchronous learning provides a lot of opportunities for social interaction (mcbrien et al., 2009). interaction and communication have been identified as key factors in an online course's success, leading to enhanced student satisfaction and motivation (savenye, 2005). teachers engage students in some group project or teamwork. distance learning fosters virtual communication and allows students to work with team members via email, chat rooms, and other easy-to-use methods. in this way, students need to communicate-whether verbal or written-with the teachers and other students to complete the tasks assigned. thus, they can sharpen their communication skills. teachers who teach online may also have set hours for student interaction, address questions, leave comments, and more. to make online courses more effective, teachers and educators need to get feedback from the students, ask questions, and broaden the student's horizon for the course content (keeton, 2004). 2.2. microsoft teams (ms team) as part of the office 365 ecosystem, ms teams is an application that serves teamwork. it has an outstanding feature of displaying the most recently interacting group work content so that users are always up to date with the group's activities. microsoft announced teams at a conference in new york and launched the service worldwide on march 14, 2017. with such a user-friendly application, teams now attracts more than 120 million users. ms teams integrates outstanding features that can be one of the effective online teaching tools for teachers as well as educational institutions. some of the features can be mentioned such as: online channels: teams are made up of working channels. each one contains work exchange boards, learning documents among team members. chat in channels: all group members can see and add other chat forums in the general channel. chat function: this is a basic feature found in most business applications, allowing users to chat between groups and individuals and easily communicate between students and teachers or students and students. file storage on sharepoint: each team using ms teams has a site on sharepoint online, which defaults to be a place of document storing. all files shared in the chats are automatically saved to private folders on the sharepoint site. online video calls and screen sharing: users can use video calls with fast and stable transmission speed. teachers can also share the screen quickly to deliver lectures and facilitate teaching activities during the lesson. 3. ms teams application in online language teaching 3.1. research questions to fulfill the purpose of the study, questionnaires are designed to get the students’ feedback on their learning outcomes via ms teams. the research questions are: a) what are the benefits of online teaching and learning with ms teams? b) what are the challenges of using ms teams for language teaching and learning? https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0047239520934018 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0047239520934018 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2; 2020 53 3.2. scope and research subjects in order to evaluate the effectiveness of online teaching with the ms teams application, we have surveyed a group of 50 non-english major students at the university of education, the university of da nang, who studied online general english courses on ms team platform from april to july 2020. 4. research results and discussion 4.1. benefits of online learning with ms teams during 12 weeks of our teaching, students' attendance was assessed as quite satisfactory. 85.2% of students participated in all lessons. 11.1% of them joined over 80% of lessons, and 100% followed the teacher's announcements in the general channel, which were related to learning materials and regular assignments. figure1. students’ attendance exercises were weekly assigned to each individual or group in the form of writing or multiple choices or designed in assignments. thus teachers and students can keep track of their teaching and learning progress. statistics show that 77.8% of students completed all assignments on time, whereas 18.5% completed more than 70% of the assigned work. there were only 3.7% handed in more than 50% of the exercises. through specific feedback and comments from teachers, students are aware of their strengths and weaknesses, thereby promoting their language proficiency. figure 2. completion of assignments 3.7% attending all the lessons attending 80% of the lessons attending less than half of the lessons 3.7% completing all the assignments completing over 70% of the assignments completing over 50% of the assignments acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2; 2020 54 in addition, through regular discussion and comments from teachers, students become aware of their management during the course. thus, they can form a more positive attitude towards their learning. this mode of learning is more effective in that students-especially shy and unconfident oneseasily interact with the teachers and other students and get a frequent evaluations from the teachers. figure 3. students' favorite activities as shown in figure 3, 100% of students wanted to join games to consolidate what they have learned and to increase their interest in the lessons. the teachers apply various games such as kahoot, quizzi or design other games like puzzles, crosswords to encourage students to participate. this activity can enhance students' confidence; promote competition among groups, thereby increasing teaching efficiency. another activity that draws 95% of students' attention in the online class is discussions about the lesson content via the chat box in ms teams, which is considered suitable for shy students. through permanent discussions, students have the opportunities to contribute ideas, answer questions as well as raise questions to teachers when needed. group presentations also attract 87.5% of students' participation. with a topic given by the teacher before the lecture, each group designs different tasks for the other class members to complete and join a variety of interactive activities. group performance in the lesson helps teachers assess students' progress, create chances for students to improve their language skills, increase the diversity of activities in a virtual classroom, and make the lesson more interesting to the learners. the biggest benefit of online teaching on ms teams is that students can watch the lecture video. if students cannot participate in the class or want to revise some of the lesson content, they can easily download the video. this cannot be done if they are in a traditional classroom. some comments of the students on the advantages of online learning are: “studying online, i understand 100% of the knowledge”; “online learning combined with regular homework helps us absorb more knowledge”; “in a large traditional class, i sometimes cannot understand the lesson. learning on ms teams, i can watch the video and revise the lesson easily”. the second benefit of ms team is that students can easily interact with their teachers as well as their peers. for example, they can chat with the teachers and team members through channels created by the teachers on ms teams during or after the lecture. according to the survey, the students said that: "we can talk to the teachers and complete a lot of assignments more quickly and easily than in other forms of study"; "i find it very effective and acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2; 2020 55 flexible when learning online. i can easily communicate with the teacher or classmates without being scared or reluctant". some distinctive features of working on ms teams can be listed as: assuring uninterrupted learning process; allowing teachers to create online learning environment; sharing documents and responding directly to students; teachers and students working together continuously, creating content, and sharing all resources on one platform; enabling students who are in isolation areas due to covid-19 to join the online class and focus on their learning. ms teams also facilitates teachers to build appropriate tests or quizzes, raise questions, give feedback quickly, organize, and easily track each student's grades. austin (1978) finds that homework assigned and checked turns out to be more effective in improving students' achievement than homework assigned but not checked. therefore, by checking and grading students' homework and assignments, teachers can make judgments on the students' progress, and students can be motivated to learn. 4.2. challenges of teaching and learning online with ms teams besides the advantages of using ms teams in online teaching, there are also unexpected limitations. first, teachers and students sometimes get into trouble with internet transmission. although the country's information infrastructure and technologies are modern at present, it is obvious that users cannot log in to the class for a certain moment, their access is interrupted, or the audio and image quality is poor. secondly, it requires much effort from teachers. for lectures to be lively and attractive to the students, teachers must spend lots of time preparing lessons, designing lectures, and interesting teaching activities, which require so much time and concentration. what is more, students' attendance is another challenge for teachers in online classes. although ms teams has a full range of features to help teachers manage classes, such as: checking attendance through forms, teachers only manage the number of students at a certain time, not during the lecture. the important thing is up to students' awareness of learning full-time in online lessons. eisenberg et al. (2010) state that self-awareness is arguably the most crucial academic skill and a building block of self-regulation. it is the balancing and management of one's emotions in everyday life. however, a number of students do not have a high sense of self-awareness in learning, considering online learning is compulsory. thus, their learning outcomes are not efficient. 5. conclusion although being well-known as a tool for teamwork, ms teams is also recognized as an effective online teaching tool with a lot of outstanding features. ms teams meets the requirements of organizing a virtual classroom, such as: chatting and calling, sharing screens, recording calls and meetings, assigning and responding to students' assignments… online teaching with ms teams is a temporary but effective solution for us to join hands to comply with the government's regulations on anti-epidemic campaigns without affecting the planned teaching process. the use of ms teams for teaching foreign languages in the last semester has initially received positive feedback from the students. although schools and universities have returned to the traditional form of education since the country has partly emerged from the crisis of covid-19, it is suggested that we should continue to promote the effective use of ms teams for teaching by combining both traditional and virtual classrooms. ms teams should be used as a acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2; 2020 56 supporting tool for managing students' learning at home. it makes life easier for teachers, helping them distribute assignments and communicate with their students one-to-one. teachers can assign homework to individuals or projects to groups. applying ms teams, students can make plans for their learning, study the lesson content before attending the class, or discuss in groups to work on projects. teachers and students should continue to exchange the information related to the lessons, and teachers use ms teams to assess students' learning outcomes. in addition, it is necessary to strengthen communication between teachers and students through forums and channels on ms teams so that the teachers can get feedback on their teaching, thereby making appropriate adjustments for improving the teaching quality and meeting the subject's requirements objectives. 29/2001/ct-bgd&đt, promulgated by the minister of education and training, stated clearly that for education and training, information technology has a strong impact, changing teaching and learning methods; and that information technology is a means towards a learning society. actually, the application of information technology will help students access many resources and increase their learning autonomy. if we overcome the existing challenges, online learning combined with on-campus learning will be a mostly-chosen form for university learners. references austin, j.d. (1978) homework research in mathematics. school science and mathematics 79: 115–122. dhawan s. online learning: a panacea in the time of covid-19 crisis. journal of educational technology systems. 2020, 49(1):5-22. eisenberg n, spinrad tl, eggum nd. (2010) emotion-related self-regulation and its relation to children’s maladjustment. annu. rev. clin. psychol, 6:495–525. mcbrien, j. l., cheng, r., jones, p. (2009). virtual spaces: employing a synchronous online classroom t facilitate student engagement in online learning. the international review of research in open and distributed learning, 10(3), 1–17. keeton, m. t. (2004). best online instructional practices: report of phase i of an ongoing study. journal of asynchronous learning networks, 8(2), 75–100. savenye, w.c. (2005). improving online courses: what is interaction and why use it? (undetermined). distance learning, 2(6), 22-28. you, j. w., & kang, m. (2014) the role of academic emotions in the relationship between perceived academic control and self-regulated learning in online learning. computers & education, 77, 125-133. https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/microsoft_teams biodata tran vu mai yenuniversity of foreign language studies, the university of da nang (dufl). tran vu mai yen is currently a lecturer at esp department, university of foreign language studies, the university of danang, viet nam. she got a bachelor degree in tesol at the university of foreign languages, university of da nang, vietnam and an m.a degree in applied linguistics at griffith university, australia. she https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/microsoft_teams acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2; 2020 57 is particularly interested in teaching english as a foreign language and would like to work on different aspects of language teaching and learning. nguyen tran uyen nhi – university of foreign language studies, the university of danang (dufl). nguyen tran uyen nhi is a lecturer in the esp department, dufl. she received her master of education from queensland university in australia, and her bachelor in english language from dufl. her teaching areas and research interests include linguistic subjects, and interpretation area alike. she has been a member of the university group carrying out the 2020 national project of foreign languages. she is (co-)author of several journal papers and publications in international conference proceedings. asiacall online journal received: 28/02/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 18/03/2021 vol. 12, no. 3, 2021 accepted: 20/03/2021 pp. 74-81 online: 24/03/2021 74 developing english-speaking skills through socratic questioning in online synchronous learning kurt s. candilas dean, arts and sciences program, lourdes college, cagayan de oro city, philippines corresponding author’s email: kurt.candilas@lccdo.edu.ph, mrkurtz21@gmail.com abstract online synchronous learning is a digital teaching platform that supports learning in the time of the pandemic. however, it provides less speaking participation for students. this study explores the effectiveness of socratic questioning in developing students’ english-speaking skills during their online synchronous class. this study used the pre-experimental one-group pretest and posttest design. thirty-five (35) students who were asked for their consent participated in this study. the study was conducted in one of the classes in purposive communication in a private college in cagayan de oro city, philippines, for the first semester of the ay 2020-2021. the instrument used in assessing students' english-speaking skills is the student oral observation matrix (solom), taken from the riverside county seal of multiliteracy (2008). the study used paul's (2001) model of socratic questioning. based on the findings, through the lens and principles of reasons, socratic questioning helped improve students’ english-speaking skills in pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, fluency, and comprehension. the result of this study confirms paul's (2001) model of socratic questioning, stressing that by working through an organized procedure of framing questions during discussions and other oral-related activities, learners are disciplined and trained to speak and reason. this finding, therefore, calls for the need of teachers to utilize socratic questioning in their online synchronous learning to develop student’s skills in speaking, which in turn enliven their active participation in the virtual class. keywords: english-speaking skills, socratic questioning, online synchronous learning mailto:kurt.candilas@lccdo.edu.ph mailto:mrkurtz21@gmail.com acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 75 introduction covid-19 pandemic brought a sudden impact and took a toll on all schools' educational processes and services across the globe. it brings challenges to the academic community to redesign and realign its operation systems on instructional delivery (adedoyin and soykan, 2020; kaur, 2020). teachers from primary up until they graduate level have had to switch and adapt to different distance education forms. among these other educational platforms of distance education is online learning. indeed, online learning is no longer a new trend in education. many schools across the countries have had this mode of learning even before the advent of the covid 19. the mushrooming of online education at present has just become a worldwide movement for education due to the declaration of covid-19 as a global health crisis. in online learning education in the time of the pandemic, educational institutions used either synchronous and asynchronous digital teaching (karatas and tuncer, 2020; farros, shawler, and gatzunis, and weiss, 2029). these two basic types of digital teaching are commonly used by schools to support learning. acknowledging the need of students to continue learning amidst pandemics, online education learning is seen to be the viable way for continuing education which also helps to put a curb on the spread of covid-19. weighing the benefits of online education learning for students to be independent and collaborative (berge, 2000; parker and gemino, 2001, chan et al. 2009), another equally severe outcome of the existing online education that has received little attention is the declined opportunity for students to improve their speaking proficiency (tanian and james, 2002). being an english and communication teacher and the dean of a college in a private tertiary school in cagayan de oro city, philippines, the researcher has observed this phenomenon where students during their synchronous classes are reluctant to express their thoughts and opinions during lectures and other online learning activities. it is also observed that when their teachers are asking them, the substance of views is not clear and coherent. the ideas being expressed are likely unstructured and unparalleled to what is being asked from them. some of them are shy and would not say a word due to the difficulty of using appropriate english words. others, too, are translanguaging using the cebuano visayan language when they are answering and questioning during their virtual class so that their ideas can get across to their teachers and classmates, respectively. this phenomenon was also observed and reinforced by other previous studies even acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 76 before the pandemic where online education is already existing and offered in school (arnold, 2007; tanian and james, 2002; skinner, 2009). although these setbacks in speaking may be attributed to some reasons, the present study seeks to develop the students' speaking skills through socratic questioning in asynchronous learning. the objective, therefore, is to introduce socratic questioning as an approach to teaching, thereby aiming not to strike fear in the hearts of students so that they may articulate intelligibly their thoughts guided with their beliefs that do not withstand scrutiny. hence, the conduct of the study. statement of the problem 1. what is the participants’ level of english speaking skills before and after the intervention considering the following: 1.1 pronunciation; 1.2 vocabulary; 1.3 grammar; 1.4 fluency; and 1.5 comprehension? 2. is there a significant difference in students' performance in socratic questioning before and after the intervention? methods this study used the pre-experimental one-group pretest and posttest design. using this design, the students were assessed in their english-speaking skills during pretest and posttest. the intervention of socratic questioning was given after the pretest and before the posttest to compare the difference of scores and to see the improvement of students in speaking english. before the conduct of this study, the thirty-five (35) students were asked to participate. the study was conducted in one of the purposive communication classes in a private college in cagayan de oro city for the first semester of the ay 2020-2021. these students were selected as the participants of the study as they are the current students being handled by the researcher himself. also, the acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 77 nature of the participants’ subject in the researcher’s class is communication. this impels the researcher to choose these participants as they have already prior knowledge of speaking. the instrument used in assessing students' english-speaking skills is the student oral observation matrix (solom), taken from the riverside county seal of multiliteracy (2008). a fellow interrater was also requested during the assessment of students english-speaking skills to ensure the objectivity of the assessment. the study employed paul’s (2001) principle of socratic questioning using the following processes: questions for clarification, questions that probe assumptions, questions that probe reasons and evidence, questions about viewpoints and perspectives, questions that probe implications and consequences, and questions about the question. the socratic question as the intervention was allotted for eight weeks. such categories for questioning do not necessarily follow a pattern as students' responses are leading to another category of questions that the researcher is determining. to implement the socratic questioning, the researcher being the teacher himself, conducted the following tasks every week during the synchronous learning: planned the sessions every synchronous session always to have the significant questions that provide structure and direction to the lesson; crafted questions to be clear and specific to students learning; maintained silence and wait for at least 5-10 seconds for students to deliver their response to the question; kept the discussion focus; followed-up students verbal responses and let them elaborate their thoughts and ideas; used probing questions for reasons and evidence, and summarized what has been discussed. descriptive statistics such as mean distribution were used to measure the students' english-speaking skills and t-test to measure their performance in implementing socratic questioning in the virtual class in purposive communication. results and discussions table 1 shows the mean distribution of students' level of english-speaking skills before and after the intervention. as gleaned above, student participants' responses in english-speaking skills showed the homogeneity of their responses, as indicated in the standard deviation of 0.49 from both pretest and posttest. this entails that they had similar responses to the indicators. in the pretest, the result indicated that comprehension (3.73), grammar (3.28), fluency (2.78), pronunciation (2.71), and vocabulary (2.59) of participant's areas in english-speaking skills are rated as good. a rating of good from these areas means that participants manage to understand acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 78 most of what is said at a slower than normal speed although repetitions are observed, frequent errors of grammar and word order occasionally obscure the substance of what the student participants intend to mean from their answers, speed and fluency are strongly affected by language problems which made them have occasional word fillers when talking, pronunciation problems necessitate concentration and occasionally lead to misunderstanding, frequent use of wrong terminologies in english are also observed during the one-on-one virtual informal interview. table 1. mean distribution of students’ level of english-speaking skills before and after the intervention english speaking skills pretest posttest pronunciation mean 2.71 2.78 sd .044 .046 description good good vocabulary mean 2.59 3.73 sd .031 .047 description good very good grammar mean 3.28 3.33 sd .083 .086 description good good fluency mean 2.78 2.88 sd .046 .037 description good very good comprehension mean 3.73 3.93 sd 0.47 .053 description good very good overall mean 3.02 3.33 sd 0.49 0.49 description good good legend: 4.51-5.00 excellent 1.51-2.50 fair 3.51-4.50 very good 1.00-1.50 poor 2.51-3.50 good moreover, an improvement in student participants' english-speaking skills is observed after being subjected to socratic questioning. this improvement is evident in the participants' posttest rating, where vocabulary (3.73), fluency (2.88) and comprehension (3.93) were rated as "very good" after the implementation of the intervention. although the two areas, such as pronunciation (2.78) and grammar (3.33), are rated as good, it also shows an improvement as revealed in their mean rates. hence, the overall mean also increased from pretest (3.02) to posttest (3.33). acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 79 table 2. result of the test of difference in the students’ performance of socratic questioning before and after the intervention dependent variable socratic questioning pretest posttest t p english speaking skills overall mean 2.97 3.33 8.391* .000 sd .049 .049 *significant at 0.05 level. table 2 presents the score difference of the student’s performance of socratic questioning before and after the intervention. the figures reveal that participants being subjected to socratic questioning strategy (t=8.391, p=.000) is significant to their english-speaking skills before (2.97) and after (3.33) the intervention. this improvement in students’ performance confirms the researcher's observations in his virtual class during synchronous learning with his students where before the intervention, the students are just likely expressing few sentences when they are asked with their ideas; their pronunciation is likely to be not spontaneous as sound patterns from their cebuano visayan language are traceable, their grammar is likely unstructured where the use of tenses and subject-verb agreement are sporadically erroneous which makes their verbal responses unintelligible, and they have had the tendency to shift from their native language for them to express their ideas and content fully. these observations were then improved when the researcher utilized the socratic questioning as a strategy and approach when discussing his lessons. accordingly, during the socratic questioning implementation, the researcher lets his students be actively engaged in his discussions by asking them a question from the beginning, middle, and ending of the lecture, which requires each of them to generate answers. also, socratic questioning is employed during students' speaking-related tasks such as reporting, oral recitations, oral revalidation, interviews, picture analysis activity, impromptu and extemporaneous speeches. with these tasks, students were required to share to class their viewpoints of the lesson, after which the teacher posed questions that let them elaborate their ideas to keep focused on their elements of thought, systems of thought, and standards of thought. these processes were facilitated using open-ended collaborative discussions and dialogues where students are responding with a shred of textual pieces of evidence and references to support their point or thesis. likewise, they were as well provided with examples and deep discussions to bring in them the thinking of the standard of paul’s (2001) model on the principles of socratic questioning such as questions for clarification, acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 80 questions that probe assumptions, questions that probe reasons and evidence, questions about viewpoints and perspectives, questions that probe implications and consequences, and questions about the question. follow-up questions are employed to cross-check the depth of their verbal responses. this was nonetheless used to measure the students' expressive language of speaking, particularly on its relevance, fairness, clarity, and precision, to name a few. with the implementation of socratic questioning for eight weeks, students' active engagement in synchronous learning is evident. during synchronous learning, the researcher observed that students are now conscious of their pronunciation and correct grammar usage. they listened well to the teacher and would have to ask back when they seemed not to understand the lesson during the discussion. they, too, are now asking back the teacher when they are not able to understand the question being asked from them, which calls then for the teacher to rephrase and paraphrase the question for clarity and intelligibility. it was also observed that when they are asking back their teacher, they wanted to have an assurance that they had comprehended the question raised to them. furthermore, during speaking related activities, it was also confirmed by the researcher that they are likely to substantiate their ideas by only talking to what is being asked from them. in a nutshell, this modelling of practice in soliciting verbal responses to students supports copeland (2005) and paul's assertion (2006) espousing that these activities fueled with the approach of socratic questioning bring students an in-depth examination and understanding of their ideas and content on how they rationalize and respond to questions. ross (2003) further explains that these activities, such as mentioned above, captured the socratic method's very essence in examining the values, principles, and beliefs of students to let them be expressive orally. conclusion and recommendation evidently, socratic questioning helped improve students' english-speaking skills such as pronunciation, fluency, grammar, vocabulary, and comprehension. the result of this study confirms paul's (2001) model of socratic questioning, stressing that by working through an organized procedure of framing questions during discussions and other oral related activities, learners are disciplined and trained to speak and reason. this finding recommends that teachers, when having a synchronous meeting with their students, may have to utilize socratic questioning to develop student's skills in speaking and enliven their participation in online learning. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 81 references arnold, n. (2007). reducing foreign language communication apprehension with computermediated communication: a preliminary study. system, 35(4), 469-486. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2007.07.002 adedoyin, o. b., & soykan, e. (2020). covid-19 pandemic and online learning: the challenges and opportunities. interactive learning environments, 1-13. https://orcid.org/0000-00030166-2383 berge, z. l. (2000). components of the online classroom. new directions for teaching and learning, 2000(84), 23-28. chan, j. c. c., hew, k. f., & cheung, w. s. (2009). asynchronous online discussion thread development: examining growth patterns and peer‐facilitation techniques. journal of computer assisted learning, 25(5), 438-452. copeland, m. (2005). socratic circles: fostering critical and creative thinking in middle and high school. stenhouse publishers. farros, j. n., shawler, l. a., gatzunis, k. s., & weiss, m. j. (2020). the effect of synchronous discussion sessions in an asynchronous course. journal of behavioral education, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10864-020-09421-2 kaur, g. (2020). digital life: boon or bane in teaching sector on covid-19. clio an annual interdisciplinary journal of history, 6(6), 416-427. parker, d., & gemino, a. (2001). inside online learning: comparing conceptual and technique learning performance in place-based and aln formats. journal of asynchronous learning networks, 5(2), 64-74. paul, r. w. (2006). thinker’s guide to the art of socratic questioning. santa rosa, ca: foundation for critical thinking. paul, r. & elder, l. (2001). critical thinking: tools for taking charge of your learning and your life. upper saddle river, nj: prentice-hall. reich, r. (2003). the socratic method: what it is and how to use it in the classroom. speaking of teaching, 13(1), 1-4. skinner, e. (2009). using community development theory to improve student engagement in online discussion: a case study. alt-j, 17(2), 89-100. tanian, s., & james, k. (2002). could oral communication skills become a casualty of online learning?: a future scenario that could prevent this. ecu publications. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2007.07.002 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0166-2383 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0166-2383 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10864-020-09421-2 asiacall online journal received: 06/01/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 01/02/2021 vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 accepted: 05/02/2021 pp. 41-50 online: 06/02/2021 41 implementing elearning system for general information technology course at van lang university, period 2017 2020 nguyen thu nguyet minh1, tran thi yen nhi1 do thanh tung1, nguyen quoc huy1 1 van lang university, vietnam correspondence: tran thi yen nhi, e-mail: nhi.tty@vlu.edu.vn abstract van lang university's general information technology course has been implementing elearning from 2017 to 2020. the course is divided into 3 phases and from level 2 to level 4 of the elearning training program (dung, 2020). at every phase, there are improvements in education methods, supporting functions, and above all, system optimization, from functions that support distance learning to course management and others. it ensures the best learning environment for students and helps teachers teach and post results more efficiently. during the elearning program's developmental phase, different education methods have been used to suit different needs and constitute 20% and up to 100% of the time. during the whole time, the program is receptive to teachers and students' feedback to improve and has already received encouraging results. keywords: elearning, lms moodle, ms teams, lms 1. the current situation of general information technology education elearning has been created and developed extensively for over more than 10 years, and it is no longer a new term in the educational system of developed countries. the 4.0 technology revolution, the growth of vietnam's tech infrastructure, fast internet connection with low price, and a young demographic enabled the fast growth of elearning. universities demonstrated interest in elearning through distance learning programs and normal programs that incorporated this new technology. before 2016, the general information technology course was conducted entirely in class during the whole training time. teaching entirely in a classroom has many difficulties: communication between students and lecturers, extra materials provision, collecting and managing students' works, fair results announcement, and managing attendance. paper tests prove to be a hazard to grade fairly and archive. 2. solution from 2016 to 2018, van lang university conducted a pilot experiment in elearning training in general information technology. at the university, the elearning model system consists of learning management system (lms); learning content management system (lcms); virtual classroom in real-time; forum to connect lecturers and students; courseware: curriculum, study guide, books, and online materials, teaching slides, videos, multiple-choice questions bank, practice exercises; study support. regarding the learning management system, the university is implementing lms moodle (oproiu, 2015) acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 2; 2020 42 and virtual classroom platform ms teams, which unesco recommends for distance learning (response, 2020). as for the virtual classroom platform, the current course uses microsoft teams with integrated microsoft office 365 (microsoft, n.d.), and all students and lecturers received login information that is synchronized with every website that supports learning of the university. before implementing ms teams, the course evaluated and analyzed alternatives like ms teams, hangouts, zoom, and classroom. (iftakhar, 2016) tabel 1. a statistic table that shows the results of study performance with the implementation of elearning from 2017 to 2020 (willis, 2017) the online training system – elearning of the course has been implemented through 3 phases from 2017 – 2020. phase 1 (2017-2018): implementing elearning level 2, study materials are provided through online access through https://hoctructuyen.vanlanguni.edu.vn/. at this stage, teaching and learning are still conducted entirely in the classroom. phase 2 (2018-2019): implementing elearning level 3 with 80% of the course is in class, and 20% is online. study materials, written exercises, multiple-choice questions, and discussions are being conducted online more. phase 3 (2019-2020): implementing elearning level 4 with online classes take up to 50%-100% of the entire course. the reverse classroom model system is being implemented dynamically. resources and study activities on the elearning system are plentiful. 2.1 phase 1 (2017 – 2018) diagram 1. implementing elearning system phase 1 (2017 2018) acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 2; 2020 43 the basic system consists of: learning management system (lms) courseware: curriculum and study guide the implementation of phase 1 in 2017-2018 the traditional method of teaching is conducted 100% entirely in class. students have to attend class according to the study schedule they received and under the lecturers' management with this method. outside of class, students can work on their assignments and read more advanced materials to prepare for the next class. learning management system: use the page hoctructuyen.vanlanguni.edu.vn, with lms moodle 3.1 (moodle™, 2020). in this phase, the lcms system has not been perfected, so lecturers provide study materials and slides as lms attachments. the lms system allows students to upload their assignments and get feedback and grades, but they cannot know their component grades and final grades. due to the nature of the course, many component grades have different importance; therefore, lecturers have to store and manually process them, which takes an incredible amount of time for lecturers with a big class. attendance check at the end of a class is stored on a lecturer's personal sheet, which proves to be a nuisance to manage student attendance and classroom performance for the academic department. 2.2 phase 2 (2018 – 2019) 2.2.1 system model of phase 2 the basic system consists of: learning management system (lms) learning content management system (lcms) is not finished yet virtual classroom in real-time communication system, announcement, study forum courseware: curriculum, study guide, electronic books and materials and study slides, videos, multiple-choice questions bank, practice exercise, study support forum. 2.2.2 implementing lcms and lms phase 2 phase 2 is implemented for 2018-2019, elearning level 3. a blended classroom is implemented in this stage. it is a type of model system that implements study activities in a combination of offline and online. offline classes will constitute 80% of the course, and virtual classrooms conducted through ms teams will constitute 20% of the diagram 2. implementing elearning system phase 2 (2018 2019) acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 2; 2020 44 course. with this model, study activities are conducted on three dimensions: at home, in class, and in a virtual classroom. to prepare for this stage, all lecturers of the course receive training from microsoft vietnam experts in office 365, teaching online through ms teams. (leugenia y.huanga,sheng weilin,travis k.huang, 2012) class conduct procedure learning management system (lms) using lms moodle 3.1. this lms includes an assignment, quiz, grade report, grade calculator, and attendance. assignments practice assignment system with varying practice exercises and clear time constraint starts to receive submission along with time finished and time late. not only that, but it also improves in feedback system through the usage of rubric and specific measurements. to develop these measurements, the course has based on these criteria: program outcome standards learning objectives: knowledge, skill, and mindset missions and activities that need evaluation evaluation standard for activities (detailed description) achievement standard (ranking the criteria) diagram 3. class conduct procedure of phase 2 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 2; 2020 45 rubric design procedure quiz the course stresses the importance of creating questions that best reflect the ability of the learner. it has six modules and 4460 questions. these questions are created in various question forms like calculated and calculated simple, calculated multichoice, drag and drop onto image, drag and drop markers, drag and drop into text, embedded answers (cloze), essay, numerical (numbers as an answer, inaccuracies are tolerated), select missing words, short answer, true/false. the quiz acts as a way to evaluate the students and the course itself. it helps the students solidify their knowledge and memorized previously mentioned concepts. it is designed specifically for each specific module, and students are required to repeat the quiz five times after each lesson and concept. the students can check their work during and after the test, and the system will show them a statistic of the parts they do well and the parts they do not so they can formulate a better learning strategy next time. grade report the component grades of the six modules have different weights. in order to help students monitor their performance better, this function is highly important in changing study activities and improving study performance for the best result. as for the lecturers, they can be aware of the students' progress so they can make appropriate changes to their teaching. after finishing a particular study mission (practice exercise or quiz), the results will be updated immediately through grade report with these component grades: progress grade 40% consists of typing speed (2%), submission of module 2 assignment (2%), internet module 6 assignment – online submission (2%), ms word assignment – online submission (2%), excel assignment online (2%), slide design test (20%), final writing assignment on ms word – module 3 (5%), final excel assignment – module 4 (5%) final grade 60% consists of: final test (40%), quiz test module 1 (3.3%), quiz test module 2 (3.3%), quiz test module 3 (3.3%), quiz test module 4 (3.3%) quiz test module 5 (3.3%), quiz test module 6 (3.3%) attendance diagram 4. rubric design procedure acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 2; 2020 46 this attendance managing function is implemented in this stage to help lecturers manage their classrooms better and be more proactive with their teaching. students can follow their attendance performance through the dashboard. each class will include time and attendance status to help students be proactive. currently, this attendance check system is implemented through two methods: students self-report themselves, or the lecturers will call upon them, depending on the nature of the class. other than reporting each individual's attendance performance, the system will help the lecturers keep track of the list of students who lack the adequate criteria to finish the course and make the work easier. sway – rich media lcms includes study materials and slides as an attachment on the system, which constitutes rich media. the online slides will be published as websites with rich media such as text, image, gif, video, and game,… this will provide an entirely new learning experience for students. students can easily access it from everywhere without having to download it. by implementing microsoft sway into rich media design to support teaching, the course helps lecturers understand what content the students love to decide the content appropriate to the students' ability and growth objectives. referential examples: bit.ly/vlgiuaky; bit.ly/vlom3; bit.ly/vlom4. 2.3 phase 3 (2019 – 2020) 2.3.1 system model of phase 3 elearning system consists of: learning management system (lms) learning content management system (lcms) is not finished yet virtual classroom in real-time communication system, announcement, study forum courseware: curriculum, study guide, electronic books and materials and study slides, videos, multiple-choice questions bank, practice exercise study support channels flip classroom model system 2.3.2 implementing lms and lcms phase 3 diagram 5. implementing elearning system phase 3 (2019 2020) acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 2; 2020 47 phase 3 is implemented in 2019-2020, elearning level 3. the flip classroom model system is put into usage in this phase. this model ensures 100% of the course duration will be conducted online. it reverses the usual order of a lecture: students have to read their lecture and do homework before class, and they can have access to their material on all digital devices and be more proactive regarding time and space. therefore, when class starts, lecturers and students can now only focus on case study problem solving, research, and group discussion. with this model, study time is distributed across all phases: before, during, and after class. knowledge distribution and teaching methods are diversified through lcms system with videos, rich media, online discussion, peers-topeers, and student-to-lecturers interaction. to prepare for this phase, all lecturers have to undergo elearning and flip classroom training from thinking school. teaching organization procedure lms in this phase uses lms moodle 3.9 with updated functions and ui/ux design, bringing ease of usage to teaching organization and management on elearning. the lms at this phase inherits and develops further the functions that have been implemented in stage 3: assignment, quiz, grade report, grade calculator, attendance. it also develops the function dashboard to help students manage their learning process easier. dashboard the dashboard helps students monitor their learning progress. students can monitor each course's progress and see what tasks to complete to finish the course. this function, along with the attendance management function, helps complete the students' learning monitor system. it will enable students to take a more proactive approach to their own learning while lecturers can follow their students' learning journey easier. dashboard in the elearning system consists of course completion, attendance report, grade report. the attendance report function has been explained in phase 2, so the remaining functions can do the following tasks: course completion – the function that aids students in monitoring their course completion progress along with to-do tasks and completion status. grade report – the function allows the students to see the grade they have accumulated. diagram 6. teaching organization procedure (han, 2017) acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 2; 2020 48 the learning content management system has been perfected at this stage: providing study materials, slides, and webpages. the video library is created on learning objectives and diversifies the courseware for students to have a plethora of choices for their individual needs. video high-quality videos are created to satisfy the students' educational needs and feedback. the rubric criteria measure the quality of the videos. tabel 2. video criteria each module has many videos, and each video lasts 10 to 15 minutes and is classified into relevant knowledge fields. each video structure includes objectives about skills and knowledge, content based on the published curriculum and images, sounds, texts, and effects. learning objectives regarding skills and knowledge are described with keywords from the bloom taxonomy: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation. 3. results tabel 3. a table of questions and case studies appropriate to the learning objectives according to the bloom taxonomy acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 2; 2020 49 the general information technology course has implemented the elearning system in 2017 – 2018, 2018-2019, 2019-2020. the elearning system started at levels 2 and 3, and now it is currently at level 4, with the percentage of online classes has gone from 0% to 100%. right now, the course has completed establishing its courseware database, perfected classroom organization, and testing method. the course also initiates many traditional, blended classroom and flipped classroom models with the digitalization trend. the course also does extensive research to improve the user design so that it is more user-friendly and efficient for students to use. tabel 1. a table that summarizes the implementation of elearning from 2017 to 2020 this statistic shows data in the past 3 years with views, submissions, and percentage of students that finished the course. in that, we can see the interaction rate and homework completion rate increase exponentially due to the shift in teaching method. the percentage of students who completed the course still has an average of 90%. this is a highly encouraging result of a physical class transformation to a digital class. tabel 5. a statistic table that shows the results of study performance with the implementation of elearning from 2017 to 2020 4. conclusion and suggestion during the whole time of researching and implementing elearning for general information technology, the course realizes each course from each field will have a different demand for an online time from each other. depending on the demand for the online class of each class, the class can pick appropriate method: ranging from traditional teaching with the support of elearning in the assignment, test, communication, and advanced learning to making the online class consists more than 50% of the course, especially during the covid19 global pandemic. every method's success depends heavily on the lecturers and the learners. the research and implementation of benjamin acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 2; 2020 50 s. bloom's taxonomy of cognitive understanding level in the development of curriculum, video, digital slides, randomized practice questions aid students in following with their study and improve their results. further than that, it is also important to design the visual interface in a user-friendly way, actively create content that aids in learning for students like videos, multimedia study book (rich media), multiple-choice questions, bank and practice questions that satisfy the educational and future professional needs of the learners. besides the advantages and encouraging feedback the elearning initiative received from the department and school policies, the course also encounters many difficulties like laptops and phones for some students. this has caused many hardships for students to complete their homework, especially when it comes to practice questions. there needs to be a policy supporting students like laptop renting or buying laptop in installment. references dung, t. v. (2020). các bậc của e-learning. hcm: http://etep.moet.gov.vn/. han, y. t. (2017). design and implementation of mobile blended learning model based on wechat public platform. matec web of conferences, 100, 02020.”, 100. iftakhar, s. (2016). google classroom: what works and how? journal of education and social sciences, 3. kc, d. (2017). evaluation of moodle features at kajaani university of applied sciences – case study. procedia computer science, 116, 121-128. leugenia y.huanga,sheng weilin,travis k.huang. (2012). what type of learning style leads to online participation in the mixed-mode e-learning environment? a study of software usage instruction. computers & education, 58(1), 338-349. microsoft, ©. (n.d.). microsoft teams help & learning. ( © microsoft) retrieved 6 22, 2020, from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/teams moodle™. (2020, 6 15). moodle open source learning platform. (moodle™) retrieved 6 22, 2020, from https://docs.moodle.org/39/en/about_moodle oproiu, g. c. (2015). a study about using e-learning platform (moodle) in university teaching process. the 6th international conference edu world 2014 “education facing contemporary world issues", 180, 426-432. response, u. c.-1. (2020). distance learning solutions. (unesco) retrieved 6 22, 2020, from https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse/solutions willis, r. (2017, 6 23). microsoft classroom to be replaced by microsoft teams in office 365 for education. (the salamandersoft limited) retrieved 6 29, 2018, from https://www.salamandersoft.co.uk/blog/microsoft-classroom-to-be-replaced-by-microsoft-teamsin-office-365-for-education/ asiacall online journal received: 20/08/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 25/10/2021 vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 accepted: 25/10/2021 pp. 100-113 online: 26/10/2021 citation | dizon, g., & gayed, j. m. (2021). an exploratory study on the use of interactive video via netflix to improve second language aural vocabulary learning. asiacall online journal, 12(5), 100-113. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.007 an exploratory study on the use of interactive video via netflix to improve second language aural vocabulary learning gilbert dizon1, john m. gayed2 1 himeji dokkyo university, japan 2 tokyo institute of technology, japan correspondence: gilbert dizon, himeji dokkyo university, japan. e-mail: gdizon@gm.himeji-du.ac.jp eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.007 abstract while video streaming services have had a profound impact on how people view television programs and movies, very little is known about their use to promote second language (l2) development. to address this gap in l2 research, this paper details the results of an exploratory study that examined the combination of interactive video, a new form of entertainment that prompts viewers to make choices that affect the story, and netflix to see if these tools could enhance different aspects of l2 aural development. fourteen japanese university efl students participated in the study, which utilized a counterbalanced, pretestposttest research design. the participants viewed two interactive episodes of a tv series via netflix, each under one of the following conditions: non-interactive and interactive. preand post-tests were administered to measure any gains that were made in aural vocabulary at two different levels (form recognition and meaning recall). findings from the experiment indicated that interactive video did not significantly impact the incidental learning of aural vocabulary in terms of form recognition or meaning recall. while these results cast doubt on the possible benefits of interactive video, more studies are needed to investigate the potential of the technology for l2 learning. keywords: video streaming, vocabulary learning, efl, l2 video 1. introduction as van, dang, pham, vo, and pham (2021) note, the use of technology to learn a foreign language comes with many distinct advantages, including increased opportunities for selfdirected language learning inside and outside of the classroom (nguyen, 2021). one technology that has been a common feature of language classrooms for the past several decades is the video (vanderplank, 2016). montero perez, peters, and desmet (2018) point out that the accessibility of video, particularly internet television (youtube, netflix, amazon prime, hulu), has the capacity to facilitate greater exposure to the target language outside of the classroom. captioned and subtitled videos (hereafter, the term “captioned video” is used throughout to minimize repeated and/or potentially confusing use of the two terms), which present written text synchronously with video and audio to support comprehension, have also made it possible for http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.007 http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.007 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 101 even beginner learners to make use of video to study a foreign language. while the use of video by l2 learners may present some downsides, for instance, the fact that students may associate them with leisure viewing rather than language learning (vanderplank, 2010), as well as the possibility of learners using them as a crutch to aid comprehension (winke, gass, & sydorenko, 2010), the benefits of textual aids when watching video are clear, specifically in terms of listening and vocabulary development. a meta-analysis by montero perez, van den noortgate and desmet (2013) found that those who used l2 subtitles performed significantly better on listening and vocabulary tests than language learners who had no access to on-screen text. although extensive literature exists on the use of captioned video with l2 learners (see vanderplank, 2016; yeldham, 2018), there are still some areas that have received little to no attention. one such area is the use of video streaming services for foreign language learning. because of their ubiquity in today’s society, it is critical to examine the use of video streaming services to promote l2 development. however, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, only two studies have looked at their use with students in the context of l2 learning (dizon, 2018; wang & chen, 2019). another technology that has not been studied in l2 research is the use of interactive video. interactive video is a relatively new form of entertainment delivered via the internet, which allows users to make choices that affect the outcome of the story, with companies such as netflix, amazon, youtube, and the bbc currently in the process of developing interactive titles (perez, 2019). lastly, although incidental vocabulary learning is a well-studied topic in l2 video research, less attention has been paid to aural vocabulary learning with l2 video. due to these gaps in the literature, an exploratory study was conducted to examine the use of interactive video through netflix on the incidental learning of l2 english aural vocabulary. 2. theoretical framework this study is informed by the theory of multimedia learning by mayer (1997, 2001). according to the theory, learners process information most effectively using visual and written aids. when faced with pictorial (visual) and written (verbal) information, students must select relevant input and organize this information into visual and verbal mental representations of said input. learners can then build connections between the different forms of input, thereby allowing them to integrate this information into working memory (see figure 1). accordingly, a more fertile learning environment is created, thus leading to vocabulary, reading, and listening development. mayer's (1997, 2001) theory of multimedia learning has been used extensively in the field of l2 learning, especially in terms of examining the role that annotations have on language learners. jones (2009) found that beginner and advanced l2 learners benefited most from written and pictorial annotations, thereby supporting listening comprehension and vocabulary learning. in another study on vocabulary acquisition and listening comprehension, jones and plass (2002) discovered that students with access to both pictures and written captions better remembered word translations and recalled the listening passage more effectively than those who only used one form of annotation or who did not have access to aids. while no https://asiacall.info/acoj gilbert dizon & john m. gayed vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 102 significant difference was found in relation to reading comprehension, the results from akbulut's (2007) study indicated that access to word definitions and visuals led to greater gains in vocabulary compared to when students were only given access to definitions. these findings illustrate the importance of visual and written information for l2 vocabulary and listening and highlight the positive impact that multimedia environments can have on foreign language learners. as rodgers (2018) notes, combining input modes such as video and audio may enhance different features of the l2 learning process, including listening comprehension and vocabulary development. considering captioned video incorporates multiple modes–visual in the form of the video, aural in the form of the l2 spoken language, and verbal in the form of the written captions–video streaming services may be a useful tool for language learning as they offer learners audio and video captioning options in multiple languages. figure 1. mayer’s (1997, 2001) theory of multimedia learning (jones & plass, 2002) 3. literature review 3.1 captioned video & l2 vocabulary learning much of the research on video for l2 learning has focused on the use of captions and their effects on vocabulary development, with a particular emphasis on comparing l1, l2, and noncaptioning groups. the students in bianchi and ciabattoni's (2008) study who used l1 captions and l2 captions were found to make more significant improvements on long-term vocabulary acquisition than those who used no captions while viewing movies. however, language proficiency did have an impact, as beginner learners benefited least from l2 captions while advanced students benefited the most. in a year-long longitudinal study involving adolescent l2 learners, pujadas and muñoz (2019) investigated the role of caption type (l1 vs. l2), proficiency, and pre-teaching on vocabulary form recall and meaning recall. the researchers acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 103 found that both captioning groups were equally as effective in terms of vocabulary development, but that pre-teaching the target words and a higher level of language proficiency led to greater gains. there seem to be conflicting results when it comes to other forms of captioning, such as keyword captions or glosses. in a study involving five different captioning groups, hsieh (2019) found that the full captions with highlighted target words and l1 gloss condition best promoted word form and meaning learning. not surprisingly, the no captions group and the full captions with no audio group were found to perform the worst in terms of vocabulary learning. in a recent study focusing on incidental vocabulary learning among primary l2 english learners, teng (2019) investigated how different forms of captioning (full captions, keyword captions, no captions) affected word form/meaning recognition word recall of meaning. according to the results of the study, those in the full captioning group significantly outperformed the other two groups. montero perez, peters, clarebout, and desmet (2014) also investigated vocabulary learning using four different types of tests: form recognition, clip association, recall, and meaning recognition. the results of their study revealed that the three caption groups outperformed the control group on three of the tests (form recognition, clip association, meaning recognition), while no significant differences were found in relation to the meaning recall. on the other hand, their findings also indicated that the form of captioning used (full captions, keyword captions, full captions with keywords highlighted) did not result in significant differences between the three groups, thereby illustrating that captioning, regardless of type, can make a positive impact on vocabulary development. in a similar study examining the same four aspects of vocabulary, montero perez, peters, and desmet (2015) found that students who used keyword captions outperformed full captions on the form recognition test. lastly, in a follow-up study by montero perez et al. (2018) involving four l2 captioning conditions (full, keyword, glossed keyword with access to meaning, and no captions), the researchers found that the glossed keyword captions group outperformed the other forms of captioning on form recognition and meaning recall, which illustrates that access to meaning may benefit l2 learners when they watch the video. as noted by vidal (2003), little research has been done on vocabulary learning via aural input. having said that, there have been a few studies that have investigated the effects of this input method on vocabulary learning. winke et al. (2010), for instance, examined the use of target-language captioned video on written and aural vocabulary knowledge and found that the caption group outperformed the control group on both variables on the post-test. in another study, peters, heynen, and puimège (2016) examined l1 and l2 captions in two exploratory experiments. the first experiment focused on form recognition and meaning recall of aural vocabulary. it was found that caption type did not predict meaning recall but that l1 captions better promoted form recognition. in their second experiment, which examined form recognition and meaning recall of written vocabulary, positive effects for captions were found in form recall but not form recognition. similarly, syodorendo (2010) looked at the effects of input modality on vocabulary acquisition. in a mixed-methods study of twenty-six russian https://asiacall.info/acoj gilbert dizon & john m. gayed vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 104 english language learners, the researcher found that video supplemented with captions resulted in greater word form recall and word meaning recall, while non-captioned video improved recognition of aural word forms. another important finding from the study was that some of the participants indicated the tendency to focus on the captions more than the audio if captions were provided, which is a complaint echoed by the participants in winke et al. (2010). moreover, all participants indicated the importance of having visual images as beneficial to their understanding of the spoken input, thus illustrating the importance of visual input alongside aural input. 3.2 video streaming in l2 learning even though video streaming services have been mentioned in l2 literature as having the potential to be used for language learning (godwin-jones, 2018; rosell-aguilar, 2017), few studies have actually examined their use in the context of foreign language learning in empirical research. only two studies have looked at video streaming and language learning to the best of the authors' knowledge. one is dizon's (2018) case study on the use of netflix with efl learners. the learners were allowed to use the video streaming service however they desired and were under no obligation to use it specifically for language learning. following the end of their 3month membership, the students were interviewed to understand their opinions towards netflix as a language learning tool. according to the interview data, several themes were identified. first, student comments suggested that learner effectiveness was improved through the use of l1/l2 captions. secondly, the service enhanced motivation because it was a fun way to study english. additionally, the learners indicated that they had better access to cultural and linguistic information by watching tv programs and films via netflix. however, one disadvantage that the participants noted was a lack of convenience due to the large amount of data required to stream video on their mobile devices. therefore, some of them limited their use of the service to when they had access to wi-fi. another study that has specifically looked at video streaming in the context of l2 learning is wang and chen's (2019) research on the use of youtube as an informal language learning resource. the researchers interviewed university students in taiwan who had extensive experience in watching l2 english-learning youtube videos to understand the affordances and limitations of the streaming service for foreign language learning. based on these interviews, a few key advantages were discovered, namely, that learning english via youtube was more flexible, interactive, and interesting for the l2 learners. that said, the students also felt that the streaming service was ineffective at improving l2 development. although results from these two studies were largely positive, they involved a small number of participants and did not examine any language gains the students may have made. thus, there is still a need to investigate if video streaming services can have an impact on the development of l2 skills. in summary, the use of l1 and/or l2 captions seems to be beneficial for language learners in terms of vocabulary learning (bianchi & ciabattoni, 2008; pujadas & muñoz, 2019). yet, when it comes to other caption types, namely, full captions vs. keyword captions, it is not clear what form best promotes vocabulary learning. while the aforementioned literature acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 105 highlights the positive effects of captioned video on l2 vocabulary learning, there are still gaps that need to be addressed. first, the use of interactive video has yet to be studied in the context of l2 learning. as an emerging technology that the researchers predict will only continue to grow, it is critical to evaluate the tool for language learning. compared with traditional video in which a learner passively takes in input, interactive video has the potential to direct more attention to input, particularly written information in the form of on-screen text when students are prompted to make choices that impact the story (see figure 1). moreover, despite their widespread use and popularity, research on video streaming services in the context of language learning is scarce. although video in the form of dvds and downloadable content has been available for more than a decade, the advent of video streaming and the ubiquity of smartphones has made language learning via video much more flexible for learners (wang & chen, 2019). in other words, viewing video, tv shows, and movies in a foreign language has never been easier due to video streaming and mobile devices. lastly, although some studies have investigated the effects of captions on aural vocabulary learning (peters et al., 2016; syodorenko, 2010; winke et al., 2010), past l2 captioning research has generally focused on written vocabulary development and ignored aural vocabulary. this indicates that more studies ought to be conducted to see if captioned video can positively influence the incidental learning of aural or listening vocabulary. 3.3 research questions due to these gaps in l2 research, this study looked at the use of interactive video via netflix to develop l2 english aural vocabulary. specifically, the following research question was addressed: does the use of netflix and interactive video have a significant effect on l2 english learners’ aural vocabulary? 4. methods 4.1 pedagogical setting & participants fourteen male and female students at a japanese university participated in the study. these participants were chosen via convenience sampling. the participants were six firstand eight second-year students enrolled in separate communicative english classes, which were taught by the researchers in the fall 2019 semester. their ages ranged from 18-21, and they were all native-japanese speakers. based on the participants' eiken scores, their english language ability ranged from a1 to a2 on the cefr proficiency scale, which equates to a beginner level of english language proficiency. 4.2 design of the study the present study incorporated a counterbalanced, pretest-posttest research design to examine if the use of interactive video via the streaming service netflix promotes significant enhancements in aural vocabulary at two levels: form recognition and meaning recall. form recognition refers to the ability to recognize whether or not one has been exposed to a word https://asiacall.info/acoj gilbert dizon & john m. gayed vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 106 (reading or listening), whereas meaning recall is the ability to produce an l1 definition of a target word. while listening comprehension is another commonly studied variable in l2 video research, this was not examined in this study due to the non-linear nature of the interactive video. in other words, each user sees different content depending on their choices, so a listening comprehension test based on the target videos was not feasible. 4.3 data collection & analysis the researchers developed an assessment and administered to assess any potential gains in aural vocabulary made by the participants. a total of 20 words were identified (10 per episode) as target vocabulary. all the words were above the 2k word frequency level according to the british national corpus (bnc) and the corpus of contemporary american english (coca). in other words, they were terms that the participants were less likely to know. another reason for the focus on target words beyond the 2k word level was that hat the participants were studying the 1k and 2k word levels through a digital flashcard program at the time of the study. therefore, the inclusion of target vocabulary from these high-frequency word levels might have resulted in test items that the participants largely knew. the target words were unique to each episode that was shown, regardless of the prompts chosen by the participants. that said, the frequency of occurrence of the words could have differed depending on the individual prompts selected by each participant. however, it is important to stress that the participants were exposed to all the target words at least once, irrespective of their prompt choices. the words contained nouns, adjectives, and verbs (see table 1 for the list of target vocabulary). the presentation of the target items was audio-recorded by a native british-english speaker, which mirrors the variety of english spoken in the interactive episodes. the speaker repeated each word twice, with a two-second interval between repetitions and a ten-second interval between individual items. in addition to the target words, four non-words were added to control for pre-test post-test learning effects (nation & webb, 2011) and were taken from http://lextutor.ca/freq/lists_download/pnwords.html. four high-frequency words (deliver, rope, balance, village) which appeared in the episodes were also added to aid test motivation (peters et al., 2016). similar to peters et al. (2016), participants were asked to tick “yes” or “no” if they recognized the word for each item. they were also asked to provide an l1 definition of each target word, i.e., meaning recall. the written presentation of the test was in l1 japanese so that the assessment was clear and understandable for the participants. to be clear, the introduction of the vocabulary items was done aurally; only the instructions were provided in written form. cronbach’s alpha, which measures the internal consistency of a group of items, was used to assess the reliability of the two sections of the assessment. values for the form recognition and meaning recall portions of the test were .62 and .80, which indicates slight and moderate reliability, respectively (brown, 2014). acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 107 table 1. breakdown of target vocabulary target word part of speech bnc-coca frequency episode ashore noun 6k 1 canyon noun 7k 1 bushwhack verb 17k 1 abandoned adjective 3k 1 critical adjective 3k 1 fierce adjective 3k 1 volcanic adjective 4k 1 hacking noun 5k 1 stalking verb 5k 1 reptile noun 7k 1 isolated adjective 3k 2 straining verb 3k 2 primitive adjective 4k 2 ticking verb 4k 2 improvise verb 5k 2 perishable adjective 6k 2 trolley noun 6k 2 commando noun 7k 2 budge verb 8k 2 rappel verb 17k 2 the aural vocabulary pretest was administered in december of 2019. four weeks later, in january of 2020, the participants viewed the first two episodes of the interactive tv series you vs. wild through netflix in consecutive class periods. due to the counterbalanced design, the first-year students watched episode one under the non-interactive condition and episode two under the interactive condition, whereas the second-year students watched episode one under the interactive condition and episode two under the non-interactive condition. in the noninteractive condition, episodes were displayed via class projector, and each prompt choice was determined by letting the selection time period run out, i.e., choices were selected randomly. in the interactive condition, participants watched the episodes individually on desktop pcs located in the classroom or with their individual smartphones and made prompt choices on their own (see figure 1 for an example prompt from you vs. wild). while the actual length of each episode depends on the choices made, the average run-time of each episode as listed by netflix was 14 minutes and 20 minutes for episodes 1 and 2, respectively. due to the participants’ english proficiency levels and to enhance comprehension, l1 captions were displayed throughout both episodes, regardless of the condition. after viewing each episode, the participants immediately took the aural vocabulary post-test pertaining to the target words in that particular episode (ten https://asiacall.info/acoj gilbert dizon & john m. gayed vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 108 target words each). figure 2. interactive video prompt is you vs. wild given the small sample size, non-parametric statistical tools were used to analyze the data. the wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to analyze the gains made within each group with respect to aural vocabulary form recognition and meaning recall, and the mann-whitney u test was used to determine if there were significant differences between the relative gains the non-interactive and interactive conditions were able to make in aural vocabulary form recognition and meaning recall from the preto the post-test. rather than solely examining the differences between pre-and post-test scores with respect to the variables studied, relative gains were calculated based on a formula [(post-test score – pre-test score) / (number of test items – pre-test score) × 100] outlined by webb and chang (2015). according to horst, cobb and meara (1998), relative gains may be a more accurate measure of learner improvement compared to absolute gains as they take into account differing opportunities for growth. descriptive statistics of the students' aural vocabulary test scores were also provided. 5. results/findings and discussion table 2 below illustrates the pre-and post-test results as it relates to the participants' aural form recognition and meaning recall scores. as the descriptive statistics show, the noninteractive and interactive conditions promoted little to no gain with respect to the variables studied. for the non-interactive condition, form recognition slightly decreased from the preto the post-test. non-positive results were also found in the interactive condition; specifically, there was no difference between the mean pre-test and post-test form recognition results. likewise, the non-interactive condition (z = 1.26, p = .20) nor the interactive condition (z = 0.0, p = 1.0) promoted significant improvements in form recognition from the pre-test to the post-test according to the wilcoxon signed-rank test. when comparing between groups with the acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 109 mann-whitney u test, a significant difference was not found between the form recognition relative gains of the non-interactive condition and interactive conditions (u = 86.5, p = .61). there were similar results when examining meaning recall. both the non-interactive and interactive conditions supported small gains in the variable. however, these modest withingroup improvements were non-significant in the non-interactive condition (z = 0.81, p = .41) and the interactive condition (z = 1.0, p = .31). similarly, there was not a significant difference between the non-interactive and interactive conditions when it came to relative gains in meaning recall (u = 96, p = .94). table 2. preand post-test results pre-test post-test form recognition meaning recall form recognition meaning recall m sd m sd m sd m sd non-interactive 4.79 1.53 0.79 1.12 4.50 2.03 1.07 1.38 interactive 4.71 1.27 0.29 0.61 4.71 1.68 0.57 1.16 there are several possible explanations for the lack of improvements. first, the frequency of occurrence of the target words could have had an impact on the results. prior research has indicated that more frequent exposures to a word lead to more successful learning (teng, 2019). yet, this variable could not be controlled in the study as interactive video is nonlinear. another plausible explanation for the non-gains may be the incorporation of lowfrequency words, which likely led to a higher "learning burden" for the students (laufer, 2005, p. 234). the target vocabulary words were chosen due to their difficulty and unfamiliarity, and this possibly made it too challenging for the students to recognize and learn these terms. furthermore, it is difficult to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words in real-time (buck, 2001), so the learners may have been unable to learn the words as they could have appeared only once, and the students could not replay portions of the video. the use of l1 instead of l2 captions is another factor that might have influenced the results. there were likely instances where there was a mismatch between what the learners heard in english versus what they simultaneously read in japanese, and these inconsistencies could have had a negative influence on aural vocabulary learning. 6. conclusion interactive video is an emerging technology and thus should be investigated for its language learning potential. accordingly, this study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of the technology to support aural developments in the target language, making it the first research to involve interactive video in the context of l2 learning. however, while mayer’s (1997, 2001) theory of multimedia learning posits that video watching affords l2 learners with listening https://asiacall.info/acoj gilbert dizon & john m. gayed vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 110 comprehension and vocabulary learning benefits, the present study resulted in no to limited gains in the variables studied. participants in the interactive condition did not make significantly greater gains in form recognition or meaning recall than the non-interactive condition. the findings from this study suggest that interactive video via streaming services may not offer any aural vocabulary learning benefits over traditional video. although interactivity has been viewed as a positive for l2 learning (e.g., chapelle, 2005), its incorporation may have had a detrimental effect in that students could have paid more attention to the entertainment aspect of the videos rather than the english audio track. this mirrors the warning vanderplank (2010) made concerning leisure viewing and how learners may associate movies and tv shows with entertainment, which in turn may restrict the potential of video to support l2 development. as a result, the researchers cannot recommend the use of interactive video in the language classroom at this time. however, it is important to stress the small sample size, which likely substantially influenced the results. in other words, the participants may not have been representative of the impact that interactive video can have on aural language learning. therefore, it is important to conduct more studies on the use of interactive video with l2 learners to gain a more comprehensive understanding of its affordances, especially since technology-mediated l2 learning has been shown to bring about positive effects on all four language skills, that is, listening, speaking, reading, and writing (van et al., 2021). other limitations of the study include the non-randomized research design. because of this, future studies involving video streaming and/or interactive video should be taken from a randomized and much larger sample. another limitation was that the type of on-screen text in the study was limited to l1 captions. research involving textual aids with l2 video has largely revolved around examining the types of help options that best promote language learning. thus, a worthwhile avenue of research would be to compare the efficacy of l1 and l2 captions when viewing the interactive video. furthermore, the learners' views on video streaming and interactive video were not obtained. as a result, it would be valuable to evaluate l2 learner perceptions towards these emerging technologies through the use of surveys, interviews, and/or reflective reports. lastly, although this study did not examine this variable, a future one could examine if interactive video affects l2 listening, given the affordances that technology provides in l2 listening development (nguyen, 2021). references akbulut, y. (2007). effects of multimedia annotations on incidental vocabulary learning and reading comprehension of advanced learners of english as a foreign language. instructional science, 35(6), 499-517. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-007-9016-7 bianchi, f., & ciabattoni, t. (2008). captions and subtitles in efl learning: an investigative study in a comprehensive computer environment. in a. baldry, m. pavesi, c. taylor torsello, & c. taylor (eds.), from didactas to ecolingua: an ongoing research project on translation and corpus linguistics (pp. 69-80). trieste: edizonioni università trieste. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-007-9016-7 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 111 birulés-muntané, j., & soto-faraco, s. (2016). watching subtitled films can help learning foreign languages. plos one, 11(6), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0158409 brown, j. d. (2014). classical theory reliability. in a. j. kunnan (ed.), the companion to language assessment (pp. 1165–1181). oxford, uk: wiley–blackwell. buck, g. (2001). assessing listening. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. chapelle, c. (2005). interactionist sla theory in call research. in j. l. egbert & g. m. petrie (eds.), call research perspectives (pp. 53-64). mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum. dizon, g. (2018). netflix and l2 learning: a case study. the eurocall review, 26(2), 3040. https://doi.org/10.4995/eurocall.2018.9080 jones, l. (2009). supporting student differences in listening comprehension and vocabulary learning with multimedia annotations. calico journal, 26(2), 267-289. https://doi.org/10.1558/cj.v26i2.267-289 jones, l., & plass, j. (2002). supporting listening comprehension and vocabulary acquisition in french with multimedia annotations. the modern language journal, 86(4), 546-561. https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-4781.00160 godwin-jones, (2018). chasing the butterfly effect: informal language learning online as a complex system. language learning & technology, 22(2), 8-27. https://doi.org/10125/44643 horst, m., cobb, t., & meara, p. (1998). beyond a clockwork orange: acquiring second language vocabulary through reading. reading in a foreign language, 11(2), 207-223. hsieh, y. (2019). effects of video captioning on efl vocabulary learning and listening comprehension. computer assisted language learning. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2019.1577898 laufer, b. (2005). focus on form in second language vocabulary learning. eurosla yearbook, 5(1), 223–250. mayer, r. e. (1997). multimedia learning: are we asking the right questions? educational psychologist, 32(1), 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep3201_1 mayer, r. e. (2001). multimedia learning. cambridge, ma: cambridge. montero perez, m., peters, e., clarebout, g., & desmet, p. (2014). effects of captioning on video comprehension and incidental vocabulary learning. language learning & technology, 18(1), 118–141. http://dx.doi.org/10125/44357 montero perez, m., peters, e., & desmet, p. (2015). enhancing vocabulary learning through captioned video: an eye-tracking study. the modern language journal, 99(2), 308-328. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12215 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0158409 https://doi.org/10.4995/eurocall.2018.9080 https://doi.org/10.1558/cj.v26i2.267-289 https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-4781.00160 https://doi.org/10125/44643 https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2019.1577898 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep3201_1 http://dx.doi.org/10125/44357 https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12215 https://asiacall.info/acoj gilbert dizon & john m. gayed vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 112 montero perez, m., peters, e., & desmet, p. (2018). vocabulary learning through viewing video: the effect of two enhancement techniques. computer assisted language learning, 32(1-2), 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2017.1375960 montero perez, m., van den noortgate, w., & desmet, p. (2013). captioned video for l2 listening and vocabulary learning: a meta-analysis. system, 41(3), 720-739. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2013.07.013. nation, i. s. p., & webb, s. (2011). researching and analyzing vocabulary. boston: heinle. nguyen, t. h. n. (2021). developing bottom-up listening skills in a google classroom-based efl module. asiacall online journal, 12(3), 47-57. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/45 nguyen, v. m. (2021). english language-learning environments in covid-19 era: efl contexts, english-language environments, technology-based approach, english language learning. asiacall online journal, 12(3), 39-46. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/21 perez, s. (2019). interactive content is coming to walmart’s vudu & the bbc. retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/29/interactive-content-is-coming-to-walmarts-vudu-thebbc/ peters, e., heynen, e., & puimège, e. (2016). learning vocabulary through audiovisual input: the differential effect of l1 subtitles and captions. system, 63, 134-148. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2016.10.002 pujadas, g., & muñoz, c. (2019). extensive viewing of captioned and subtitled tv series: a study of l2 vocabulary learning by adolescents. language learning journal, 47(3), 118. https://doi.org/10.1080/09571736.2019.1616806 rodgers, m. p. h. (2018). the images in television programs and the potential for learning unknown words. itl-international journal of applied linguistics, 169(1), 191–211. https://doi.org/10.1075/itl.00012.rod rosell-aguilar, f. (2017). state of the app: a taxonomy and framework for evaluation language learning mobile applications. calico journal, 34(2), 243-258. https://doi.org/10.1558/cj.27623 syodorenko, t. (2010). modality of input and vocabulary acquisition. language learning & technology, 14(2), 50-73. http://dx.doi.org/10125/44214 teng. f (2019). incidental vocabulary learning for primary school students: the effects of l2 caption type and word exposure frequency. the australian educational researcher, 46, 113–136. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-018-0279-6 van, l. k., dang, t. a., pham, d. b. t., vo, t. t. n., & pham, v. p. h. (2021). the effectiveness of using technology in learning english. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 24-40. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/26 https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2017.1375960 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2013.07.013 https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/45 https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/21 https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/29/interactive-content-is-coming-to-walmarts-vudu-the-bbc/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/29/interactive-content-is-coming-to-walmarts-vudu-the-bbc/ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2016.10.002 https://doi.org/10.1080/09571736.2019.1616806 https://doi.org/10.1075/itl.00012.rod https://doi.org/10.1558/cj.27623 http://dx.doi.org/10125/44214 https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-018-0279-6 https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/26 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 113 vanderplank, r. (2010). déjà vu? a decade of research on language laboratories, television and video in language learning. language teaching, 43(1), 1-37. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261444809990267 vanderplank, r. (2016). captioned media in foreign language learning and teaching. london: palgrave macmillan. vidal, k. (2003). academic listening: a source of vocabulary acquisition? applied linguistics, 24(1), 56-89. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/24.1.56 wang, h.-c., & chen, c. w.-y. (2019). learning english from youtubers: english l2 learners’ self-regulated language learning on youtube. innovation in language learning and teaching, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2019.1607356 webb, s., & chang, c.-s. (2015). second language vocabulary learning through extensive reading with audio support: how do frequency and distribution of occurrence affect learning? language teaching research, 19(6), 667-686. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168814559800 winke, p., gass, s., & sydorenko, t. (2010). the effects of captioning videos used for foreign language listening activities. language learning & technology, 14(1), 65-86. http://dx.doi.org/10125/44203 yeldham, m. (2018). viewing l2 captioned videos: what's in it for the listener? computer assisted language learning, 31(4), 367-389. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2017.1406956 biodata gilbert dizon is an associate professor at himeji dokkyo university, japan and a doctoral student in the department of literacy, culture, and language education at indiana university. his research interests lie in computer-assisted language learning, specifically, technologymediated informal language learning and the use of artificial intelligence in language education. john m. gayed is a phd student at the tokyo institute of technology researching the potential to use an ai-based writing assistant for second language learners. the digital assistant will help english language learners overcome the various cognitive barriers they face when they attempt to produce written text in english. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261444809990267 https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/24.1.56 https://doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2019.1607356 https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168814559800 http://dx.doi.org/10125/44203 https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2017.1406956 asiacall online journal received: 03/01/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 21/02/2021 vol. 12, no. 3, 2021 accepted: 03/03/2021 pp. 18 online: 07/03/2021 1 students' attitudes to online reading in the era of technology at the university of transport and communications bui thi nga university of transport and communications, campus in ho chi minh city corresponding author’s email: ngabt_ph@utc.edu.vn abstract thanks to the remarkable development of technology 4.0, online reading is becoming more popular for students. higher education institutions encourage their students to participate in online learning courses as well as widening their knowledge by reading online after campus–based learning, especially in the covid19 epidemic. the study was conducted to investigate the students’ attitudes to online reading as well as the effects of online reading for utc2 students and ways to access information accurately by collecting 200 students from five different majors, including civil engineering, construction engineering, economics, mechanical engineering, and information technology. the qualitative approach with a well–structured questionnaire was used to collect the primary data from respondents. the findings pointed out that the students showed their positive attitudes toward online reading because online reading is an effective way to improve their knowledge and the effectiveness of online reading significantly varies with their reading purposes, technology usage and skills. keywords: online reading, online reading effects, utc2 students. 1. introduction in the era of technology 4.0 and the outbreak of the covid19 epidemic, online reading is one of the most popularly searched keywords to meet students' studying needs worldwide in general and the students at the university of transport and communications in particular. online learning programs require learners to be autonomous and be experts at using online learning tools. for students to widen their professional knowledge, paper and online documents are considered important documents. however, not all students know how to select materials to read online effectively. it is the process for learners to determine goals, reading content, and apply their searching skills. therefore, a study needs to be done to investigate how effective online reading is as well as its drawbacks. 2. literature review in order to explore how online reading affects learners' knowledge acquisition, the part aims to build up a theoretical framework on which the learners' online reading will be grounded. hence, this part focuses on the definitions of online reading, its effective and drawbacks in the previous study, and the related studies of online reading techniques. 2.1 online reading scientific areas in general and in education, in particular, have been influenced by developments in the field of science and technology. this promotes the technological infrastructure developed for educational organizations, particularly how learning changes rapidly. currently, online reading is considered a popular way to widen readers' knowledge in the world. apart from reading printed materials, online reading is the mailto:ngabt_ph@utc.edu.vn acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 2 process of extracting meanings from a text that is in a digital format. 2.1.1 effectiveness of online reading nowadays, it is easy to access a huge amount of information through the internet in digital forms without cost and without going anywhere. according to hira and munira (2018), reading requires concentration because of the mental process. however, on the internet, so many things are available that distract readers' attention, and focus on the required information is really challenging. in contrast, the authors report that online reading enhances learners' reading interest. in addition, karim, hasan, and shahriza (2011) determine that the young combine online reading in their learning mostly because of the availability of an increasing amount of information and entertainment. furthermore, liu (2005) also supports that the growth of online information available influences readers' behaviors towards online reading, and people spend more time on online reading. hence, it is considered as imperative need to understand the reading phenomena for the benefits of reading. in the article by akpokodje (2016), they identify that online reading is used among learners all the time. readers prefer online reading for information seeking because of its availability of cross-references and hyperlinks. as can be seen, learners read materials as well as information of all fields through the internet. verma and malvyya (2010) explored that the internet and digital media impact learners' reading habits. based on the results of the comparative study, it showed the reading habit of traditional library readers changed due to the electronic environment. the internet provides easy access to portable information. it has a great source on internet for sharing and receiving a large amount of information. as a result, the learners can read worldwide information in spite of staying at home. 2.1.2 drawbacks of online reading apart from the advantages of online reading as above, several disadvantages need to be improved. ajayi, shorunke, and aboyade (2014) describe that a key factor hindering the use of electronic resources is poor internet facilities. in order for learners to read online effectively, internet-connected devices play an important role in fulfilling their purposes of reading. reading online in rural areas is challenging for students. in the article by loan (2012), the impact of internet surfing on reading practices and choices of students' net generation is investigated. the result revealed that online reading makes interactive and superficial reading increased while sequential reading, concentrated reading, and in-depth reading decreased. additionally, there has been an increase in the reading of news, reviews, general information, selected fields, and religious text through internet surfing, while reading of literature has decreased. noticeably, mokhtari, reichard, and gardner (2019) revealed that students mainly used the internet for entertainment. a majority of the students determined that they enjoyed internet more than academic purposes reading. as mentioned above, students go online reading for relaxing more than acquiring academic information. lazonder, biermans, and wopereis (2018) determined that the electronic reading effectiveness may be varied as a function of individual variables in terms of learners' level of technological experience or their prior knowledge of the content area. the result defined the learners who are experts at technology usage were faster, more successful, more efficient, and more effective in the website location tasks. moreover, acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 3 learners' ability seems to be influenced to navigate through content, make choices among several document links, and understand content and information sources by prior knowledge. as a result, first-year students or low technology students seem to be difficult to read online most effectively. 2.2 research questions in order to determine what the students' attitudes toward online reading at utc2, and based on the literature review, previous studies, and the research problem, this research endeavors to answer the following questions so that it is to achieve the objectives of the study: a) what are the utc2 students’ attitudes toward online reading? b) what influences on utc2 students’ online reading in the era of technology 4.0? c) how do utc2 students read online materials most effectively? 3. methods 3.1 pedagogical setting & participants the covid19 pandemic seriously affects health and all living aspects. many schools, colleges, and universities have been closed. online reading is an appropriate way to widen learners' knowledge in the case of homeschooling as well as direct schooling. because of the covid 19 pandemic, the university of transport and communications (utc2) has boldly applied online learning to teaching activities to ensure knowledge for students during break time. hence, online reading has been required to enhance learners' information acquisition. however, there is a major important question in doubt: do the students show their positive attitudes toward online reading as well as does online reading offer any effectiveness and drawbacks for utc2 students? if yes, what is a good way for online reading? this research was employed to examine the students' attitudes toward online reading at utc2. the target population consisted of 200 students majoring in civil engineering, construction engineering, economics, mechanical engineering, and information technology. all participants use the internet and reader of online materials regularly. 3.2 design of the study this study was employed to examine the effects of online reading. to fulfil the objectives of the study, the qualitative approach is applied. a 3 likert questionnaire is designed to fulfill the objectives of the study. this questionnaire consists of three parts. the first part is demographic questions in terms of the name (optional), gender, major, and schooling year. the second part consists of questions used to investigate the effectiveness and drawbacks of online reading. the last part is several open questions relating to some effective online reading techniques applied by the students of utc2. to ensure the credibility of the questionnaire, a pilot study was conducted in advance. one interview meeting was carried out in the classroom after the questionnaire. 3.3 data collection & analysis a vietnamese questionnaire version was delivered to the classes by the co-workers. all participants were instructed clearly to answer the questions. participants were asked to fill in the questionnaire during the acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 4 lecture. 4. results/findings and discussion 4.1 respondent demographics according to figure1, 148 (74%) males and 52 (26%) females are included in the study. the students' ability in using the computer and technology is at a moderate level in general (76%) (figure 2). figure 1. respondents’ distribution according to gender figure 2. respondents’ distribution according to ability in using the technology table 1 below revealed the distribution of the students according to majors. as can be seen, 25% of the respondents are from civil engineering, respondents majoring in construction engineering are 24%, 20.5% from economics, 13.5% from mechanical engineering, and 17% from information technology. table 1. respondents’ distribution according to majors major frequency percentage civil engineering 50 25% construction engineering 48 24% economics 41 20.5% mechanical engineering 27 13.5% information technology 34 17% total 200 100% table 2 illustrated the respondents' schooling years. 33.5% are freshmen, and mostly 79 respondents (39.5%) are second-year ones. fifty-four respondents (27%) are the number of the third-year ones. male 74% female 26% gender 0 20 40 60 80 good moderate poor 21.5 76 2.5 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 5 table 2. respondents’ distribution according to schooling year frequency schooling year percentage 67 1st year 33.5% 79 2nd year 39.5% 54 3rd year 27% total 200 100% 4.2 results 4.2.1 spending time on online reading as far as online reading in table 3 showed, the majority of the respondents spend 1-2 hours a day on electronic reading. simultaneously, 36% identified they read more than 2 hours, and 22.5% spend less than 1-hour reading materials online. table 3. spending time on online reading spending time on online reading frequency percentage 30 min1 hour 45 22.5% 1-2 hours 83 41.5% more than 2 hours 72 36 % 4.2.2 students’ online reading behavior table 4. students’ online reading behavior online reading behavior frequency percentage direct read on the internet 97 48.5% download and read on the computer screen 63 31.5% download and print out then reading 40 20% as can be seen from table 4, the majority of 48.5% of respondents agreed that they directly read on the internet because their portable devices are connected to the internet, and it is easy to access information anywhere and anytime. 31.5% of participants first download information and then read it on a gadget or computer screen. the interview findings revealed why learners would like to download materials because of electricity failure and poor internet connections. 20% of respondents pointed out they download and print out materials than read them when they realize they need to read materials. 4.2.3 students’ online reading attitudes the 3 likert scale questionnaire in terms of agree, neutral, and disagree was designed to collect the data. as table 5 identified, most of the respondents admitted that online reading is an effective way to learn and relax. online materials improve their independent learning skills because it is easy for learners to access and retrieve any information through the internet. there is brief and concise information on any topic that can be getting from google. hyperlinks and related links about the topic provided help to understand and comprehend the topic, which helps to develop the topic's understanding. in addition, online materials give information about different subjects. currently, the internet makes it possible to connect the world easily. students are able to catch up with the latest information about social events as well as academic materials. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 6 furthermore, it could not deny that online reading is a relaxing way which is popular, especially for young learners. in general, most of the students show their positive attitudes toward online reading. table 5. students’ online reading attitudes questions frequency agreement percentage q5.1 online reading improves my independent learning skills. 178 89% q5.2 i can take information about field subjects. 180 90% q5.3 online reading makes it possible to connect the world. 200 100% q5.4 online reading enhances my ability to deliver lectures. 154 77% q5.5 online reading helps me to do research better due to online materials. 123 61.5% q5.6 when i read online, it is a good way to enhance my vocabulary, especially in english. 98 49% q5.7 online professional forum helps learners to get the latest information about my major. 134 67% q5.8 online reading helps me to relax and get information all the time in all places. 200 100% 4.2.4 online reading difficulties to find out the drawbacks of online reading, a questionnaire with a 3 likert scale was used to collect the data. all the students pointed out reading online gives them different values that depend on their different reading purposes. to get the information needed, students are expected to follow the reading purposes and close various entertainment online pages. the interview results and questionnaire clarified the students with good technology skills like information technology students can search information concisely and quickly. to fulfill online reading effectiveness, learners need to be well-prepared for gadgets or computers and ask their lecturers about available pages or online materials to read online more effectively and academically. table 6. online reading drawbacks questions frequency agreement percentage q6.1 i sometimes get hard because of electricity disruption and poor internet connection. 184 92% q6.2 i have some difficulty in finding out research/ academic materials. 175 87.5% q6.3 low technology is an obstacle to search for information concisely and quickly. 194 97% q6.4 i do not know academic information webpages. 89 44.5% q6.5 i am easy to be distracted because of numerous information/ webpages. 181 90.5% q6.6 wasting lots of time to read online if i do not have any purposes of reading. 156 78% 4.2.5 effective ways of online reading the findings in the interview revealed that in order for learners to read materials from the internet effectively, it requires learners to determine their purposes of reading. learners themselves should be autonomous with good independent learning skills. moreover, because of an amount of various information acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 7 from the internet, learners are expected to master precise webpages and concise information. as an instructor at school, he should give some suggestions of online materials relating to learners' majors or professions. one of the best ways to avoid being distracted when reading materials online is to close social network pages or even disconnecting wi-fi. 5. conclusion based on the results of the study, the following recommendations should be suggested. firstly, online reading in modern technology can be applied in campus-based activities as well as in e-learning. secondly, experiment studies for further comparisons between online reading effects and book-based reading should be conducted. furthermore, identifying other variables in terms of students' major, attitudes that may impact online reading effectiveness is recommended for further study. the study is conducted to find out the students’ attitudes toward online reading. the study results showed the students had positive attitudes toward online reading and clarified the effectiveness and drawbacks of online reading. however, this study has found that learners' purposes and technology skills impacted the online reading effectiveness. hence, to control such drawbacks as mentioned, learners should be autonomous in their independent learning skills and improve their technology skills. as a teacher, he has to select and introduce precise online webpages to his learners, especially freshmen. references akpokodje, v. (2016). evaluating the impact of ebook on reading motivation of students of higher learning in nigerian universities. colombus ifla. 2(3), 12-20. available: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/310452037_evaluating_the_impact_of_ebook_on_reading_mot ivation_of_students_of_higher_learning_in_nigerian_universities ajayi, s. adekunle & aboyyade. (2014). the influence of electronic resource use on students reading culture in nigerian universities. a case study of adeleke university ede, osun state. library philosophy and practice.23(2), 37-40. available: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/the-influence-ofelectronic-resources-use-on-in-a-ajayi shorunke/e6c3d2cf9720536687a36f9441ab4bf8b4a92da6 bhatia, r. p. (2011). features and effectiveness of e-learning tools. global journal of business management and information technology, 1(1), 1-7 liu, z. (2005). reading behaviour in the digital environment, changes in reading environment over the past ten years, journal of documentation, 2(12), 1-8, https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410510632040 loan, fayaz, a. (2012). impact of internet on reading habits of the net generation college students. journal of digital library services 9(1), 2-10. available: https://www.academia.edu/38326577/impact_of_internet_on_reading_habits_of_the_net_generation_colleg e_students mokhtari, kouider, reichard, carla a. & gardner, a. (2019). the impact of internet and television use on the reading habits and practices of college students. journal of adolescent & adult literacy, 52(7), 609-619. munira, n. a (2018). impact of online reading on skills of professionals. library philosophy and practice e journal. 3(1), 9-14 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/310452037_evaluating_the_impact_of_ebook_on_reading_motivation_of_students_of_higher_learning_in_nigerian_universities https://www.researchgate.net/publication/310452037_evaluating_the_impact_of_ebook_on_reading_motivation_of_students_of_higher_learning_in_nigerian_universities https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/the-influence-of-electronic-resources-use-on-in-a-ajayi-%20shorunke/e6c3d2cf9720536687a36f9441ab4bf8b4a92da6 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/the-influence-of-electronic-resources-use-on-in-a-ajayi-%20shorunke/e6c3d2cf9720536687a36f9441ab4bf8b4a92da6 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/the-influence-of-electronic-resources-use-on-in-a-ajayi-%20shorunke/e6c3d2cf9720536687a36f9441ab4bf8b4a92da6 https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410510632040 https://www.academia.edu/38326577/impact_of_internet_on_reading_habits_of_the_net_generation_college_students https://www.academia.edu/38326577/impact_of_internet_on_reading_habits_of_the_net_generation_college_students acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 8 verma, jyoti, & malviya, v. (2010). the impact of internet and digital media on reading habit. international journal of digital library services, 27(2), 23-50. available: https://fr.scribd.com/document/426763853/01the-impact-internet-and-digital-media-on-reading-habit-1 biodata currently, bui thi nga is a teacher at university of transport and communications in hcmc, vietnam (utc2). to be honest, she is in charge of teaching english for students following the program of cefr, so her best teaching skills are speaking and listening. at the university, she has just done several minor research studies on teaching english for non-majored english students so far and she takes up doing this study for the first time this year. https://fr.scribd.com/document/426763853/01-the-impact-internet-and-digital-media-on-reading-habit-1 https://fr.scribd.com/document/426763853/01-the-impact-internet-and-digital-media-on-reading-habit-1 interactive web-based learning of corpus-generated phrases dougal graham & christopher osment asiacall online journal vol. 9 (2014) | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a1 interactive web-based learning of corpus-generated phrases dougal graham christopher osment king mongkut’s university of technology thonburi, thailand corresponding author: dougal.gra@kmutt.ac.th submitted 30 january, 2014; accepted in final form 15 may, 2014 abstract this article will review the development of a partially-automated online teaching system developed to help intermediate-level engineering students learn appropriate english phrases in an english as a foreign language (efl) environment. the corpus contains approximately 1.2 million words. rather than focusing solely on keywords, these materials highlight useful collocations, and genre specific uses of common words and phrases. the online interactive materials are able to generate a relatively large number of unique exercises for students. these exercise allow students to not only practice content that they have previously learned, but in fact to learn new material that they have not previously studied. in this way, the materials can be used either by students alone, or i n conjunction with in-class use of the paper-based materials. keywords: corpus, english for specific purposes, online, data-driven learning, formulaic language introduction a large body of research has demonstrated the importance of formulaic language (collocations, formulaic phrases, multi-word units, lexical bundles, etc.) in the production and comprehension of fluent natural language. schmitt (2010, pp. 117–120, 142) and others (nattinger & decarrico, 2009) explain that formulaic language is important for conveying routine meanings, lexicalising various functions, social functions, discourse organization, and precise information transfer as well as promoting fluency and biber (2007; 2004)’s lexical bundles focus on the use of formulaic language for discourse and pragmatic functions. formulaic language also brings cognitive processing benefits as it is easier and faster to process and generate once learned than non-formulaic expressions and increases retention of content (tremblay, derwing, libben, & westbury, 2011) compared to incorrect use of formulaic language which increases processing demands (millar, 2011). formulaic language, then, has clear benefits for english as a second or foreign language learners. if a learner can master even some formulaic language, it will greatly increase their ability to both produce and comprehend language quickly and easily, resulting in greater fluency, comprehension and comprehensibility. this language is also useful for learners in an english for specific purposes (esp) context. formulaic language differs between registers (biber & barbieri, 2007) and contexts (conrad & biber, 2004) and knowing the correct formulaic language to use within a given community can not only help a speaker communicate clearly and effectively within the group, but also help the learner mark themselves as a member of the language community or show social solidarity (norbert schmitt, 2010, p. 10) increasing trust and social cohesion. when learning formulaic language, frequency of exposure, and frequency of use are the two most important factors in determining whether a learner will acquire a given piece of formulaic language or not (ellis et al., 2008; huang, wible, & ko, 2012). the result of the need for both repeated exposure and repeated use is then a focus on repetition and rote-learning style activities for the study of formulaic mailto:dougal.gra@kmutt.ac.th mailto:dougal.gra@kmutt.ac.th interactive web-based learning of corpus-generated phrases dougal graham & christopher osment asiacall online journal vol. 9 (2014) | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a2 language. for example, yu (2009) recommends explicit memorization as a method by which to improve student performance for formulaic language. similarly lewis (1997, p. 51) explains that many researchers recommend “meeting” a word at least seven distinct times in order to learn it properly, and one can reasonably imagine extending this concept to formulaic language. while such an approach may be useful for learners, it does have certain drawbacks. some of the drawbacks of a memorization, or rote-learning approach are time-consumption (swan, 2006), student demotivation and disengagement (bowen & marks, 1994, p. 101), and a focus on surface-level memorization, rather than understanding (biggs & moore, 1993, p. 215). bowen (1994) states that students often feel that memorization and rote learning tasks make the learning seem like a “difficult , even painful process”. such demotivation could lead to students who do not try, or feel that the effort to learn the language is not worthwhile. furthermore, focus only on the surface-level form of the structures, while ignoring their context and usage makes the target language more difficult to learn by ignoring valuable information about when the language is appropriate to use. an alternative to rote-learning is to take a data-driven learning (ddl) approach. ddl is an approach to language learning that focuses on using genuine language examples (data) as the core from which a student is then guided to “learn how to learn” the language (johns, 1991, p. 31) cited in (boulton, 2011). because of this focus on the student’s ability to learn for themselves, the direct access to the data, and the focus on induction (johns, 1991, p. 29, as cited in boulton, 2011), ddl can be considered to fall within the category of a student-centered approach to learning. a data-driven learning approach could be used to provide a student with the target language they need and are immediately interested in learning, couched within a variety of real contexts. this would then allow the student to learn and discover the formulaic language inductively and within its appropriate context, rather than in a decontextualized rote manner. this paper will present an alternative automated approach to the teaching of formulaic language in an esp setting which avoids the problems associated with rote learning. this project makes up the corpus-based engineering english materials (ceem) website which is available at (http://crs2.kmutt.ac.th/ceem). we will first outline our general theoretical principles for the creation of the ceem materials following which we will give a brief overview of some currently available materials, before finally giving a detailed discussion of our approach to the generation of materials. principles in an attempt to achieve the necessary repetition for the learning of formulaic language without resorting to rote learning, and keeping in line with the principles of ddl, we have determined five key principles to use in the development of our materials whose rationale we will discuss in more depth below. the first two principles are a direct attempt to avoid the issues with rote learning while the final 3 principles are more closely associated with ddl and a student-centered approach. the first principle is to avoid pure memorization, and the second to employ variation in the materials presented to students. this will help to prevent rote memorization as the exact context of presentation will be constantly varied and changing. the final three principles which fall under the rubric of a student-centered ddl approach are an attempt to foster student independence, the use of authentic language, and the fostering of self-motivation in the students. the goal of the third and fourth principles are to foster independence by creating materials usable either in or outside of the class with or without teacher support, and by presenting authentic language, to force the student away from a rote focus on the formulaic language unit as an entity separate from context and to instead see it within the context of the various texts within which it appears. the goal of the final principle is find ways to encourage students to take charge of their own learning and not be entirely dependent on the teacher or classroom as motivation for learning. http://crs2.kmutt.ac.th/ceem interactive web-based learning of corpus-generated phrases dougal graham & christopher osment asiacall online journal vol. 9 (2014) | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a3 independence in order to allow students greater freedom and self-direction, it is necessary that students be able to access the learning materials either in or out of class. that is to say they should encourage student independence and work equally well with or without a teacher's support. this implies the need for materials to be freely available online, and formatted such that they are equally useful and interesting on a personal computer, a notebook, a tablet, or a small smart phone. in this way, the materials can be accessed either outside of class, or within a classroom setting with additional teacher support. secondly, in order to foster true independent student-centred learning there must be choices available for students. we have taken this to imply the need for both a choice of multiple types of activities to suit a variety of learning goals and styles, as well as choice within each activity for the content that can be accessed. finally, we understand that not all students will be ready or able to immediately use these exercises. for that reason, we have developed complementary introductory exercises that teachers can employ in class. these exercises serve as both awareness-raising opportunities and a chance to practice useful language. once students have taken part in these activities with a teacher’s guidance they will be more ready to reinforce their new knowledge by independently taking part in the online activities which we have created. avoid pure memorization while frequent exposure is clearly necessary for the development of a powerful and useful vocabulary of formulaic language as discussed above, it does not necessarily entail that pure memorization is either sufficient for or necessary to the acquisition of formulaic language. an alternative approach is to ensure that the learner is actively engaged in the language, not only in reading it and looking for their own patterns and rules, but taking part in interactive activities which help to highlight important information and require active input and consideration from the user. these exercises can be used in conjunction with scaffolding to promote inductive learning of formulaic language, lexico-grammatical profiles or other concepts, and to ensure that students will be able to use these skills independently in the future. employ variation while variation helps to avoid pure memorization by exposing students to a variety of different contexts and situations for use, it also addresses the problem of over-structured exercises that occurs with rote learning. we propose that a useful source of exercises should produce a large number of different exercises for students with a low probability of a specific set of exercises being repeated. with most existing exercises, both online and paper-based materials, it is extremely difficult to avoid the explicit repetition of exercises and examples. some online activities such as flax (witten et al., 2013) which promotes language exploration, do employ significant amounts of variation by dynamically tapping into corpora. however, these activities do not actively help to foster a student's ability to recognize linguistic patterns, or to put into use the linguistic patterns that they may be able to recognize. moreover, the abundance of information that many corpora possess can be daunting to learners who are unfamiliar with using corpora for language learning. motivation finally, none of the above principles will be useful if students are uninterested in the activities presented. to address this issue, we believe that the activities and exercises should fall on a continuum from fun to challenging, and should incorporate aspects of gamification or educational games. gamification interactive web-based learning of corpus-generated phrases dougal graham & christopher osment asiacall online journal vol. 9 (2014) | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a4 (deterding et al., 2011) is the introduction of game-like aspects to what is traditionally not considered a game situation. this can be the introduction of scoring, comparative rankings, or other systems commonly used within the realm of games. these systems can, if used correctly, encourage repeated use, and provide a more relaxed approach to the use of the materials. the simplest and most useful type of gamification is the use of instantaneous feedback to let the user know how they are progressing, and/or to score them. this fits very well with the need to provide useful scaffolding to students as they progress through an activity. currently, the project only supports very loose gamification in the sense that it contains both educational games and a partially gamified set of exercises without any of the long-term scoring accumulation, heuristics, or directly competitive aspects of fully gamified applications. authentic language the use of authentic useful language is a key principle of ddl so it is necessary here to discuss our target audience, corpus, and general learning goals for the ceem project. this project is intended to serve the interests of first or second-year undergraduate students at engineering universities, especially in developing countries. the work is based upon a corpus of first-year english textbooks from a thai engineering university's “international programme”. work by several scholars (evans & green, 2007; nurweni & read, 1999) has found that students at such institutions often lack critical linguistic ability necessary for their academic studies, which are frequently entirely in english. students have great difficulty in comprehending both their textbooks and their exam questions, and given the importance of formulaic language, the teaching of formulaic language seems an appropriate starting point to address the issue of poor comprehension of basic instructional materials. in order to create exercises using meaningful in-context examples of engineering english that students could expect to encounter in their academic studies, the engineering english corpus (eec) was created using, on average, 45,000 word representative samples from each of the textbooks that the students would be using during their course of study in the international programme. these samples included sections from each chapter and from a variety of styles of writing, from explanations to practice exercises and questions. the books were digitized, and adobe acrobat's optical character recognition software was used to translate the files to text format. the final corpus comprises 29 textbooks and approximately 1.15 million words of text (see appendices for full details of corpus composition). there are many theoretical approaches to formulaic language. we have not discussed them in much detail as they are not the primary focus of this paper, but they do bear mentioning in order to make clear what our learning goals were in the development of the ceem project. approaches to formulaic language range from solely frequency based lists, such as biber's (2007; 2004) lexical bundles, to general formulaic language described in the phrasal expressions list (martinez & schmitt, 2012), comparative eap studies such as the academic formulas list (simpson-vlach & ellis, 2010), to gapped phrase approaches such as phrase-frames (fletcher, 2011), or concgrams (cheng, greaves, & warren, 2006). for the purpose of this work, we have focused on high-frequency four-word sequences, which either do not frequently occur in other contexts or, in the context of engineering english, have different lexico-grammatical profiles. we have taken a partially intuitive approach, to this task. this approach will be outlined in detail below. currently available materials generally, there are two types of ddl materials that are currently available online : “discovery materials” or “testing materials”. discovery materials are almost completely unstructured and are designed only to facilitate a learner's ability to locate useful corpus data with which to inform their language use. for example, flax and the compleat lexical tutor (cobb, 2013) focus primarily on allowing students to access concordance lines that might be useful to them, either by writing and searching for a word about interactive web-based learning of corpus-generated phrases dougal graham & christopher osment asiacall online journal vol. 9 (2014) | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a5 which they are unsure, or by choosing words from a word list. such materials are useful to advanced learners who know what they want to study and learn, but they may not provide enough guidance for lower level learners. testing materials, on the other hand, test a student's knowledge and provide instant feedback, at least partially meeting our criteria for motivation. ideally, they also incorporate some sort of scaffolding to enable learning throughout the testing process. the lexical tutor site contains a set of exercises that test collocational knowledge comprising approximately 30 items. the collocation tests are interesting in that students are provided with scaffolding in the form of concordance lines from which to induce a correct answer. such materials then, meet our requirements for authentic language, self-motivation, and independence, but they are unchanging and do not contain sufficient variation for a learner to be able to practice difficult language on more than one occasion. the powerful flax tool allows teachers to quickly and easily generate activities for students from given readings and articles, however, as a tool which works on a single text, it is unclear whether these activities will lead to useful generalizable language rules for students. this pattern of many small sets of materials which are useful, but not fully meeting our requirements demonstrates the need to look for easier ways of creating reusable and automatically variable materials, rather than attempting to create a large number of static non-reusable exercises. creation of materials using the eec described above, the engineering word list (ewl) was created. the ewl, which can be accessed online at http://crs2.kmutt.ac.th/ceem/ewl was created using a combination of an empirical and intuitive approach. first, a raw word list was created using the antconc concordancing application (anthony, 2013). the list was restricted to words occurring in at least 10 textbooks, or in one of the core textbooks (physics or calculus) used by all departments for their engineering students. this list was sorted from highest to lowest frequency words, and was then triaged by removing non-content words including determiners, prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns, and single-character symbols used in various mathematical formulae. for a sample comparison of the ten most frequent words in the corpus as a whole compared with the ten most frequent words in the ewl, please see table 1 below. table 1: ten most common words in the eec and the ewl rank in eec eec raw frequency rank in eec ewl 1 the 5 is 2 of 10 are 3 a 11 be 4 and 34 have 5 is 41 used 6 to 45 figure 7 in 48 system 8 that 52 force 9 for 54 use 10 are 56 energy following the triage, the words were organized into 418 word family groups, containing the top 1,416 content words. this list was examined intuitively in order to locate 12 highly frequent words showing http://crs2.kmutt.ac.th/ceem/ewl interactive web-based learning of corpus-generated phrases dougal graham & christopher osment asiacall online journal vol. 9 (2014) | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a6 significant variation from standard usage to use a starting point for the creation of exercises with the goal of eventually producing exercises for all the words on the list. these words are: applied, based, common, consider, defined, difference, done, equal, following, given, have, and how. for each word, two or three of the most common 4-word mwus (phrases) containing that word were selected from the corpus as exemplifying engineering-specific language that was likely to cause difficulties for the students. phrases were selected not on the basis of non-standard lexis, but on the basis of non-standard lexicogrammatical profiles. a phrase such as “a bipartite graph” is relatively common in the data (ll 53.24 vs. bnc), however it exemplifies a technical term which will certainly be covered in the course of their regular lectures. the interesting and useful phrases for the students will be ones that contain everyday common words, but that use them in ways that the students are not familiar with such as “is defined to be”. students are all generally familiar with the individual words in this phrase, but unfamiliar with the use of them together in this ordering and to achieve this function. these phrases, and their genuine contexts from the corpus were used to generate random ddl exercises for the students. explanation of ceem materials this section will contain an in-depth description of the goals for each of the four types of exercises that are currently available from the ceem project website including materials available for teachers' use. first we will discuss the in-class activities, then we will describe the three current on-line activities: sight words, hangman, and the phrase challenge. it is important to keep in mind that these materials are intended to be holistic and incremental. while the primary activity does in fact take into account all the principles that we have discussed above, some of the introductory exercises do not. these issues and the reasons for our decisions will be discussed below. in-class exercises the printable in-class exercises (available at http://crs2.kmutt.ac.th/ceem/teacher/exercises) are based on the 1,000 most frequent vocabulary from the ewl. as such, they adhere to our principle of using genuine language in that they are words which students will definitely encounter frequently throughout their studies, and in addition, the exercises use genuine sentence-length excerpts from their texts. these exercises have three main pedagogic goals which are to teach collocations, to contrast apparent synonyms, and to raise learners' awareness of these concepts and of skills necessary to make these inferences on their own from natural language. it is necessary to clarify the place of these exercises within the context of ceem. these exercises, as classroom-based, printable exercises are neither highly varied (and are clearly single-use), nor particularly student-centered. however, the purpose of these exercises is to raise a student’s awareness of corpusbased approaches to learning, and to provide them a chance to learn basic skills for inducing usage from real-world examples. these exercises are particularly intended for lower level learners who may not have as much language learning experience as a more advanced student. these exercises take collocations into consideration by trying to asking students to utilize noticing so that students will become aware of common collocations in engineering writing. we begin with simple collocations but also note that some of them can build up into a longer multi-word units. as well, there are exercises that contrast apparent synonyms. students are often unaware of how apparent synonyms frequently have significantly different usage patterns. these types of exercises are meant to foster an understanding in students that even though two words may have synonymous meanings, the usage of such words can be quite different. comparisons of apparent synonyms show that their actual http://crs2.kmutt.ac.th/ceem/teacher/exercises interactive web-based learning of corpus-generated phrases dougal graham & christopher osment asiacall online journal vol. 9 (2014) | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a7 usage is quite different, and these exercises help students to see those differences. for example, “make” and “create” appear to many students to be completely synonymous, however, in our data “create” is often used when discussing data modelling or mathematics as in the sentence fragment “…and the capability to create complex geometries…” while “make” is more often used with the creation of a physical entity or to communicate how to do something as in “to make your drawings clear and easy to read”. awareness raising is an important element in our exercises. these exercises raise students' awareness of the above concepts and help them to develop the tools to learn more efficiently in future study. they give the students access to a variety of examples from real usage and try to ask questions which will lead the students to draw inferences about the words and how they are used in natural language. on-line exercises: sight words the “sight words” activity is an online low-demand game-like reading practice exercise. while the primary focus of the ceem activities is the teaching of phrases, it is important for students to be aware of the highly frequent words in the language they are reading, and then to make the connection between those words, and their usage in phrases. by given students a chance to focus only on words, before seeing those words in the context of phrases, we hope that we will help to raise a student’s awareness that words are not used in isolation, and to build incrementally from a small simple activity, to a more complex one, as will be described below. in this activity, students choose between three and six words, which they would like to practice. these words have been chosen from among the most frequent words in the ewl. this activity attempts to develop automaticity (logan, 1985) in student reading to improve reading speed and proficiency. proficient readers are able to distinguish words more quickly and efficiently than beginner readers who must explicitly sound out the spelling in their heads as they go (biggs & moore, 1993, p. 341). the goal of this activity is three-fold: firstly, it aims to increase student awareness of some of the most frequent words in the corpus, secondly it aims to help increase reading speed by helping students develop automaticity in recognition of the target words, and thirdly it is meant to be a fun and engaging activity to help students become engaged with the material. student autonomy is promoted by asking students to choose which words they would like to practice. they are also given the option to randomly select a set of words. as can be seen in figure 1, the activity presents students with a countdown timer incremented by two and a half seconds for each word. a target word is shown in the top center of the screen above the timer. upon clicking the “start” button, students are presented with a grid containing six buttons. one button contains the target word, and the 5 other contain similarly spelled words and non-words. the student must select the correct word from the grid as quickly as possible. the timer is not fixed per word, but per game session, so that if one word takes slightly longer, but another less time, the student will still be able to complete the activity in the time allotted. when a potential answer is selected, the countdown timer stops, and the student is presented with feedback displaying the correct answer if their answer was incorrect (see figure 1, below). interactive web-based learning of corpus-generated phrases dougal graham & christopher osment asiacall online journal vol. 9 (2014) | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a8 figure 1: sight words activity with incorrect word darkened and correct word lightened as students progress through the activity, a coloured wheel in the top-left hand side of the screen displays their score, and at the end of the activity they are given a full feedback report detailing which words took the longest for them to find, and which they answered incorrectly allowing them to note those words need further practice. this activity meets our general criteria described in the first section in that it is classroom-agnostic (online), it is not focused on pure memorization, but rather on exposure, it fosters self-motivation through immediate direct feedback and scoring, and it employs variation in both presentation and content. the variation in this activity warrants some brief clarification. firstly, the six tiles are randomized, to ensure that the presentation is not predictable. secondly, the list of five similarly spelled words is selected at random from the top twelve similarly spelled words for a given target word, ensuring that the student will be presented with a novel experience each time the game is played. on-line exercises: hangman hangman is a classic educational tool used to practice spelling, create an environment for repeated exposure and to foster motivation through game-like aspects. in the ceem project website, we use this familiar activity not only for the purposes just mentioned but also to raise students' awareness of formulaic language sequences as single units. rather than presenting words for students to spell, they are presented with four word phrases. as discussed earlier, these phrases were chosen because they contain the core ewl words that we are taking as our focal points for the activities. these phrases then also allow the students to see that these words (which they have practised in the sight words activity) do not occur on their own, but as part of larger units. this again reinforces those words through another exposure vector, this time with greater context. again, this is a fun activity, which, although it is unscored, certainly contains game-like elements to increase student interest. on-line exercises: phrase challenge the final activity developed for students is significantly more challenging than the two previous activities described. as with the sight words activity, students are prompted to choose words that they would like to learn more about; however, in this case, 2-3 phrases are selected that contain each word. the students are then presented with a series of gapped sentences on the left side of their screen and a list of phrases on the right as shown in figure 2. interactive web-based learning of corpus-generated phrases dougal graham & christopher osment asiacall online journal vol. 9 (2014) | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a9 figure 2: phrase challenge activity with gapped sentences and possible answers the student then has a maximum of three attempts to match the phrases with the sentences via drag and drop. after each of the first two attempts, error correction scaffolding is presented to the student alongside their errors. for the first failed attempt, the student will be presented with three sample sentences containing each phrase (figure 3). the student is encouraged to try to find a pattern in the examples. figure 3: first round of scaffolding in the phrase challenge: example sentences if, after a second attempt, the student is still experiencing difficulty, an example partial lexicogrammatical profile is presented to the student (figure 4). the student is also presented with 3 more example sentences to examine. interactive web-based learning of corpus-generated phrases dougal graham & christopher osment asiacall online journal vol. 9 (2014) | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a10 figure 4: second round of scaffolding with a “pattern” for the phrase this scaffolding is intended to serve two purposes. in the first example, it gives context with which learners can begin to attempt to induce a pattern of usage (lexico-grammatical profile) for the phrase in question. however, since some students may not be aware of what a lexico-grammatical profile is, or how to find one, the second type of scaffolding is provided to raise learner awareness of some possible types of patterns, which they can identify for the phrases. in order to promote variation, the gapped sentences are randomly selected from the database. this combined with user selection of words and the number of sentences stored for each phrase and a randomized sentence ordering provides an astonishing number of possible exercises for students. there are 12 words per section, of which 3 are chosen to generate phrases, resulting in 220 different combinations of phrases that one can study per section. each word is associated with from 1-4 useful phrases averaging ~2.16 phrases per word. within each of the 220 combinations of approximately 7 phrases, each phrase is randomly associated with 2 sentences resulting in ~1.9 x 1014 possible exercises. of course, a student would likely notice some repetition well before attempting use of the exercises that many times, but it should be sufficient for 3-5 attempts distributed over some time, especially if the student varies their target words. conclusion the teaching and studying of formulaic language is an important consideration in language teaching. the findings of corpora from the last twenty years have brought its existence in a variety of genres clearly into view. educators need to address the teaching of formulaic language. simply teaching lexical lists based on frequency counts is not enough. moreover, with the recognition that learning does not necessarily require a classroom, especially with language, the idea of making materials easily available to learners online is vital. this is particularly true for younger learners who have grown up along with the internet and for mature learners who may not have time to attend traditional classes, but retain a need and desire to learn a language. despite the development of improved and versatile features on the internet, many online learning materials still tend to lack interactivity and randomness. if we as educators wish to truly motivate and engage our students, then we needed to design language materials that harness this interactivity and randomness. furthermore, the usage of randomness better models the actual variety that students encounter when they read. interactive web-based learning of corpus-generated phrases dougal graham & christopher osment asiacall online journal vol. 9 (2014) | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a11 references anthony, l. (2013). antconc (version 3.3.5w). tokyo, japan: waseda university. retrieved from http://www.antlab.sci.waseda.ac.jp/ biber, d., & barbieri, f. (2007). lexical bundles in university spoken and written registers. english for specific purposes, 26(3), 263–286. doi:10.1016/j.esp.2006.08.003. biggs, j., b., & moore, p., j. (1993). the process of learning (third edition.). prentice hall of australia. boulton, a. (2011). data-driven learning: the perpetual enigma. explorations across languages and corpora, 563–580. bowen, t., & marks, j. (1994). inside teaching. heinemann. cheng, w., greaves, c., & warren, m. (2006). from n-gram to skipgram to concgram. international journal of corpus linguistics, 11(4), 411–433. cobb, t. (2013). compleat lexical tutor (version 6.2). retrieved from http://www.lextutor.ca/ conrad, s., & biber, d. (2004). the frequency and use of lexical bundles in conversation and academic prose. lexicographica, 20, 56–71. deterding, s., dixon, d., khaled, r., & nacke, l. (2011). from game design elements to gamefulness: defining gamification. in proceedings of the 15th international academic mindtrek conference: envisioning future media environments (pp. 9–15). retrieved from http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2181040 ellis, n. c., simpson-vlach, r., & maynard, c. (2008). formulaic language in native and secondlanguage speakers: psycholinguistics, corpus linguistics and tesol. tesol quarterly, 42(3), 375–396. doi:10.1002/j.1545-7249.2008.tb00137.x evans, s., & green, c. (2007). why eap is necessary: a survey of hong kong tertiary students. english for academic purposes, 6(1), 3–17. fletcher, w., h. (2011). phrases in english. retrieved from http://phrasesinenglish.org/ huang, p.-y., wible, d., & ko, h.-w. (2012). frequency effects and transitional probabilities in l1 and l2 speakers’ processing of multiword expressions. in s. t. gries & d. divjak (eds.), frequency effects in language learning and processing (pp. 145–176). de gruyter mouton. johns, t. (1991). from printout to handout: grammar and vocabulary teaching in the context of datadriven learning. in t. johns & p. king (eds.), classroom concordancing (pp. 27–45). english language research journal (as cited in boulton, 2011). lewis, m. (1997). implementing the lexical approach: putting theory into practice. logan, g. d. (1985). skill and automaticity: relations, implications, and future directions. canadian journal of psychology/revue canadienne de psychologie, 39(2), 367. martinez, r., & schmitt, n. (2012). a phrasal expressions list. applied linguistics, 33(3), 299–320. millar, n. (2011). the processing of malformed formulaic language. applied linguistics, 32(2), 129– 148. nattinger, j., r., & decarrico, j., s. (2009). lexical phrases and language teaching. oxford university press. norbert schmitt. (2010). researching vocabulary: a vocabulary research manual. palgrave macmillan. nurweni, a., & read, j. (1999). the english language knowledge of indonesian university students. english for specific purposes, 18(2), 161–175. simpson-vlach, r., & ellis, n. c. (2010). an academic formulas list: new methods in phraseology research. applied linguistics, 31(4), 487–512. doi:10.1093/applin/amp058 swan, m. (2006). chunks in the classroom: let’s not go overboard. the teacher trainer journal, 20(3), 5–6. tremblay, a., derwing, b., libben, g., & westbury, c. (2011). processing advantages of lexical bundles: evidence from self-paced reading and sentence recall tasks. language learning, 61(2), 569–613. interactive web-based learning of corpus-generated phrases dougal graham & christopher osment asiacall online journal vol. 9 (2014) | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a12 witten, i., brine, j., finch, l., franken, m., johnson, m., te taka, wu, s, et al. (2013). flax: interactive language learning (version 2.6). university of waikato. retrieved from http://flax.nzdl.org/ yu, x. (2009). a formal criterion for identifying lexical phrases: implication from a classroom experiment. system, 37(4), 689–699. interactive web-based learning of corpus-generated phrases dougal graham & christopher osment asiacall online journal vol. 9 (2014) | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a13 appendices appendix 1: disciplines included in the ceem corpus appendix 2: textbooks of the ceem corpus by subject and number of words included textbook subject # of words 1. biology 42,857 2. c++ 50,103 3. calculus 59,326 4. chemical engineering 46,509 5. chemistry 45,350 6. database 52,811 7. data structure 35,789 8. discrete mathematics 50,991 9. circuits and circuit analysis 34,585 10. engineering materials 53,426 11. engineering programming 29,165 12. environmental pollution 34,235 13. environmental engineering 40,861 14. fluid mechanics 39,138 15. hydraulic fluids 42,174 16. java 28,049 17. manufacturing processes 61,837 18. material and energy balance 21,950 19. mechanical solids 26,501 20. physics 88,978 21. statics and dynamics 50,302 22. statics 36,888 23. structural analysis 36,826 24. surveying 48,353 25. technical drawing 69,228 26. thermodynamics 54,149 27. wastewater management 24,144 total 1,204,525 disciplines included in eec civil engineering mechatronics mechanical engineering computer engineering chemical engineering environmental engineering electrical engineering materials engineering production engineering tool engineering control systems and instrumentation electronics and telecommunication asiacall online journal received: 30/12/2020 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 20/01/2021 vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 accepted: 2/02/2021 pp. 72-86 online: 06/02/2021 72 the need of applying english learning apps to help van lang university students improve their spoken english performance luu le phuong thanh1,* nguyen thi ngoc qui1, vo nguyen thai thanh1, nguyen minh the hung1 1 van lang university *corresponding author. email: thanh.187na00611@vanlanguni.vn abstract nowadays, the cutting edge of technology in ai has made many language learning apps available to assist learners. english, the current lingua franca, has focused on many language learning app developments. numerous studies have examined the benefits and limitations of some english learning apps. evidence from the studies shows that userfriendly displays and a wide variety of topics from the apps have helped learners gain competencies in english overall. however, not many studies examine these apps' effectiveness in developing english-speaking competence. with the attempt to shed more light on this gap, the researchers focus on analyzing the use of some english learning apps to improve students' speaking skills within van lang university's scope. to collect data for the research, 20 open-ended questionnaires and 10 semi-structured interview questions were distributed with the random sampling method to 400 students from van lang university in 04 majors, which require good english-speaking skills. the result shows that elsa speak, duolingo, and bbc learning english are the most famous apps for learning english speaking skills with high effectiveness levels. keywords: spoken performance, software, learning apps, speaking ability, english learning 1. introduction 1.1. overall according to adminz [1], living within the new era has been associating with recent technology's flourishing; it is necessary to take advantage of technology to apply in all of the human aspects and bring great benefits to life. technology is like a 'leading arrow' that every field wants to possess to advance itself, whether in economics, politics, or education. duc [2] claims that technology is a big contributor to the developments in many fields, especially in education. the advent of technology has led to significant changes in the teaching methods around the world, and it has done so too vietnam. in the process of acquiring and integrating, technology has brought education closer to the world's civilization, especially languages [3]. tran & nguyen [4] emphasize that language is a factor that brings every nation around the world together and is also one of the many factors determining success and development in economic, cultural, and social fields. education is vietnam's frontline national policy [5]. recognizing the importance and benefits of languages in education and economics, vietnam has taken advantage of technology to equip and renew the language teaching methods [5]. cfl [6] proves that english is the world's second international language and it has been used globally. therefore, vietnamese current education policies focus on english teaching to equip the nation's human resources [7]. according to the japan international cooperation agency [8], vietnam has been receiving a tremendous source of investments from many developed countries and is developing rapidly to be one of the new gems in southeast asia. within that context, high levels of english proficiency focus on helping vietnam adapt to the global interconnectedness and create opportunities for the labor resources [9]. according to huynh [10], of all different aspects of english, speaking skills are still the main tools in many situations. therefore, people who can communicate in english well will usually receive respect and admiration. in simple real-life situations like when applying for jobs or complicated situations when signing contracts and communicating with partners, companies always focus on people with english speaking ability. erin [11] clarifies that considering in all aspects, from culture, society, economy to politics in the age of adaptation and integration, mastering english speaking skills is an urgent issue that requires attentive attention to equip people for their career development. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 73 1.2. statement of the problem erin [11] argues that learning english is vital for adolescents in viet nam. according to phan [12], companies are always appreciated by companies, offered a well-paying job, and have advancement prospects in their careers as long as they can speak english. with the realization of the important role of english in a person's career development and the development of a nation, many universities in vietnam have changed their teaching english approaches, and van lang university is one among those. with a deep awareness of the importance of learning foreign languages, especially in learning english, van lang university (vlu) has kept on investing and developing the teaching resources to equip its students with a good level of english after graduation. vlu holds annual language proficiency exams for the new students that contribute to the classification and correct assessment of students' ability to use english and provides e-learning labs to create modern learning environments for students [13]. tue [14] argues that vlu students carry a strong spirit in learning and improving their english skills. to gain that good reputation, there are a lot of non-stop and collaborative efforts behind to fuel the students' spirit. one of the main efforts is that vlu has kept expanding its recruitment to have a qualified and dedicated teaching staff. next, vlu has set up a clear output for the 26th classes and onwards to achieve the band-score ielts 6.0 before graduation. moreover, the foreign languages faculty has had many different joined programs in training and teaching for vlu students and staff, and the memorandum of understanding with the british council is the significant one [15]. although there have been concerted efforts and substantial investments to english teaching, from facilities to programs, vlu students are not completely satisfied with the current teaching methods (the conclusion is drawn upon a quick survey from the researchers and is confirmed later by the statistics from the surveys). students expect to have more modern technology applications to the traditional teaching and learning setting to help them improve their speaking skills in english effectively and efficiently. 1.3. purpose of the study the purpose of the study is twofold. first, the research illustrates which english-speaking learning apps available on the market nowadays that vlu students know and use. this section is an important component of the study as it will help the researchers to acknowledge which english-speaking learning apps are popular to vlu students. second, the study assesses the effectiveness of these learning apps on the students. this second component is to help the researchers gain in-depth information about the features and utilities of the apps. particularly, the researchers expect that if the level of effectiveness is high among the available apps, there will be some key factors that help vlu students engage with the apps. the study aims to show the feasibility of the needs of applying software to the current english-speaking teaching method of van lang university. the researchers analyze data from 400 students at van lang university and use both quantitative and qualitative methods to respond to two research questions. the independent variables and the intervening variables will be statistically controlled in the study. 1.4. significance of the study it is self-evident that with the rise of ai and learning apps in many subjects, and in english especially, using technology gadgets to support learning is no longer unfamiliar to learners. thus, the findings from the study are to demonstrate the roles and benefits of applying english learning apps to the traditional classroom in vlu. particularly, the study argues that despite the efforts of equipping learning and teaching facilities, e.g., projectors, tvs, and computers, there is a real expectation from students to vlu in innovating the english teaching methods through embedding learning apps in the classroom. besides the illustration of the usefulness of english learning apps to vlu students, an implication is drawn from the study. the approach of using learning apps is mutually beneficial to many parties. suppose vlu considers equipping learning apps in learning and teaching. in that case, it helps its students learn better, and its staff teaches better, but it also helps to build up the reputation of the school – a place where innovative actions in teaching are flourished. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 74 2. literature review 2.1. theoretical concepts this literature review examines the impacts of software and apps in education. the review particularly focuses on how software and learning apps generate benefits to students in learning english. according to lai [16], nowadays, technology plays an important role that can satisfy the entire learning ecosystem. technology is expected to enhance language both inside and outside the classroom, without any restrictions. generally, with the diverse application ecosystem, digitization of education has strongly innovative pedagogy, and it will help teachers eliminate a pile of unnamed work [17]. furthermore, ramya and madhumathi [18] claim that mobile technology has now represented an educational revolution. the teaching method and learning process have been supported by wi-fi gadgets and many other devices, which have taken them to a new level thanks to the integration of mobile devices into education in recent days. moreover, heba [19] clarifies that innovation has been utilized as a procedure to move forward learning and educating strategies by technology. in like manner, software applications have been implemented broadly in learning the second language since smartphones and tablets are accessible most of the time. ramya and madhumathi [18] suggest that mobile apps are software applications that can simply be downloaded from your phone's operating system. some of them are free, while some others require a subscription. agnes [20] argues that mobile learning apps are similar to learning software running on a pc, but some of the mobile ones may have some limitations. research by mpine and thulile [21] reveals that in the field of language learning, mobile apps become a ‘place’ where users can learn and practice languages anywhere at any time whenever they want. research by rao [22] proves that nowadays, anything which links to good english and good speaking skills is a passport for greater career prospects. since english has become an international language and is widely used worldwide, there is a need for learners to improve communication skills to be successful in their respective fields [23]. according to kusmaryani et al. [24], the software offers many features, such as instant communication via social media, video player, voice recording, etc. these elements can be incorporated effectively into teaching and learning english-speaking skills. sharing the same opinion, richard [25] claims that software application is implemented in different tasks such as visual or auditory learning and play an effective support tool for students to improve their english communication ability. also, liu and he [26] emphasize that students continuously overcome their linguistic limitations during the progress of using certain apps to practice english-speaking skills and happily communicate their thoughts and ideas. that is why cae team [27] has drawn the inference that taking advantage of technology makes students feel free to practice language and have the motivation to enhance their english-speaking skills by using devices and mobile features like voice recognition, multimedia tasks, etc. software application helps students immerse themselves in learning a language and enrich their linguistic knowledge. as a result, students are more active in speaking english naturally and fluently. 2.2. previous research studies ahmadi [28] study illustrates the benefits and advantages of technology in many different aspects that teachers should recognize in developing learners' learning language skills. the paper shows that learners should use technology to reinforce their language skills because language plays an important role in expanding learners' creativity, promotes learners' autonomy, and helps them feel more flexible in using language. another aspect of this study is the supplement to the lack of interaction between teachers and learners, which provides comprehensible input and output. therefore, teaching and learning have become smoother since then. parveen [29] conducted research on speaking skills to consider it a crucial skill for learning a language. the findings obtained from this study revealed that students would be judged based on their speaking performance in reallife situations. therefore, the learners have to be excellent in english speaking ability. the study suggests that technologies should be introduced to teaching english in classrooms and help and encourage the playfulness of learners in different ways. based on that statement, the author figures out some modern technologies available in education today (such as speech recognition software, video library, communication lab) to upgrade the effectiveness that delivering a practical environment in speaking skills. another study was done by mustafa [30] on using modern apps related to daily requirements such as youtube, skype, whatsapp also help to fulfill the lack of the target language. the researcher also states that both education apps and social networking can boost students' oral speech skills. for example, youtube is famous for being a free-access app that allows users to upload various fields from over the world, and english subtitle is the most common language acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 75 in videos. as a consequence, viewers are more likely to absorb language without being forced. hence, technology becomes a vital part of the learning speaking process. research by farman [31] reveals that the "learn to speak english", a software used for practicing speaking english has made a significant improvement in students' english–speaking skill development and their interest in it. the researcher set up a study that applied the quasi-experimental method using two groups' pretest-posttest to make this theory more reliable. this study's population is the third year of english department classes with 320 students. the results of this study indicated that this app had the ability to improve students' interest in the process of study english-speaking skills. most of them desired the application of this app as a teaching method because of its efficacy in creating motivation in learning speaking. riswandi's [32] framework of the study also emphasizes that the implementation of youtube-based videos in teaching speaking can improve the students’ speaking skills and motivation. to investigate the utilization of youtube-based videos in teaching and learning, a qualitative approach using an action research (ar) method was employed during this study. the findings conclude that the learners were actively involved in learning activities and had high motivation to utilize youtube-based videos within the speaking class. the other finding of this study clarified some aspects of students' fluency, vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, and content. millrood [33] carried out a study in tambov state technical university that designed the learning environment for learners, particularly in constructing a discussion of what students read in a text. the researcher used the "cognitive dissonance" technology, which was first implemented to stimulate participants' oral speech activity in communication. the second technology is the "information gap" which enhanced learners' critical thinking and boosting the effects of decision making. and the final technology used in the study was "logical impasse" with the aim of discovering opposing views, barriers, or blocking in students' flow of logic after boosted decision-making results of structured proved that participants had a significant to discover thoughts and speech activities in the experimental lessons. ratnaningsih et al. [34] performed a study, the call (computer assisted language learning) media has created many benefits in discussion method and lecturing for englishspeaking skill. to justify the theory, the researchers have created quantitative research using an experimental design, the population of this study were the 50 cadets of politeknik pelayaran the surabaya; all of them were studying esp maritime english. the finding indicated that english-speaking skills in both the discussion group and the lecture group kept on increasing with such a significant level. in another study, kusmaryani et al. [35] claim that we can extract lots of benefits from mobile devices like web browsing, social media, etc. these benefits can become useful in both teaching and learning, which greatly influence all fields of education. and to make this information more valid, the wilcoxon signed ranks test, which was used to determine differences in the two pair sample of their study, has been used by the researchers to evaluate the students' englishspeaking skills. this study's population was 38 students in speaking class at the english department of borneo university tarakan indonesia. ultimately, all of these students have developed their speaking skills after a period of time using mobile applications as learning assistance. however, the participants were still inadequate to demonstrate this research's effectiveness. a research study by baniabdelrahman [36] used a previously built website, adding a replacement blog page that's secured with a password that gives the experiment to 2 groups that have an identical background. this paper's results, the shared diary method, had a positive side and a better effect on the scholars speaking skill than what the normal method had. using online "shared dairies" offers the scholars chance to use the language within the classroom, and everywhere which can provide richness to the event of the language, which could not be the case within the traditional way of teaching speaking. however, it is hard to keep students' information private in the era of technology. also, the blog page was not enough to help students interact with their partners. on the other hand, many apps in the market nowadays have the same features, such as the above methods, and keep students from stealing personal information and securing information, and increasing interaction between people through communication. according to abdelmageed’s study [37], through the process of testing 8 first-year students of the school with digital storytelling software, the results of this study indicated that the program could affect the participants' speaking skills and attitudes positively. the learners' english-speaking skills, such as pronunciation, grammar, etc., can be improved through the wevideo. this app provides digital storytelling, a completely new learning method that can effectively enhance learners' english-speaking proficiency. these 10 studies demonstrate that the development of technology has, step by step, supported the education system thanks to the utilities of intelligent technology software. english learning apps can boost students' oral speech skills, but they also motivate learners to practice english speaking and absorb the language naturally and more likely to absorb language without being forced. however, these studies have not demonstrated the levels of effectiveness when using the learning apps; thus this paper aims to seek and illustrate those levels. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 76 3. methodology 3.1. research questions research question 1: what kind of practice speaking english software and learning apps have already been available in the current market that popular to vlu students? research question 2: which level of effectiveness do vlu students achieve after using software/learning apps to practicing their english-speaking ability? 3.2. research context the study is conducted at van lang university. founded in 1995, van lang university carries a bold national name full of pride, filled with glorious heroic vietnam's history. on september 17 in 1995, the very first 4469 students became the pioneer generation for van lang's education. their dreams and hopes were spread widely at the 1st opening ceremony. with 45 undergraduate majors, van lang university is now becoming a home for more than 17.000 students. there are three main campuses of van lang university, which are located respectively in district 1, binh thanh district, and go vap district. the school has equipped with modern and state-of-the-art quality for lecturers and students' teaching and learning work. a quality study environment and modern teaching curriculum are under maximized and flexibly developed for students comprehensively, with high expectations in the growth of the education system, as well as the advancement of intellectual resources for the country in the future. alongside, the slogan "morality, will, creativity" is set out with the consensus, unanimity, and determination to build a solid foundation and development for the school. the vision and destiny of van lang will become a wing for students, helping them fly far and high to achieve their dreams. and someday, they will dedicate themselves to the development of vietnam. 3.3. population and sampling methods the population in this study is k24 students in all majors of vlu. the reason for choosing this segment is because they are third-year students who are still learning and developing at this school. they are the ones who understand best about the method of teaching and learning in english subjects. after the learning, earning knowledge, and experience process, these k24 students can point out the strengths as well as a shortcoming in the school's application of technology when teaching english. they can also give the most objective opinions to develop the teaching method by applying new technology appropriately and effectively. 3.3.1. participants of the questionnaires table 1. participants information background information number (n=400) percentage (%) gender male female 93 307 23% 77% faculty foreign languages public relations and communications commerce tourism 112 165 89 34 28% 41% 22% 9% course freshman (k26) sophomore (k25) junior (k24) senior (k23) 0 0 400 0 0% 0% 100% 0% as shown above, 400 students in course 24 from non-english majors and english majors of van lang university will participate (93 males and 307 females). therefore, the researchers choose four majors that usually use english in learning: faculty of foreign languages (28%); faculty of public relations and communications (41%); faculty of commerce (22%), and faculty of tourism (9%) to perform the survey. 3.3.2. participants of the interviewing acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 77 table 2. summary of participants’ background no. name gender course faculty 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 nhi huy hien phuong uyen long quynh khai female male female female female male female male k24 k24 k24 k24 k24 k24 k24 k24 commerce fl fl pr&c tourism pr&c commerce tourism *fl (foreign languages) *pr&c (public relations and communications) at the set of this study, table 2 has shown 08 students from 04 selected majors above have been selected for the interviewing part to support more detailed information for the research questions. 3.3.3. sampling methods this research uses probability sampling techniques because it can specify the probability that a participant will be chosen from a population, and the sampling method is random sampling. 3.4. research design the design of this research is two types, including survey and interview. the first design of the analysis consists of 20 open-ended questionnaires. the second design used is a semi-structured interview. the reason for us to choose these two research designs is because of the ease and the accuracy of data collection, and it is best served to answer the research questions and the purposes of the study. 3.5. instrument 3.5.1. questionnaires the data from questionnaires in the current study is to examine to respond to the research questions. according to cheung [38], the questionnaire is a document consisting of a set of generic questions with a specified scheme that defines the precise wording and order of the questions to collect information from the respondents. moreover, an effective questionnaire should have a clear purpose, and questions should be answered in a reasonable way, questions that are easy to understand, and responses to achieve a correct and good result [39]. in this study, the researchers are using an open-ended questionnaire. so, the participants can answer the queries with ease, and the researcher can also easily collect the result. 3.5.2. interview questions for this research, interview questions were used as additional data to support the questionnaire result. mcnamara [40] claims that interviews are particularly useful to urge the story behind the experiences of the participant; therefore the interviewer may seek in-depth details on the topic. furthermore, a semi-structured interview could be a meeting where the interviewer doesn't strictly follow a formalized list of questions. instead, they are going to raise additional open-ended questions allowing a discussion with the interviewee rather than a simple question and answer format [41]. thus, a semi-structured interview was used by the researchers. also, the interview was recorded with the permission of the interviewees for information transcripts. 3.6. the produce of data collection the data collection method for this study went through 4 steps: acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 78 step 1: the researchers use the group discussion method to create an exploratory survey to explore, adjust, and add observational variables measuring research concepts. based on information obtained after group discussion, the variables of the technology application software model and other factors that affect the motivation of learning needs in suitable conditions of students at van lang university. a questionnaire was formed, and this questionnaire was built on the basis of the research model of the topic to gather information for analysis and testing of research hypotheses. step 2: the researchers use quantitative methods in this step. the quantitative methods research was done through income data obtained from the online survey through social media to 400 students in the 24th course of van lang university (faculty of foreign languages (112 students); faculty of public relations and communications (165 students); faculty of commerce (89 students); faculty of tourism (34 students) was established from step 1 to answer for the research questions. step 3: the researchers use qualitative methods through direct interviews of 08 students in 04 selected majors. they are using the semi-structured questionnaire to collect identifying information for the research paper. the researcher interview randomly participants in the study population. each interview lasted for about 10 minutes and was recorded by smartphone with these students' permission. to identify difficulties that students face when learning english and understand deeper about students' desire when the school starts to replace the old teaching method with the application of technology into teaching english. step 4: the researchers use results analysis and data processing methods. 3.7. data analysis once sufficient data are available, the researchers continue collecting information from the open-end questionnaire and semi-structured interview for assessment. the researchers will consider and sift through the information gathered to answers the research questions for the questionnaire. for the interview, the researchers have to listen to all audios from the smartphone that had been recorded. subsequently, translated into english and head to the conclusions about the point of each individual interviewed. this helps to add more points to answer the research questions. after that, all necessary information will be filtered and presented properly in the research paper. 4. results 4.1. questionnaires results table 3. students' views on the current issues no. questionnaire items answers number (n=400) percentage (%) 1 english speaking skill is the most vital and necessary for you? yes no 391 9 98% 2% 2 with the current english teaching method of the school, do you have any problems in speaking english? yes no 321 79 80% 20% 3 do you want the school to improve and focus more on teaching english speaking skills? yes no 392 8 98% 2% 4 do you have the desire to apply software application in the school's current english-speaking teaching method? yes no 358 42 90% 10% according to table 3, 98% of students at van lang university believe that speaking is the most vital and essential skill for them when learning english. however, 80% of students are having difficulty speaking english fluently with the school's current teaching method. therefore, 98% of students want van lang university to improve their speaking performance. with the current trend of learning is using technical devices, 90% of learners wish to apply software to van lang university's current english teaching method. table 4. the apps to practice speaking skill that van lang university students know acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 79 no. questionnaire items number (n=1046) percentage (%) 1 elsa speak 216 21% 2 duolingo 237 23% 3 cake 170 16% 4 ejoy english 89 8% 5 memrise 48 5% 6 speak – practice your english 86 8% 7 bbc learning english 143 14% 8 say it 25 2% 9 others 32 3% the collected data on awareness of english software available in the market is shown in table 4. specifically, table 4 shows the awareness of popular apps that students know when searching for an app to practice speaking in a total of 392 responses received. as can be seen, duolingo and elsa are the two most well-known popular apps (23% and 21% on each app). following after is cake, which account for 16% of the answers received. moreover, bbc learning english is also accounted for 14% based on the answers received. this table is the answer to research question 1. since the coverage of the english-speaking practice apps above is massive hence, it's difficult to be sure whether or not students from van lang are using them. what are applications used by van lang university students to practice their english-speaking abilities? the answer is given as follows. table 5. the apps to practice speaking skill that van lang university students use no. questionnaire items number (n=770) percentage (%) 1 elsa speak 170 22% 2 duolingo 194 25% 3 cake 128 17% 4 ejoy english 53 7% 5 memrise 27 3% 6 speak – practice your english 51 7% 7 bbc learning english 96 12% 8 say it 12 2% 9 others 39 5% table 5 displays students' applications to practice speaking skills through 294 survey responses. as revealed, duolingo stands on top of the survey with 24% in total answers received. in the second place, we have elsa with 22% in total answers received, next is the bbc learning english with 19% in total answers. and last but not least, with 14% of total responses received, cake holds fourth place. it can be seen that the majority of students have used the above apps to practice speaking english. so, what level of efficiency does it bring to students after using? the following is the answer obtained. table 6. the level of efficiency of practice speaking english software no. questionnaire items mean std. deviation 1 more confidence when communicating in english 2.9147 2.000692 2 practice self-study skills 3.8571 1.809284 3 practice study time management skills 2.3233 1.884406 4 improve vocabulary 4.0877 1.680459 5 save on study costs 3.8170 1.827789 6 know more effective speaking techniques 2.3533 1.894963 7 native standard pronunciation 2.3433 1.891504 with the mean scores of all seven items ranging from 2.34 to 4.08 (out of 5), table 6 indicates the advantages students get when practicing english speaking by using these applications. in particular, item 4 (m= 4.08) belongs to the highest mean score that helps students improve a lot of new vocabulary. next is item 2 (m= 3.85), helping students practice self-study skills, especially item 1 (m= 2.91), which demonstrates that students are more confident in speaking english by using these apps. this is also the response to research question 2. besides, what are the acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 80 successful features of the training apps listed above that students are pleased with? the answers are shown in the table below. table 7. successful features of these apps listed above no. questionnaire items mean std. deviation 1 have visual, easy to remember with pictures and videos 3.6566 1.891504 2 there is a native speaker voice guiding 3.8170 1.827789 3 there are games that incorporated into exercises in order to increase fun 2.6541 1.972340 4 stay in regular contact with english audios and videos 2.8947 1.999735 5 practice speaking on real conversation patterns according to each topic 2.7944 1.991910 6 learn new vocabulary by topic and then apply it to speaking immediately 3.3157 1.977391 7 detect errors of the learner pronounce and correct them immediately 2.4436 1.923460 in table 7, the most successful feature that software brings to students is item 2 (m= 3.81) practice speaking skills with the native speaker's support. furthermore, item 1 (m= 3.65) showing that the students all pleased with the benefits of learning through images and videos, which had raised their interest' in improving speaking skills. besides, expanding vocabulary is genuinely worth it for the students when learning english and serves the communication purpose (m= 3.31). in general, those features' applications were qualified to suit students' learning needs, especially in the speaking section. not only that, what utilities of the apps listed above help students learning to speak english conveniently? the answers are listed in detail in the table below. table 8. some utilities of the apps listed above help students learning to speak english conveniently. no. questionnaire items mean std. deviation 1 installed on very small, convenient and fast technology devices 3.9223 1.003250 2 full curriculums from basic to advanced 3.7719 1.058876 3 learn anytime, anywhere, without being fixed in one place 3.9849 1.044138 4 help interact with online partners to study together 3.6115 1.080650 5 point out the pronunciation mistakes and how to correct them 3.9323 1.013939 6 use native speakers' voices to help learner pronounce better 4.0501 .9628755 in table 8, it can see all the benefits which have been mentioned above had a pronounced effect on measurements in english speaking practice. in this table, the action of using the native speaker's voice to improve the student's english pronunciation stands on top of the table (m= 4.05). next, top 2 of the table is the application of englishspeaking practice software gives student benefit is that they can study wherever they want (m= 3.98); meanwhile, these apps help students point out mistakes in their pronunciation and correcting them (m= 3.93) stand on top 3 of the table. not only that, the installation of english-speaking practice apps on technology devices which are convenient and fast (m= 3.92). through all of the benefits that have been collected and mentioned above. table 5 will answer the question about the efficiency of these english-speaking practice apps after a period time of use. 4.2. interviewing audios results with 10 interview questions, consist of both fixed questions and improvisational questions. the researchers have collected the necessary data and documents, which will be presented and analyzed below. 4.2.1. difficulties that students are facing when learn to speak in english through the interview process, the researchers asked about the difficulties which constantly occurred in the english learning process, especially is the english-speaking skill of van lang university's students in every major. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 81 nhi, one of the interviews, said that: the difficulties she had to deal with in her english learning process were the inefficiency. she even got tired of learning english because the school only focused on teaching specialized vocabulary and grammar, so she did not be able to improve the speaking skill. furthermore, another interview named quynh also shared that: her intensity of learning english is only one day per week, and the current teaching methods were not effective. she felt bored along with less concentrated, and it was difficult for her to find a suitable person to practice with. furthermore, each of them had a different pronunciation about the teacher, which was hard for students to follow. and with hien a student who specializes in the english language: she still cannot feel the efficacy in the school's english teaching method. she usually went to the coffee shop with native speakers to practice speaking english as well as practice through self-online studying to improve her english ability. all of the interviews have one thing in common is that they have a hard time practicing speaking english. the school's teaching methods have not helped them develop completely and create an environment for them to improve their english-speaking skills. 4.2.2. desire of students the researchers had known more about their desire and aspirations from the difficulties that went on constantly among the english learning process of students. phuong shared: she desires to have a learning method that applies technology to take advantage of the technology's outstanding features. also, incorporate the experience and the coordination of teachers into the teaching process and brought into play the power of both methods. and nhi: her desire is to have an environment to practice english outside of the classroom more effectively. more active and more enjoyable during the english learning process for those who wanted to improve their speaking skills. hien said that: she was looking forward to the development of modern technology that could help her develop her english-speaking ability through the process of studying in speaking classes at school, such as pronunciation practice and developing student's confidence when speaking english. all of them have a common desire to apply technology and take advantage of its advantages in teaching methods and create an enhanced, more efficient, modern, and more productive learning environment for students. 4.2.3. suggestion from students after an observation process, the researcher adds opening requirements questions about the english learning method through software applications. long shared that: through the learning process with the app, he has approach native speakers talked in videos, movies, or get grammar correct and improve his pronunciation directly through the app. he also thinks that science and technology development gave students a chance to approach new, streamlined, attractive, and easy-to-understand learning methods. khai also had the same point of view: he felt the mobile application could support him in fixing, reminding as well as creating motivation when learning with many interesting contents, suitable to an individual level. through the study process, he can be exposed to native speakers and gained confidence when speaking english. phuong believed that: the software was compact, convenient, and could be learned anytime, anywhere. modern technology and ai analysis of apps like duolingo, elsa speak helped readers gradually improve their speaking level, and they would feel extremely excited if the school integrates speaking software into the english teaching methods of van lang university. hien shared that: the discord application can help you gain confidence, english speaking reflexes, and the ability to express that in english speaking classes at school that not provide yet. however, this app could not help her improves pronunciation. she also said that apps like duolingo or elsa are only suitable for those who at the beginner level, helping them build up an english-speaking platform. and huy, another interview said that: the ted talk app would be suitable for students who specialize in languages or have an english background. therefore, for beginners, he recommended elsa speak. the common point of their desires was that the training environment, confidence in communication, creating opportunities to speak english like a native. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 82 5. discussion regarding the first research question, with the development of the digital age, the number of van lang university's students using electric appliances increases for learning english speaking purposes. most of the students have at least one technology device, such as a smartphone, an ipad, or a laptop. as a consequence, those applications that were available on gadgets that had been renowned for supporting students' learning were analyzed in tables 4 and 5. the coverage of speaking practice apps pervasive the market enormously, such as elsa speak, duolingo, cambly… but the number of the students using these apps had an upward trend. it is proved that learners were having problems in improving their english-speaking skills by the current english teaching method. as a result, van lang university's students desire to enhance speaking skills thanks to van lang university's assistance. according to ms. van [42] the founder of elsa speak has emphasized that if a person does not speak english well, they are more likely to lose 32% of their career and business opportunities. over the years, english has gradually transformed itself into an official working language in many fields such as finance, science, and politics. therefore, it is necessary to be fluent in english to boost reliability and productivity in a company; moreover, students can also broaden their horizons on career paths. in this survey, 90% of van lang university's students desire to apply software in the current english teaching method, especially in practicing speaking skills. the answer to the second research question is quite clear in table 6. after using these english applications, the results depicted the efficiency positively impacting learners. additionally, the software had overcome most of the difficulties that students were facing when learning speaking skills. it helps them become more confident in communicating in english, acquiring vocabulary, improving self-study skills, and suchlike. it could not be more obvious that vlu's pupils won a lot of benefits from these applications. new college group [43] clarified that applying technology to teaching is taking benefits for students and teachers to save time and be efficient in teaching practices while integrating technology in the classroom. to determine whether the speaking practice apps were successful, it depends on the features offered in table 7. nagata [44] has proved that educational software integrates multimedia content and provides users a high interactivity level. therefore, the efficiency between traditional teaching methods and application software methods to teach spoken english is strongly different. it can be seen that those features such as practicing pronunciation with a native speaker's guide, using visual and vivid images which were valuable for drawing students closer to speaking english. hence, it helps students absorb language easily, as well as the learning process is no longer exhausted. to conclude, it is a great necessity in the current 4.0 era. moreover, using speaking practice software on technology devices brings many advantages to van lang's pupils, shown in table 8. students will no longer be passive in their learning; they will be more proactive in their learning time, places, and ways to learn speaking through the mentioned apps. those apps also create a huge benefit for van lang's students when tested to determine their level before starting to use the app. they will arrange the curriculum rationally from basic to advanced for students to learn easier based on their levels. the most important thing that students gained when using this software is if they make any mistake, the app will point it out in any second and the solution to it. this study suggests that there are a lot of benefits to applying software application in learning english for van lang university’s students. at the same time, it is pointed out that the current trend of students' learning is through technology equipment. current research supports the combination of technology equipment and software in learning is a liberating and innovative combination in the digital age. however, there are still downsides that need to be carefully noted when applying technology software. we need to carefully consider to develop suitable software that meets the english-speaking learning needs of each university. also, through this study, the researchers found a significant gap in some famous software on the market nowadays is the "free-option". firstly, duolingo was created by a thoughtful and visionary founder who has deep philosophies about creating a software application for learning english. according to ahn [45] – the founder of duolingo affirmed that they believe true equality is when spending more can't buy people a better education. duolingo was created with bright spots from their business point of view, providing optimal benefits for learning english, but the "free-option" contributed to the motivation and promotion of civilized language educational background development. secondly, elsa speak english learning application software connects outstanding and effective features to meet learners' needs. moreover, the difference between the "free-option" and the plus version of elsa is not too much, basic learners can still access solid knowledge bases. the subsidy policy of elsa speaking further enhances the students' love, as well as the motivation, creating a perfect and desirable environment for learners. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 83 thirdly, bbc learning software for the free application of english learning has the founder to invest knowledge in people is a valuable resource. the software is born with features that help learners improve and improve their language skills with completely no fee. therefore, the outstanding feature that helps learners improve and enhance their foreign language skills is the "free-option". the subsidy feature has made these apps more accessible to users. because the majority of english learning apps users are students and they don't have the habit of paying for expensive courses through mobile software. many factors affect the public's perception and behavior when using technology software to learn. so, the price is one of the important reasons leading to their decision of choosing which learning app. hence, a good, useful application that is also supported by price or completely free of tuition fees. hence, students know and widely use english learning applications mainly because of the "free-option”. 6. conclusion in this essay, in the framework of the student report, the researchers have developed a study based on van lang university students' opinions in viet nam. they were thereby deploying the role as well as the necessity of applying technology software into the english teaching method for van lang university students. the obtained findings are gratifying. because with the current technological era, van lang students mostly use technology equipment for serving learning purposes, and they adapt to the trend of learning english through the speaking training software available on the market such as elsa speak, duolingo. hence, the students expressed their desires to apply the software mentioned above to van lang university's english-speaking method to improve their speaking performance. the study also showed how effective those apps are after using data. with many special benefits and features that these applications have brought, applying software that helps students improve their speaking skills is like a breath of fresh air in traditional english classrooms. it is worth considering van lang university in improving english speaking teaching methods for students. while the study has achieved its target, there are several major limitations. first, because the duration of the study is short, just seven weeks, so there is clearly a time limit. second, the number of participants in the interviews and survey restricts the reliability of the findings. whether there will be more members, the reliability and validity of this research can be improved. however, the study also pointed out an interesting gap that suggests other researchers look deeper into the “free-option” of some famous speaking-english learning software. acknowledgments last word, our sincere appreciation goes to our supervisors mr. pham vu phi ho and ms. dinh huynh mai tu, for their direction, motivation, praise, inspiration, and persistence, which have contributed enormously to the merits of our dissertation. we were extremely lucky to have two supervisors who encouraged us to be analytical and confident and taught us how to keep our study focused and diligent. references [1] adminz, d. (2019). why technology is important in our daily life. retrieved from digital edenz website: https://digitaledenz.com/why-technology-is-important-in-our-daily-life/ [2] duc, h. a. (2020). xu hướng ứng dụng công nghệ trong giáo dục. retrieved from tuoi tre cuoi tuan website: https://cuoituan.tuoitre.vn/tin/20200110/xu-huong-ung-dung-cong-nghe-trong-giao-duc-cai-to-toandien-vi-mot-the-he-nguoi-hoc-moi/1550658.html [3] zhao, y. (2003). recent developments in technology and. calico, 7-27. [4] tran, t. l., & nguyen, t. h. (2018). internationalisation of higher education in vietnam through english medium instruction (emi): practices, tensions and implications for local language policies. retrieved from springer link website: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-776552_6?fbclid=iwar3zegobg7xhfuhoyt26_a1vswuewf0onoaxt5-qedtu_bztzcujj0qwtpe [5] le, v. c. (n.d.). language and vietnamese pedagogical contexts. retrieved from lang dev conferences website: http://www.langdevconferences.org/publications/1999-hanoivietnam/22%20language%20and%20vietnamese%20pedagogical%20contextslevan%20canh.pdf?fbclid=iwar1ut3d36x6gyst3l9u2nklikqxux0lhgdsxv9hv2mk_6ypnzfmtba1numg https://digitaledenz.com/why-technology-is-important-in-our-daily-life/ https://cuoituan.tuoitre.vn/tin/20200110/xu-huong-ung-dung-cong-nghe-trong-giao-duc-cai-to-toan-dien-vi-mot-the-he-nguoi-hoc-moi/1550658.html https://cuoituan.tuoitre.vn/tin/20200110/xu-huong-ung-dung-cong-nghe-trong-giao-duc-cai-to-toan-dien-vi-mot-the-he-nguoi-hoc-moi/1550658.html https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-77655-2_6?fbclid=iwar3zegobg7xhfuhoyt26_a1vswuewf0onoaxt5-qedtu_bztzcujj0qwtpe https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-77655-2_6?fbclid=iwar3zegobg7xhfuhoyt26_a1vswuewf0onoaxt5-qedtu_bztzcujj0qwtpe http://www.langdevconferences.org/publications/1999-hanoivietnam/2-2%20language%20and%20vietnamese%20pedagogical%20contexts-levan%20canh.pdf?fbclid=iwar1ut3d36x6gyst3l9u2nklikqxux0lhgdsxv9hv2mk_6ypnzfmtba1numg http://www.langdevconferences.org/publications/1999-hanoivietnam/2-2%20language%20and%20vietnamese%20pedagogical%20contexts-levan%20canh.pdf?fbclid=iwar1ut3d36x6gyst3l9u2nklikqxux0lhgdsxv9hv2mk_6ypnzfmtba1numg http://www.langdevconferences.org/publications/1999-hanoivietnam/2-2%20language%20and%20vietnamese%20pedagogical%20contexts-levan%20canh.pdf?fbclid=iwar1ut3d36x6gyst3l9u2nklikqxux0lhgdsxv9hv2mk_6ypnzfmtba1numg acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 84 [6] cfl (2013). tầm quan trọng của việc học tiếng anh. retrieved from cfl edu website: https://cfl.edu.vn/tam-quan-trong-cua-viec-hoc-tienganh/?fbclid=iwar35k5n9lpltbleq7_ti77iupwidev82hok9kvi3d_zt_r6knqyt-5nazz8 [7] trines, s. (2017). education in vietnam. retrieved from wenr website: https://wenr.wes.org/2017/11/education-invietnam?fbclid=iwar3lutgunqefwciaoskinph0jugow5zbnj9gibgbq9ektnfv64ii15t3c_0 [8] agency, j. i. (2012). basic study on human resources. retrieved from open ji care port website: https://openjicareport.jica.go.jp/pdf/1000012471_01.pdf?fbclid=iwar1mk9gumwc-tya6uxosvwrifwtln2o89xgw6nt3xgtjkcgtvbqhwrz6je [9] phung, v. m. (2015). tầm quan trọng của thứ ngôn ngữ toàn cầu. retrieved from kenh 14 website: https://kenh14.vn/hoc-duong/tam-quan-trong-cua-thu-ngon-ngu-toan-cau-2015012808478584.chn [10] huynh, t. a. (2020). problems of learning speaking skills encountered by english major students at ba riavung tau university, vietnam. retrieved from oa pub website: https://www.oapub.org/edu/index.php/ejel/article/view/3144/5781 [11] erin, f. (2020). học tiếng anh vẫn là điều cần thiết. retrieved from ef website: https://www.ef.com.vn/blog/language/hoc-tieng-anh-van-la-dieu-can-thiet-va-day-la-ly-do/ [12] phan, n. (2020). ngoại ngữ nào mở ra cơ hội làm việc lương cao? retrieved from vn express website : https://vnexpress.net/ngoai-ngu-nao-mo-ra-co-hoi-lam-viec-luong-cao4127575.html?fbclid=iwar0tc3qmsadeeomi_m1qi5_h00vbtjv16kmv18ffv4-rqs-vzme5qpkcol8 [13] bao, l. (2015). phòng lab mới dành cho sinh viên khoa ngoại ngữ. retrieved from khoa ngoai ngu website: http://khoangoaingu.vanlanguni.edu.vn/thoi-khoa-bieu/86-tin-tuc/109-phong-lab-moi-danh-cho-sinhvien-khoa-ngoai-ngu [14] tue, k. (2020). những lớp học ấn tượng của tôi tại giảng đường đặc biệt! retrieved from van lang uni website: https://www.vanlanguni.edu.vn/hoat-dong-sinh-vien/2123-nhung-lop-hoc-an-tuong-cua-toi-tai-giangduong-dac-biet [15] university, v. l. (2020). hướng dẫn về học phí dành cho khóa 26 của trường đại học văn lang. retrieved from van lang uni website: https://www.vanlanguni.edu.vn/tin-tuc-size-bar/2296-huong-dan-ve-hoc-phi-danhcho-khoa-26-cua-truong-dai-hoc-vanlang?fbclid=iwar2zlubh_qsf2da48jxtuidgrjq6wybjbjpvxuxonvqhhzzccvswofxydgg [16] lai, c. (2013). a framework for developing self-directed technology. retrieved from language learning & technology website: http://128.171.57.22/bitstream/10125/44326/17_02_lai.pdf [17] shaheen, l. (2008). open source software in education. retrieved from edu cause website: https://er.educause.edu/articles/2008/5/open-source-software-in-education [18] ramya, g., & madhumathi, p. (2017). review on use of mobile apps for language learning. research india publications, 11242-11251. [19] heba, b. e. (2016). duolingo as a bilingual learning app. retrieved from ssrn website: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2814822 [20] agnes, k.-h. (2012). mobile learning and the future of learning. retrieved from open research online website: http://oro.open.ac.uk/50374/1/50374.pdf [21] mpine, m., & thulile, s. (2018). developing a mobile app for learning english vocabulary in an open distance learning context. retrieved from erudit website: https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/irrodl/2018-v19n4-irrodl04233/1055536ar/ [22] rao, p. s. (2019). the importance of speaking skills in english classrooms. retrieved from research gate website: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334283040_the_importance_of_speaking_skills_in_en glish_classrooms [23] nishanthi, r. (2018). important of learning english in today world. retrieved from research gate website: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329505353_important_of_learning_english_in_today_world https://cfl.edu.vn/tam-quan-trong-cua-viec-hoc-tieng-anh/?fbclid=iwar35k5n9lpltbleq7_ti77iupwidev82hok9kvi3d_zt_r6knqyt-5nazz8 https://cfl.edu.vn/tam-quan-trong-cua-viec-hoc-tieng-anh/?fbclid=iwar35k5n9lpltbleq7_ti77iupwidev82hok9kvi3d_zt_r6knqyt-5nazz8 https://wenr.wes.org/2017/11/education-in-vietnam?fbclid=iwar3lutgunqefwciaoskinph0jugow5zbnj9gibgbq9ektnfv64ii15t3c_0 https://wenr.wes.org/2017/11/education-in-vietnam?fbclid=iwar3lutgunqefwciaoskinph0jugow5zbnj9gibgbq9ektnfv64ii15t3c_0 https://openjicareport.jica.go.jp/pdf/1000012471_01.pdf?fbclid=iwar1mk9gumwc-tya6uxosv-wrifwtln2o89xgw6nt3xgtjkcgtvbqhwrz6je https://openjicareport.jica.go.jp/pdf/1000012471_01.pdf?fbclid=iwar1mk9gumwc-tya6uxosv-wrifwtln2o89xgw6nt3xgtjkcgtvbqhwrz6je https://kenh14.vn/hoc-duong/tam-quan-trong-cua-thu-ngon-ngu-toan-cau-2015012808478584.chn https://www.oapub.org/edu/index.php/ejel/article/view/3144/5781 https://www.ef.com.vn/blog/language/hoc-tieng-anh-van-la-dieu-can-thiet-va-day-la-ly-do/ https://vnexpress.net/ngoai-ngu-nao-mo-ra-co-hoi-lam-viec-luong-cao-4127575.html?fbclid=iwar0tc3qmsadeeomi_m1qi5_h00vbtjv16kmv18ffv4-rqs-vzme5qpkcol8 https://vnexpress.net/ngoai-ngu-nao-mo-ra-co-hoi-lam-viec-luong-cao-4127575.html?fbclid=iwar0tc3qmsadeeomi_m1qi5_h00vbtjv16kmv18ffv4-rqs-vzme5qpkcol8 http://khoangoaingu.vanlanguni.edu.vn/thoi-khoa-bieu/86-tin-tuc/109-phong-lab-moi-danh-cho-sinh-vien-khoa-ngoai-ngu http://khoangoaingu.vanlanguni.edu.vn/thoi-khoa-bieu/86-tin-tuc/109-phong-lab-moi-danh-cho-sinh-vien-khoa-ngoai-ngu https://www.vanlanguni.edu.vn/hoat-dong-sinh-vien/2123-nhung-lop-hoc-an-tuong-cua-toi-tai-giang-duong-dac-biet https://www.vanlanguni.edu.vn/hoat-dong-sinh-vien/2123-nhung-lop-hoc-an-tuong-cua-toi-tai-giang-duong-dac-biet https://www.vanlanguni.edu.vn/tin-tuc-size-bar/2296-huong-dan-ve-hoc-phi-danh-cho-khoa-26-cua-truong-dai-hoc-van-lang?fbclid=iwar2zlubh_qsf2da48jxtuidgrjq6wybjbjpvxuxonvqhhzzccvswofxydgg https://www.vanlanguni.edu.vn/tin-tuc-size-bar/2296-huong-dan-ve-hoc-phi-danh-cho-khoa-26-cua-truong-dai-hoc-van-lang?fbclid=iwar2zlubh_qsf2da48jxtuidgrjq6wybjbjpvxuxonvqhhzzccvswofxydgg https://www.vanlanguni.edu.vn/tin-tuc-size-bar/2296-huong-dan-ve-hoc-phi-danh-cho-khoa-26-cua-truong-dai-hoc-van-lang?fbclid=iwar2zlubh_qsf2da48jxtuidgrjq6wybjbjpvxuxonvqhhzzccvswofxydgg http://128.171.57.22/bitstream/10125/44326/17_02_lai.pdf https://er.educause.edu/articles/2008/5/open-source-software-in-education https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2814822 http://oro.open.ac.uk/50374/1/50374.pdf https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/irrodl/2018-v19-n4-irrodl04233/1055536ar/ https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/irrodl/2018-v19-n4-irrodl04233/1055536ar/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334283040_the_importance_of_speaking_skills_in_english_classrooms https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334283040_the_importance_of_speaking_skills_in_english_classrooms https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329505353_important_of_learning_english_in_today_world acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 85 [24] kusmaryani, w., musthafa, b., & purnawarman, p. (2019). the influence of mobile applications on students’ speaking skill and critical thinking in english language learning. journal of physics conference series. [25] richard, c. j. (2015). technology in language teaching today. indonesian journal of english language teaching, 18-32. [26] liu, q., & he, x. (2014). using mobile apps to facilitate english learning for college students in china. retrieved from diva portal website: https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:896787/fulltext01.pdf [27] team, c. (2020). 5 benefits of using new technology in language learning. retrieved from cae website: https://www.cae.net/5-benefits-using-new-techonology-languagelearning/?fbclid=iwar0qnhcifv2k_uqdb8_wiqdl_0ow1hbtpjnqfo1bcv3kyesdj0izsxmeyts [28] ahmadi, m. r. (2018). the use of technology in english language learning: a literature review. international journal of research in english education, 116-125. [29] parveen, b. w. (2016). use of technology in improving speaking skills. journal of english language and literature, 121-124. [30] mustafa, e. n. (2018). the impact of youtube, skype and whatsapp in improving efl. international journal of contemporary applied researches, 18-31. [31] farmana, y. (2018). improving the students’ speaking skill through learn to speak english software. retrieved from research gate website: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327524645_improving_the_students'_speaking_skill_t hrough_learn_to_speak_english_software [32] riswandi, d. (2016). use of youtube-based videos to improve students’ speaking skill. retrieved from jurnal website: https://jurnal.uns.ac.id/ictte/article/download/8150/7310 [33] millrood, p. r. (2015). techniques and technologies of teaching speaking: dealing with backwash effect in russia. retrieved from science direct website: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s1877042815046571?fbclid=iwar0iynji3biyu5euhx5_2m ytdttb2csrcbtho5fkq-5qrigcwlezpglb8hm [34] ratnaningsih, d., purba, d., wiratno, d., & nofandi, f. (2020). the influence of call to improve english speaking skills. retrieved from books website: https://books.google.com.vn/books?hl=en&lr=&id=s5q4dwaaqbaj&oi=fnd&pg=pa144&dq=technology%20 english%20speaking%20skills&ots=6jxlbavlob&sig=2hllh5sy9kphkkny4rptfx6kuee&redir_esc=y&fbcl id=iwar0uyzqahlcr7ncmjup-jwpluwgvsitq5eyf6b9vmgath5uzlqch7jcgpcq#v=onepa [35] kusmaryani, w., musthafa, b., & purnawarman, p. (2019). the influence of mobile applications on students’ speaking skill and critical thinking in english language learning. journal of physics conference series. [36] baniabdelrahman, a. a. (2013). effect of using internet tools on enhancing efl students’ speaking skill. american international journal of contemporary research, 79-87. [37] abdelmageed, m. a. (2018). digital storytelling enhances students' speaking skills at zewail university. retrieved from research gate website: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/mohamed_abdelmageed4/publication/329683327_digital_storytelling_en hances_students%27_speaking_skills_at_zewail_university_of_science_and_technology_in_egypt/links/5c1d e170458515a4c7f005de/digital-storytelling-enhances [38] cheung, a. k. (n.d.). structured questionnaires. retrieved from springer link website: https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2f978-94-007-0753-5_2888 [39] anonymous. (2020). questionnaire design. retrieved from fao website: http://www.fao.org/3/w3241e/w3241e05.htm [40] mcnamara, c. (n.d.). general guidelines for conducting interviews. retrieved from management help website: https://managementhelp.org/businessresearch/interviews.htm [41] doyle, a. (2020). what is a semi-structured interview? retrieved from the balance careers website: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/what-is-a-semi-structured-interview-2061632 https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:896787/fulltext01.pdf https://www.cae.net/5-benefits-using-new-techonology-language-learning/?fbclid=iwar0qnhcifv2k_uqdb8_wiqdl_0ow1hbtpjnqfo1bcv3kyesdj0izsxmeyts https://www.cae.net/5-benefits-using-new-techonology-language-learning/?fbclid=iwar0qnhcifv2k_uqdb8_wiqdl_0ow1hbtpjnqfo1bcv3kyesdj0izsxmeyts https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327524645_improving_the_students'_speaking_skill_through_learn_to_speak_english_software https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327524645_improving_the_students'_speaking_skill_through_learn_to_speak_english_software https://jurnal.uns.ac.id/ictte/article/download/8150/7310 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s1877042815046571?fbclid=iwar0iynji3biyu5euhx5_2mytdttb2csrcbtho5fkq-5qrigcwlezpglb8hm https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s1877042815046571?fbclid=iwar0iynji3biyu5euhx5_2mytdttb2csrcbtho5fkq-5qrigcwlezpglb8hm https://books.google.com.vn/books?hl=en&lr=&id=s5q4dwaaqbaj&oi=fnd&pg=pa144&dq=technology%20english%20speaking%20skills&ots=6jxlbavlob&sig=2hllh5sy9kphkkny4rptfx6kuee&redir_esc=y&fbclid=iwar0uyzqahlcr7ncmjup-jwpluwgvsitq5eyf6b9vmgath5uzlqch7jcgpcq#v=onepa https://books.google.com.vn/books?hl=en&lr=&id=s5q4dwaaqbaj&oi=fnd&pg=pa144&dq=technology%20english%20speaking%20skills&ots=6jxlbavlob&sig=2hllh5sy9kphkkny4rptfx6kuee&redir_esc=y&fbclid=iwar0uyzqahlcr7ncmjup-jwpluwgvsitq5eyf6b9vmgath5uzlqch7jcgpcq#v=onepa https://books.google.com.vn/books?hl=en&lr=&id=s5q4dwaaqbaj&oi=fnd&pg=pa144&dq=technology%20english%20speaking%20skills&ots=6jxlbavlob&sig=2hllh5sy9kphkkny4rptfx6kuee&redir_esc=y&fbclid=iwar0uyzqahlcr7ncmjup-jwpluwgvsitq5eyf6b9vmgath5uzlqch7jcgpcq#v=onepa https://www.researchgate.net/profile/mohamed_abdelmageed4/publication/329683327_digital_storytelling_enhances_students%27_speaking_skills_at_zewail_university_of_science_and_technology_in_egypt/links/5c1de170458515a4c7f005de/digital-storytelling-enhanceshttps://www.researchgate.net/profile/mohamed_abdelmageed4/publication/329683327_digital_storytelling_enhances_students%27_speaking_skills_at_zewail_university_of_science_and_technology_in_egypt/links/5c1de170458515a4c7f005de/digital-storytelling-enhanceshttps://www.researchgate.net/profile/mohamed_abdelmageed4/publication/329683327_digital_storytelling_enhances_students%27_speaking_skills_at_zewail_university_of_science_and_technology_in_egypt/links/5c1de170458515a4c7f005de/digital-storytelling-enhanceshttps://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2f978-94-007-0753-5_2888 http://www.fao.org/3/w3241e/w3241e05.htm https://managementhelp.org/businessresearch/interviews.htm https://www.thebalancecareers.com/what-is-a-semi-structured-interview-2061632 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 86 [42] van, d. h. (2019). văn đinh hồng vũ, sáng lập elsa speak: công nghệ sẽ khai phóng tiềm năng ngôn ngữ. retrieved from bao dau tu website: https://baodautu.vn/van-dinh-hong-vu-sang-lap-elsa-speak-cong-nghe-sekhai-phong-tiem-nang-ngon-ngu-d96913.html [43] group, n. c. (n.d.). integrating technology into english language teaching. retrieved from new college group website: https://www.newcollegegroup.com/blog/technology-english-language-teaching/ [44] nagata, s. (2017). what you need to know about educational software. retrieved from elearning industry website: https://elearningindustry.com/need-know-educational-software [45] ahn, l. v. (n.d.). brand story hero – duolingo. retrieved from all good tales website: https://allgoodtales.com/brand-story-hero-duolingo/ https://baodautu.vn/van-dinh-hong-vu-sang-lap-elsa-speak-cong-nghe-se-khai-phong-tiem-nang-ngon-ngu-d96913.html https://baodautu.vn/van-dinh-hong-vu-sang-lap-elsa-speak-cong-nghe-se-khai-phong-tiem-nang-ngon-ngu-d96913.html https://www.newcollegegroup.com/blog/technology-english-language-teaching/ https://elearningindustry.com/need-know-educational-software https://allgoodtales.com/brand-story-hero-duolingo/ asiacall online journal received: 04/01/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 20/02/2021 vol. 12, no. 3, 2021 accepted: 03/03/2021 pp. 9-21 online: 07/03/2021 9 a study on collaborative online learning among efl students in van lang university (vlu) bui thi xuan trang 1, ha yen nhi1*, nguyen thi bao uyen1, nguyen vy uyen thanh1, ngo thi cam thuy1 1van lang university, faculty of foreign languages, ho chi minh city, vietnam. *corresponding author. ha yen nhi, van lang university, vietnam. e-mail: hayennhi080800@gmail.com abstract the study investigates the benefits and drawbacks that efl students met when they studied in a group online at van lang university. this is based on the theoretical framework of laila rawahi and abdu mekhlafi (2015). this study was conducted with 60 students from first-year students to seniors majoring in foreign languages at van lang university (vlu) and already experienced online learning. they answered a questionnaire to point out what they faced when working in a group via the internet. the results show that while some students find collaborative virtual learning methods beneficial in terms of distance and the elimination of time and financial border, other elf students had trouble in interaction and concentration. moreover, findings suggest that some technical problems such as the internet connection and weak computer skills still play a main threat, leading to controversial issues between teammates. moreover, some distractions such as social media, noisy outside environment, and talkative members also influence the learning progress. it is implied from the study that e-learning is such an evolution in education; however, it is not effective for learning in a group online. the purpose of this study will suggest some upsides and downsides of online collaborative learning so that schools and lecturers can seek solutions to solve the problems and enhance the positive impacts of online collaborative learning. keywords: online learning, collaborative learning, learning in a group, working in a group 1. introduction 1.1. the background of collaborative learning: prior to this time, collaborative learning activities were regarded as difficult with students who had problems finding time and space to work together. in recent days, thanks to the high advancement of technology, members in a group can easily access internet-based technologies to study together without commuting to school. "collaborative learning" is a type of learning that requires students' contributions or with a little support from teachers to broaden knowledge. normally, children will work in groups of two or more, searching for learning materials, making a study plan, taking in knowledge, discussing, completing tasks, and so on. collaborative learning exercises depend mostly on students' self-study skills, cooperation between them, not teachers' explanation or representation. (smith & macgregor, 1992). unlike cooperative learning, students will do work with collaborative learning and discuss together to complete the assignments (razmerita & brun, 2011). ashong and commander reported that the practice of collaborative learning is highly deployed in virtual education because many program developers and instructors of web-based courses are beginning to understand its positive impact on students' academic performances. therefore, collaborative learning integrated into the online classroom is significantly considered as one of the pedagogical strategies. 1.2. the role of collaborative learning in today world: the world is changing ceaselessly, and the human must acquire new knowledge and new methods of learning to catch up with the developments of modern life. collaborative networked learning becomes increasingly common in general education and language in particular (thach, vijay, eva, 2014). moreover, collaborative learning is believed to be one of the common skills students use to learn a lot of new things, help them gain knowledge, and renew the information (contrast studying alone to studying in a group, 2016). the concept of collaborative learning for the aim of accomplishing scholarly objectives has been broadly investigated and advocated throughout the professional literature. the term "collaborative learning" is a method in which students at different learning levels work together in a small group in order to gain the general-purpose (anuradha a. gokhale, 1995). in other words, students have to be responsible for their work and their teammates' work to make sure the work https://asiacall.info/acoj mailto:hayennhi080800@gmail.com acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 10 goes as planned. thus, each teammate plays an important part in providing information and trying their best to complete tasks, and all members are essential for project completion (colbeck, campbell & bjorklund, 2000). despite the advancement of e-learning widely used worldwide as an alternative method of face-to-face learning, there are literally a few pieces of research about the connection between online learning and collaborative study, particularly in vietnam. although many studies have investigated collaborative learning at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels; however, there is little persuasive evidence about online collaborative learning, specifically at the undergraduate level. moreover, the majority of the previous researches is about collaborative learning in regular live courses. during the covid-19 pandemic, the elearning model had been applied at van lang university as the alternative way for traditional classes. it is believed that this modern learning and teaching method, it would be beneficial for collaborative learning among efl students. and due to the negative impacts of this pandemic, students need to study in the group via online platforms including ms team, zoom, and so on. specifically, with theory-oriented subjects, collaborative teams might find it easier to finish schoolwork due to the benefits of supervising each other's works than with practice-oriented subjects such as speaking or listening classes. students might find it hard to communicate and discuss. 2. literature review besides, some proponents of the benefits of collaborative learning have been proved in some previous research papers. according to nokes-malach, rickey, and gadgil (2015), they reported that collaborative learning has also been hypothesized to increase individual motivation and engagement. collaborative teams have given the obvious evidence that they achieve higher levels of thought and retain information longer than students who prefer to study alone (johnson & johnson, 1986). in the study conducted by gokhale, the author has concluded that critical thinking development can be fostered by collaborative learning through discussion, clarification of ideas, and evaluation of others' ideas. although we cannot deny some great benefits of collaborative learning, some students are still irresponsible for the group's work. moreover, collaborative learning is important, requiring self-study skills so that if a member in the group works inefficiently and ineffectively and does not finish the work assigned for them, all of the works will be delayed. finally, the assignment is not clear. for example, leaders always have to deal with a heavy workload while other members have nothing to do. as a consequence, this will put leaders under a lot of pressure and noncooperation among members. (nguyen, 2007). 2.1. operational definition of terms: the researcher includes an operational definition of the term used in this study. it is as follow: collaborative learning is widely seen as an activity that is beneficial in the progress of students' learning since this learning style requires more than two students to construct knowledge and accomplish their common shared goals together. chao, sai, and hamilton reported that carrying out a collaborative course is ideal for forming highquality online courses. dilenbourg and schneider claimed that when someone alludes to "distance education", the word "distance" regularly sounds as the keyword since it implies major technological use. 2.2. concepts online collaboration accompanying project-based learning can support learners in their language learning thanks to web-based tools which can store information in an organized way for future reference. moreover, project-based learning stimulates students to interact with their peers to complete long-term projects, for learning becomes more meaningful and interesting (koufman-frederick et al., 1999). according to pallof and pratt, quality learning environments are designed to facilitate participation in interactive and collaborative activities among students. the researchers also recognized such conditions as advantages to adding to better learning results, including the development of higher-order thinking skills. explicit pedagogical advantages of collaborative learning are enhancement of critical thinking skills, co-creation of knowledge and meaning, reflection, transformative learning. different reports firmly suggest that knowledge made collaboratively is more likely to be reviewed (freedman, 2009). therefore, learners can acquire more significant comprehension of different points (yang & wu, 2011). working in groups also creates more positive attitudes toward learning and disciplines than personal learning (johnson et al., 1998). on the other hand, in a study of changwatchai, the main challenge that graduate-level students often faced was the lack of group and individual accountability of their peers when it came to online collaborative learning. a good online collaborative environment was suggested to consist of student-faculty interaction, peer-to-peer collaboration, and active learning (richardson and swan). acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 11 2.3. previous studies a study conducted by chang zhu (2012) examined satisfaction, performance, and knowledge construction of two groups of undergraduates via online collaborative work. college students majoring in educational sciences at beijing university (china) and at flemish university (flanders) experienced a three-month semester of online group learning before filling the researcher's questionnaire about their satisfaction and dissatisfaction. apart from a 15-question questionnaire, a comparison of the performance and knowledge construction between two groups was investigated. the final results indicated both groups of participants satisfying with the functions of online peer learning. however, flemish students tended to spend more time on this educational form and gained higher performance than chinese students. in contrast, the chinese group was more likely to enjoy peer learning online to a greater extent and were happier with members' contributions. in another study in 2014, muuro, wagacha, oboko and kihoro, researchers from universities in kenya, reflected the wider use of the e-learning platform in most kenyan colleges. digital data collected from total of 210 students in kenya after given purposive sampling. on the one hand, the researchers agreed with the major contribution of collaborative learning in an online environment recognized in a lot of previous studies. on the other hand, the participants revealed various drawbacks of this platform. particularly, most of the students got extremely frustrated when dealing with online group assignments due to awful connections. the lack of attention and participation of group members drove them crazy during the course. another big challenge came from the instructors with no feedbacks for their work. there are not only state college students who experienced these, but also those in private schools did. the research paper of zhang, peng, and hung (2009) aimed to analyze college students' experience in learning in a group online for the first time in a project-based learning (pbl) environment in taiwan. they conducted interviews with 48 selected students to collect qualitative data and from other sources such as instructor's field notes, online observation, students' virtual interaction, and group assignments. in each focus group, all different levels of participants were included in purpose. due to the introverted students and a lack of response, group interviews were conducted, and a focus group may motivate students to give more and more answers as well as allow the questioner to witness and identify the interactive dynamics among different types of learners. at the end of the semester, the same researcher conducted all the interviews in person, which took 30 to 60 minutes each. all conservations were recorded with the permission of participants and later transcribed in chinese. the survey figured out interesting phenomena that were because of the influence of culture and the educational system. it also revealed that online collaborative learning greatly changed the position of teachers from traditional, teacher-led, and teacher-centered face-to-face classes to project-based, online collaborative learning, in which students have to take more responsibilities and be more active to complete school works with a little support from lecturers, have contributed to a lot of uncertainty, worry, discomfort for college students. moreover, some of them were still jealous of their colleagues' performance, which resulted from the competitive educational system in taiwan. the study of kumi-yeboah, yuan, and dogbey analyzed minority college students' perceptions of online interactive learning activities with 20 minority graduate students from diverse ethnic backgrounds involved (10 african americans, 5 hispanics, and five international students from africa). all of them registered online learning technology for graduates and special education programs at a university located in the northeastern united states. this qualitative research was collected by semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews, and observation by a non-participant. the study results indicate that teachers responsible for teaching online courses should consider the advantages, expectations, and difficulties of learners from different cultural backgrounds when they engage in interactive online learning activities. six concepts on minority graduate student views of online interactive learning experiences were also established in the data review. (1) it is suggested that this team of participants are able to collaborate in a culturally integrated group that encourages them to tap into the dynamic awareness building of students participating in collaborative online learning experiences. on the one hand, collaborative online learning experiences allowed them to contribute to the development of knowledge by evaluating colleagues' activities, feedback, and feedback. learners often benefited from learning in a dynamic group and the feeling of belonging to an online community where there was constant social contact between student groups and teachers. (2) the research pointed to the preference of small-group interaction in a collaborative learning environment among culturally diverse students over collaborative learning experiences within the group. due to the small number of team members, learners claimed that they felt much more motivated and confident to contribute to small-group activities. (3) they stated that students also have a chance to share their cultural and educational experiences with others to improve cross-cultural awareness. the respondents also revealed that cross-cultural collaborative online learning experiences encouraged them to discuss and lead discussions. (4) this result indicates that online collaborative learning practices provided minority participants with opportunities to develop communication skills which helped them achieve access to group decision-making acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 12 process control, which helped them satisfy their learning preferences and cultural perspectives. (5) researchers found that students still face some challenges in term of understanding particular preferences in collaborative online learning, lacking non-linguistic cues, finding hard to express disagreement, communicative limitations leading to less substantive postings; and mismatched forms of contact due to the diverse cultural backgrounds. (6) the survey found out that in discussing cultural gaps and the lack of cultural diversity in the instruction or content of the materials they read online, the participants found out that they encountered obstacles. however, this research still has a limitation in that data was collected from observing a group of 20 minority graduate students, so this cannot properly reflect the perceptions of all culturally diverse students' digital platforms. via comparative research, future studies may look at the experiences of minority students in online collaborative practices. in order to compare the experiences of different minority graduate students from diverse programs and other similar variables such as ethnicity, age, and socioeconomic class, additional studies should be performed. the purpose of durrington and mathews’ study is to look at online student group discussions from a student's perspective so that we identify the essentials that students find important and that they are interested in their learning. research papers applying the method ---mentioning some of the main contents are "importance of group work," "group size," "prior preparation," "characteristics of group members," "group purpose" with research data is a system of 26-question questionnaires and applied to over 24 students to survey on issues surrounding online group discussion. specifically, a survey about six issues: quality of online learning discussions, the number of participants by groups in online discussions, ways to respond in online discussions, discussionrelated issues and are liked in the online discussion, priority is given to selected partners in the online discussion, ways to prepare in online discussions. research results show that the majority of students agree that the quality of online teaching is the best because they can use the knowledge gained in a group discussion to achieve high effectiveness in learning. most students prefer online discussions with 4-6 students or as a group. moreover, students will feel the discussion is more effective if carefully prepared, and students find online group discussion highly effective when discussing theoretical subjects. most students will split discussion groups according to their interests or will choose those with good knowledge and expertise; others want to work alone. in order to prepare a good group discussion, the majority of students will read the reference materials first or contact the teacher first to find out the content of the lessons. based on research “collaborative online learning in virtual discussions” by fisher and coleman. due to the advancement of technology, more and more students access the internet, so the educational system also develops in the direction of new technology to create virtual classes online, social networking sites. the purpose of this study is to find out the benefits of the education system. in detail, describing the structure and students' learning interactions in virtual group discussions includes a description of online students' learning strategies and different motivation functions. the content of this study is to present the structures and ways of working in online group learning. (1) "face-to-face" (2) share own insights and experiences about the course learning. (3) end the exercise in the open direction. (4) project-based learning (5) set originals and roles (6) use metaphorical language and symbols. (7) limit members' participation to easily control (8) be the supporter, not the controller. the shortcoming in this research is that it has not been directly surveyed, and there are no specific data results for the research. the research “collaborative online learning: interaction patterns and limiting factors” of fung in online communication, collaborative learning, and distance learning courses have two studies. that is "student participation patterns in online discussion" and "reported use and reasons for lack of active participation in online discussion", the research paper also adopts ole in three courses. this research aims to provide a framework for students to understand the information of lessons online easily. next, it will find why students do not participate in group discussions in collaborative online learning and measures to motivate students to engage in collaborative online learning. study 1 in this research is "student participation patterns in online discussion". this research database is from e817 "learning, curriculum and assessment" for analysis and applied to 60 students. study 2 in this research is "reported use and reasons for lack of active participation in online discussion". the tool used in this study is the questionnaire system on two issues. the first is a survey of students' access and ole usage, and the second problem is that the survey lacks positivity when participating in online learning. this study shows that the direct cause of online collaboration is that students do not have time, and most students prefer to read rather than spend time in group discussion. moreover, the way team-members work and their attitudes also affect students' participation in online learning. one related research is the study of laila rawahi and abdu mekhlafi, which aimed to investigate students' perceptions toward online collaborative learning by investigating the benefits and impediments they endured during the process of collaborative e-learning. employing both quantitative and qualitative methods in launching a survey on 93 participants, the results showed that the students working in groups highly appreciated network acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 13 collaborative learning since it helped students gain a greater understanding of writing skills (vocabulary and grammar) and improve communication and interaction among peers. on the other hand, some pointed out that online collaborative learning is a tiring and difficult task because of slow connection and poor techniques; the inadequacy of time made group learning worse; insufficient language knowledge leads to group learning difficulties, and passive online peers also caused more problems. besides, many solutions were proposed for facilitating students participating in online group learning and making progress more effectively, such as encouraging students to join, build and share new knowledge, provide adequate training, and invest time in peerto-peer learning projects given. in the previous findings, brindley, walti & blaschke evaluated the effective strategies of creating collaborative learning in the online environment through forming two groups of students: master of distance education (mde) 601, and master of distance education (mde) 608 in which the students graduated and experienced online learning regularly. based on the data showing that mde 608 students were more satisfied with group learning online than mde 601 students did and the different perspective of two groups in the relationship between grading and participation, the researchers finally expanded more instructional strategies used for enhancing collaboration in online learning including transparency of expectations, obvious instructions, appropriateness of task for group work, meaning relevance, incentives for participants embedded in course design, sharing responsibilities, respecting each other and giving regular feedback. the study is limited in implementing evaluation to test the efficacy of the strategies above to escalate participation in and satisfaction in group learning. further investigation is required to understand better and check interactional factors among variables. 2.4. review method 2.4.1. definition of qualitative method qualitative research has relied on data expressed in the form of words – descriptions, accounts, viewpoints, feelings as opposed to in the form of numbers so that it cannot be accurately measured or counted (walliman, 2007). moreover, the qualitative method is widely used to comprehend people's beliefs, experiences, outlook, behavior, and interactions. "qualitative research focuses on understanding a research query as a humanistic or idealistic approach" (pathak et al., 2013). walliman also reported that the richness and subtlety of collected information create a greater understanding of human society. the qualitative method's fundamental weakness in dealing with corpus investigation is that their discoveries can't be reached out to a more extensive population with the same degree of conviction that the quantitative approach can. this is on the grounds that the discoveries of the research are not examined to find whether they are statistically significant or due to chance (ochieng pamela atieno, 2009). 2.4.2. applying the qualitative method into research in kumi-yeboah and teammates' research, the qualitative method was carried out to conduct a survey about the perceptions of culturally diverse students toward online collaborative learning. qualitative research was utilized in the psychological field when research found numerical measurement did not work effectively for this area (pathak et al., 2013). since then, the qualitative method was also leveraged in clinical research, for it helps people have a comprehensive sight of data. marilyn lichtman (2013) indicated historically scientific advancement through practical theories and qualitative data. in this study, the qualitative method using closed and open format questions was mainly employed to collect participants' responses. the survey consists of 10 questions in a form which was sent through the internet for the focus group to discover advantages and disadvantages of online collaborative learning. particularly, there were students' perceptions, feelings towards theoretical and practical disciplines in a web-based collaborative environment. qualitative research methods may lead to some controversial issues for its flexibility and reliability, but its applications have made a major breakthrough in scientific research. 3. research questions to fulfill the purpose of the study, the survey was seeking to answer the following research questions: 1. what benefits do students have when they worked in a group online? 2. what drawbacks do students tackle when they worked in a group online? 3. is online collaborative learning as effective in this high-tech century as people believe? acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 14 4. research significance the significance of this study is twofold. in the broad sense, most universities and colleges in vietnam have currently delivered courses and programs online without geographical barriers. computer use is considered as a part of the curriculum at schools and universities. online classes allow teachers and students to interact online synchronously by using many features such as communicating orally, exchanging texts through typing, audio chat, upload powerpoint presentations, transmit video, and more, stated by jl mcbrien et al., 2009. with online collaborative learning, shea and teammates found that students taking online courses feel more satisfied in their learning experiences when they are engaged in collaborative assignments than in traditional classes (2012). in the narrow sense, this research may help vlu students as well as the faculty of foreign languages to have a deeper view of virtual online learning and have some solutions. first of all, universities can organize some orientational workshops to provide lecturers some useful skills for online teaching and how to supervise online group assignments. next, educators can have some methods to prevent students from cheating while taking exams online. thirdly, lecturers can have a new way to evaluate their students' academic level in online delivered classes. finally, students can be aware of some disadvantages that they will meet during working in a group online. 5. research scope by using the google form website and sending it to some groups of efl students from the first year to the fourth year of van lang university majoring in english, the research intends to find out the upsides and downsides of online collaborative learning. 6. methodology 6.1. participants the participants at first were randomly chosen among thousands of efl students at the university. under the condition of changing the learning method to online last semester, all efl students at vlu experienced different problems, and they had different attitudes toward the learning style. therefore, the study would investigate different generations of efl students (regardless of freshmen, sophomores, juniors, or seniors) in order to explore the greater depth of their experiences. finally, 60 students who dealt with online learning last semester would be sent the form plus the explanation of the main goal of the research. they were encouraged to respond in one week, and the form would be closed after each response was sent. 6.2. design and data collection utilizing the online surveying software google forms, an online survey was well designed and sent to the group of 60 efl students at vlu. with the encouragement for responding to the form in one week, 10 simple closed questions with options for them to choose from were time-saving and efficient ways to respond via smartphones, tablets, etc. furthermore, in order for undergraduates to submit more opinions out of the options, the form was designed to have extra space to text. also, they could keep anonymous during questioning. the responses were automatically recorded and illustrated in charts and figures by google forms before discussing specific data given by students. 7. results the purpose of this survey is to identify some advantages and disadvantages when students experience online collaborative learning in theory-based classes and practice-based classes. this experiment attempted to test the following hypothesis. “online collaborative learning is more beneficial for students than face-to-face collaborative learning.” 7.1. graphical representation of results and statistics analysis acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 15 figure 1: method of learning that efl students in van lang university prefer. figure 1 shows information about which method of learning that efl students in van lang university prefer. overall, the survey finds that more efl students have a tendency to choose the traditional learning method rather than the modern one. according to the survey, students who voted for "online collaborative learning" are 38.3%. and the percentage of students who are interested in face-to-face group work is 61.7%. figure 2: learners experiencing conflict during collaborative work. figure 3: learners solving conflict during collaborative work. 61.7% 38.3% chart 1 face-to-face learning online collaborative learning 25% 66.7% 8.3% chart 2 always sometimes never 43.3% 56.7% chart 3 yes no acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 16 figures 2 and 3 illustrate data about how often efl in van lang university learners experience conflict during collaborative work and whether those conflicts have been solved easily through online platforms. overall, most of the students admit that they sometimes had conflicts with peers during online group work. in addition, the majority of english learners believe that conflicts will be easily resolved through the internet according to the survey, the figure of students who occasionally argue with their teammates during working in a group online is 66.7%. the number of students who always have conflicts with colleagues during collaborative learning time is 15 out of 60 efl students, accounting for 25%. 8.3% of the respondents think they never have arguments. we can obviously see from chart three that more than half of efl students believe that they can easily solve group conflicts through the internet, which is 56.7%. in contrast, 43.3% of learners have the opposite idea. figure 4: learners sharing responsibilities. figure 4 shows information that whether efl learners in vlu share responsibilities to finish work. overall, the survey found that more efl students are keener on sharing tasks to get teamwork done than those who do not. the results show that the majority of efl students agree to share responsibilities to complete group work is 51 students, accounting for 85%. at the same time, 15% of the respondents have an opposite view. figure 5: feelings of efl students in the online environment figure 5 illustrates efl students' feelings in van lang university when they engage in online group work. overall, most of the students feel distracted. while just a few respondents feel normal. the survey finds that 30 efl students feel online collaborative learning is extremely distracted. the number of students who feel annoyed and angry is 27, as much as the figure of respondents who have fun during online group work. 85% 15% chart 4 yes no 26 27 27 17 30 2 bored fun annoyed… motivated distracted normal chart 5 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 17 next, 26 efl learners usually feel bored, while only 17 students are motivated by online collaborative learning. and only two people admit that they find it normal. figure 6: frequency of group work in learning speaking and listening online figure 7: frequency of group work in learning reading and writing online. figures 6 and 7 show how frequently the students worked collaboratively online when learning speaking, listening, writing, and reading. overall, a large number of students admitted that they already experienced working in a group when learning theory-based subjects (reading and writing) and practice-based subjects (speaking and listening). it can be seen from pie graph six that nearly 78.5% of participants answer that they have engaged in online group working while around 22.5% of students never have a chance to take part in this type of learning. it is obvious in chart 7 that 80% of learners have applied online collaborative learning in learning theory-based subjects. in contrast, only 20% claim that they did not experience virtual group working when learning reading and writing skills. figure 8: students choosing their most favorite skill areas to learn online. 78.3% 21.7% chart 6 yes no 80% 20% chart 7 yes no 24 23 29 11 speaking listening reading writing chart 8 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 18 the bar chart above shows students choosing their most favorite skill areas to learn online with other students. overall, the majority of participants prefer applying to online group working in reading classes, while just a few students are interested in experiencing this style of learning in writing classes. it can be easily seen from the chart that nearly half of respondents, 29 people are interested in applying online collaborative learning in reading classes. on the contrary, only 11 students enjoy working in a group online in writing classes. moreover, with listening and speaking classes, there are 23, and 24 learners respectively would like to engage in group working online. figure 9: advantages of online learning. figure 9 illustrates the advantages of collaborative learning. overall, a great number of respondents admitted that learning in groups online is beneficial for them in terms of saving time and money. on the other hand, the figure for developing teamwork skills is not as high as other figures. firstly, we can see from the chart that more than two-thirds of students agree that online collaborative learning helps them save money and time in terms of eliminating living expenses, tuition fees, and commuting time, about 46 people. next, 37 respondents admit that with the help of web-based collaborative learning, they do not need to go to the meeting point as they used to do. besides, more than half of learners, about 32 people, confirm that they think virtual collaborative learning is useful, as they can conduct the meeting on online platforms regardless of how far they are and what time it is. furthermore, the same number of students choose "checking the performance of colleagues easier with the help of screen-sharing function" and "conducting meetings easier" as another advantage of distant collaborative learning. however, just more than one third of learners can totally develop teamwork skills via internet, about 22 people. 30 46 37 32 30 22 conducting meetings easier saving time and money not going to the meeting point having meetings whenver, wherever checking the performance of colleagues easier… developing teamwork skills chart 9 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 19 figure 10: disadvantages of online learning. figure 10 identifies some of the disadvantages that respondents listed in online learning. in general, most students lack responses from peers, while not many learners have trouble with plagiarism and free download. in general, most students lack responses from peers, while not many learners have trouble with plagiarism and free download. as shown in the graph, 40 people admitted that they have difficulties in contacting other members. next, about 35 students find it nearly impossible to choose a suitable time for conducting meetings that suit every member. next, the figures for having technological problems, including unstable internet connection and dealing with inactive, irresponsible peers, are 31 and 32 people respectively. looking at the graph in more detail, 29 learners think online collaborative learning causes misunderstanding of opinions during the process of discussion. besides, the same number of students who struggle to deal with some technological functions because they are low-tech and have difficulties in assessment is 26 respondents. however, being fear of plagiarism and free download is not a common drawback among students. only 14 students choose it. 8. discussion this study was conducted to investigate the positive as well as negative impacts of online collaborative learning on the discussing progress among students. it suggested some materials for further discussion and considerations. as virtual learning is a new learning method in vietnam, specifically in vlu, students still found it difficult to work in a group on online platforms. the use of virtual classes seemed to be not as effective as traditional learning. the responses from the questionnaire pointed out that the disadvantages of applying virtual collaborative learning on speaking skills outweighed the advantages. the study found that students still met some difficulties related to internet connection, social media, eyes problem, and so on (chart 10). and the most notable drawback is lacking peer-to-peer interactions during learning online. 32 26 14 35 40 31 29 26 dealing with inactive team members having difficulties in assessment being fear of plagiarism and free download (writing) delaying too many times lacking responses from peers having technological problems (network transmission) causing misunderstanding of opinions (speaking) being hard for people who are low-tech chart 10 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 20 in contrast, students highly appreciated some benefits of learning in a team online in terms of distance and especially the elimination of time as well as financial borders. 9. conclusion collaborative learning in an online environment is thought of as a universal method benefiting undergraduates in different ways in which the ability to appeal to online learners' satisfaction and self-motivated participation in groups is obvious. moreover, the major positive impact on learners' skills can be see through their better capacity for solving hard conflicts, sharing responsibilities, etc. despite its enormous potentiality, peer-to-peer learning in a virtual environment will absolutely be influenced by several internal and external factors causing negative feedback from learners. for these drawbacks, the low connection among equipment is considered a major problem. furthermore, a lack of initiative and of interaction with instructors is clearly available. finally, we gain perspectives of this learning style from the study that it is not efficient to apply this method of study in any context and period. that is due to its pros and cons, which changeable depending on an individual's background. understanding the impact of collaborative online learning would help learners gain and enhance their performance and instructors design more effective educational activities. according to those figures, we think that virtual collaborative learning is not as effective as traditional learning. 10. limitations the study remains a certain limitation that should be noticed. although the findings of the research revealed significant benefits and drawbacks specifically, the relationship of the pros and cons of online group learning and learners' differences relating to different cultures, educational systems, the social environment has been neglected, which makes the results not pertinent in various contexts. further, because the survey was conducted with 60 participants, it cannot totally evaluate exactly the situation. 11. recommendations for further studies the researcher suggests the following ideas and titles for further studies. a. the effectiveness of virtual classes on developing the students' communicative skills. b. the effectiveness of virtual classes on efl students’ academic performance and attitudes. c. the impacts of online learning on efl students’ speaking skills. d. how to supervise students and evaluate their performances fairly and effectively. acknowledgement we deeply appreciate the insightful comments of ms. thuy ngo thi cam – our mentor and lecturer of the faculty of foreign languages of vlu, on our earliest drafts. and we wish to thank for the support from our faculty. references al-rawahi, l.s. & al-mekhlafi, a.m. (2015). the effect of online collaborative project-based learning on english as a foreign language learners’ language performance and attitudes. learning and teaching in higher education: gulf perspectives, 12(2). ashong, c. y., & commander, n. e. (2012). ethnicity, gender, and perceptions of online learning in higher education. merlot journal of online learning and teaching, 8(2). atieno, o. p. (2009). dichotomy between educational policy-making and implementation in kenya. problems of education in the 21st century, 12. brindley, j. e., blaschke, l. m., & walti, c. (2009). creating effective collaborative learning groups in an online environment. international review of research in open and distributed learning, 10(3). changwatchai, j. (2005). student perceptions of a collaborative online learning environment (doctoral dissertation). chao, i. t., saj, t., & hamilton, d. (2010). using collaborative course development to achieve online course quality standards. international review of research in open and distributed learning, 11(3), 106-126. colbeck, c. l., campbell, s. e., & bjorklund, s. a. (2000). grouping in the dark: what college students learn from group projects. the journal of higher education, 71(1), 60-83. contrast studying alone to studying in a group (2016, nov 12). retrieved from https://studymoose.com/contrast-studying-alone-to-studying-in-a-group-essay. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 3; 2021 21 dillenbourg, p., & schneider, d. (1995). collaborative learning and the internet. du, j., durrington, v., & mathews, j. (2007, october). online collaborative discussion: myth or valuable learning tool. in e-learn: world conference on e-learning in corporate, government, healthcare, and higher education (pp. 2468-2486). association for the advancement of computing in education (aace). fisher, m., & coleman, b. (2001). collaborative online learning in virtual discussions. journal of educational technology systems, 30(1), 3-17. freedman, t. (2009). working together: internationally. knowledge quest, 37(4), 56-61. fung*, y. y. (2004). collaborative online learning: interaction patterns and limiting factors. open learning: the journal of open, distance and e-learning, 19(2), 135-149. gokhale, a. a. (1995). collaborative learning enhances critical thinking. johnson, d. w., johnson, r. t., & smith, k. a. (1998). cooperative learning returns to college what evidence is there that it works?. change: the magazine of higher learning, 30(4), 26-35. johnson, r. t., & johnson, d. w. (1986). cooperative learning in the science classroom. science and children, 24(2), 31-32. koufman-frederick, a., lillie, m., pattison-gordon, l., watt, d. l., & carter, r. (1999). electronic collaboration: a practical guide for educators. kumi-yeboah, a., yuan, g., & dogbey, j. (2017). online collaborative learning activities: the perceptions of culturally diverse graduate students. online learning, 21(4), 5-28. lichtman, m. (2013). qualitative research for the social sciences. sage publications. mcbrien, j. l., cheng, r., & jones, p. (2009). virtual spaces: employing a synchronous online classroom to facilitate student engagement in online learning. international review of research in open and distributed learning, 10(3). muuro, m. e., wagacha, w. p., kihoro, j., & oboko, r. (2014). students’ perceived challenges in an online collaborative learning environment: a case of higher learning institutions in nairobi, kenya. international review of research in open and distributed learning, 15(6), 132-161. nokes-malach, t. j., richey, j. e., & gadgil, s. (2015). when is it better to learn together? insights from research on collaborative learning. educational psychology review, 27(4), 645-656. oanh, n. t. (2007). làm việc theo nhóm. nhà xuất bản trẻ. palloff, r. m., & pratt, k. (2010). collaborating online: learning together in community (vol. 32). john wiley & sons. pathak, v., jena, b., & kalra, s. (2013). qualitative research. perspectives in clinical research, 4(3). pham, t., thalathoti, v., & dakich, e. (2014). frequency and pattern of learner-instructor interaction in an online english language learning environment in vietnam. australasian journal of educational technology, 30(6). razmerita, l., & brun, a. (2011). collaborative learning in heterogeneous classes. in the 3rd international conference on computer supported education, netherlands (pp. 189-194). richardson, j., & swan, k. (2003). examing social presence in online courses in relation to students' perceived learning and satisfaction. shea, p., & bidjerano, t. (2012). learning presence as a moderator in the community of inquiry model. computers & education, 59(1), 316–326. smith, b. l., & macgregor, j. t. (1992). what is collaborative learning. walliman, n. (2017). research methods: the basics. routledge. yang, y. f., & wu, s. p. (2011). a collective case study of online interaction patterns in text revisions. educational technology & society, 14(2), 1-15. zhang, k., peng, s. w., & hung, j. l. (2009). online collaborative learning in a project‐based learning environment in taiwan: a case study on undergraduate students ’ perspectives. educational media international, 46(2), 123-135. zhu, c. (2012). student satisfaction, performance, and knowledge construction in online collaborative learning. journal of educational technology & society, 15(1), 127-136. citation asiacall online journal received: 14/10/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 24/10/2021 vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 accepted: 26/10/2021 pp. 129-136 online: 26/10/2021 citation | nguyen, t. g. m. (2021). some common ways for students to improve pronunciation during covid19 pandemic. asiacall online journal, 12(5), 129-136. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.009. some common ways for students to improve pronunciation during covid-19 pandemic nguyen truong gia minh hoa sen university, vietnam correspondence: nguyen truong gia minh, hoa sen university, vietnam. e-mail: giaminhnguyentruong@gmail.com eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.009 abstract we cannot deny that pronunciation skill plays an essential role in our lives in this integration era. if we have good pronunciation, we can have a chance to get a good job. however, as i researched before, many vietnamese people nowadays are stuck in pronunciation when speaking english. it means that students can still express their ideas about particular issues. still, their worst accents may make the listeners misunderstand essential information because they could not wholly hear what students have said. therefore, this study aims to research learning and to teach english via analyzing some related scientific articles. besides, we also found a way to learn pronunciation online effectively when the covid-19 pandemic still occurs everywhere in ho chi minh city, which can help students still protect their health and gain new knowledge at the same time. on the other hand, we also found some helpful exercises that can help students practice pronunciation by themselves after class. keywords: pronunciation skill, integration era, online learning, teachers, covid-19 pandemic 1. introduction speaking skills play an important role in language learning and teaching nowadays, and pronunciation is also an important part of this skill. in the integration era, vietnamese people have more chances to communicate with foreigners in dealing with a contract, holding a trade promotion, and signing an mou. if the manager has good speaking skills and good pronunciation that can help the international partners understand the message that we would like to express, their deals may be successful. therefore, in this paper, the author will introduce the real definition of pronunciation in english speaking activities and the benefits that it brings to the students to help them communicate with the foreigners effectively, and if they achieve a good style of speaking, they will get a good chance in their future career. the most effective way for students to practice speaking is a face-to-face method in the traditional class. at this time, they can organize many activities to improve their pronunciation. however, because the pandemic of covid-19 is occurring strongly in ho chi minh city. most eoi:%20http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.009 eoi:%20http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.009 https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen truong gia minh vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 130 classes have changed into the online form. it means that students do not have many chances to practice the skill with the teachers/friends, and they must spend much time practicing the skills at home by themselves and this article will point out some effective ways to modify their accents. to help students improve their pronunciation by themselves, internet and mobile applications and even the traditional coursebook are the most convenient means to help students boost their skills and avoid mistakes while speaking to each other. according to norris-holt (2005), motivation plays an important role in helping students to achieve their goals in learning english or even other foreign languages. it is also a factor that assesses the level of student success in learning esl as well as another second language. shaaban (2002) expressed the idea that motivation is also one factor that identifies students' success in learning a second language. on the other hand, according to prasant (2018), the students who have worse pronunciation may feel lonely, face-off with difficulties in finding a job, and may be seen as uneducated with superficial knowledge in pronunciation and phonetics. besides learning pronunciation skills via online platforms nowadays, van et al. (2021) and nguyen (2021) stated that gadgets nowadays are the key tools that help students to improve their english level. on the other hand, bhatti (2021) showed that information technology has helped teachers to access new information in recent years and helps students to expand their knowledge easily 2. literature review a. what is pronunciation? according to dalton and seidholfers (1994), pronunciation is an activity in which the speakers produce sounds to each other. this activity aims to bring meaningful expression messages from speakers to listeners. this activity relates to some factors like intonation, stress, rhythms, phrasing, and timing. on the other hand, pourhosein (2016) stated that this is a product of english sounds. students learn to pronounce words by repeating the sounds they heard, and when they get wrong, teachers will correct their mistakes immediately. in addition, pronunciation is also a way to speak out one word that is accepted by the crowd. b. the importance of pronunciation in learning english according to underhill (2010), the four reasons below are really helpful to make pronunciation become an important part of learning english. firstly, pronunciation can be applied to learn other listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. secondly, pronunciation acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 131 also helps us to improve our listening skills. besides, it is also a physical side of language, and it impacts our self-esteem. in addition, if students can read and write well, but they do not pronounce well, it also means that they still cannot acquire the knowledge of the language well. therefore, if the students would like to succeed in learning a language, the teachers' teaching method is really important. c. some helpful tips to improve pronunciation there are many ways to improve our pronunciation skills. thanks to lewis (2020), we have discovered some good ways to help us boost our pronunciation up to a new level. firstly, students should learn to hear each sound correctly. from that, they can distinguish the differences between all sounds, such as two couples, “l” and “r”, “sh” and “ch”. secondly, they should practice the movement of the mouth. pronunciation is a mixture of some activities from many parts of our face like lips, tongue, throat, and jaw. thirdly, they should use the podcast to learn english, record the hard-to-remember words and repeat them until they can remember them all. fourthly, let's apply the shadowing method. it means they should repeat all the words that they can hear from the podcasts. fifthly, they should record themselves to identify their mistakes to improve their pronunciation. finally, they must spend much time practicing speaking. when they try hard to speak, it also means they can change the way of pronunciation. d. some tips for teaching english online for teachers according to bhagan (2021), some helpful conditions could help the teachers prepare good online english periods. firstly, they should pay a lot of money for teaching devices such as the best laptops and high-quality webcam and headphones. besides, you also need to have enough ram to make the teaching programs work. in addition, benwell (2011) showed some tips that teachers could simplify our online lessons. firstly, teachers should encourage students to come to the class regularly. then, teachers will list out some problematic phonemes for students to remember. next, teachers work on the intonation problems. simultaneously, teachers also need to emphasize each problematic phoneme for students to apply correctly while they pronounce the word. after that, they must remember the pacing and apply the linking word to make their speech more smooth. students should also listen to the different accents from different english-speaking countries to improve their listening comprehension skills. after all, they answer the focused question. 2.1 research questions to support the purpose of the study, the investigation aims to answer the following research questions: 1. which are the best teaching methods that help students to improve their pronunciation? 2. how can teachers support the students’ process of learning pronunciation skills at home? https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen truong gia minh vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 132 3. methods 3.1 pedagogical setting & participants this study was conducted online by researching the available articles and some available theses. then the writer will analyze the final result via her own opinions and the articles' authors. 3.2 design of the study this research will use a qualitative method for consuming time, and the method we will apply is content analysis. although the online learning process occurs easily, the complex process of collecting research data from students via online forms seems not simple. in fact, we should spend really much time brainstorming about the forms of the questions, the arrangement of the forms and we should also spend many hours to attract the students to join in the survey as well as continuously follow the numbers of the participants. it will take us very much time and cause stress. therefore, it is better to know how to collect data from scientific articles to get all of them easily and not spend many hours for the analysis process. 4. analysis a. tools as we know that, the data we can take from this method includes a graph, images, texts, etc. on the other hand, in this covid-19 pandemic, the author did not have many good conditions to go out to collect the data. therefore, this is a good way to serve the aim of this research. according to bhasin (2020), content analysis brings the researcher a lot of advantages. firstly, it reveals the differences in communication in the different contexts. next, it also showed the relations of some information that we used for showing to the audiences. thirdly, it shows the international differences in the content of communication in the different contexts. it also detects the reality of expressing information and bias in communication as well as the other types of communication. in addition, it also describes the reaction of the participants clearly. 5. results the author will divide this section into two small parts. firstly, we will list some exercises that students can practice by themselves at home. secondly, the result will also show the way that teachers can support the students to learn english online as well as assess the results of the process of self-learning english. at first, after researching some articles, the writer has detected some of the prominent methods and types of exercise which help students to improve their pronunciation skills. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 133 a. students’ practice exercises according to purwanto (2019), there are four types of exercises that can help students to improve their pronunciation: • read aloud in this exercise, students receive a small word pronunciation exercise at home. it may include some vocabulary or the whole passage. especially in the example below, this exercise aims to help students read the words that can cause mistakes with the other two in the same line. this word aims to help the students hear what their mouth expresses and avoid the mistake; they can stand in front of the mirror to see the movement of their mouth and hear the sounds that they produce. from that, they can modify the errors they have made when speaking english. the three sentences below will strongly represent examples that can help students modify their pronunciation styles, like the sound "ed" and "th. 1) bead bed bid 2) catched crashed occupied coughed 3) through author clothes thumb • listen and repeat this activity can help students boost their level of pronunciation up and modify the pronunciation style. in this activity, students will listen to the whole text or conversation for the first time. then, the second time, they will hear each sentence in the conversation and repeat it with the whole class or by themselves. after the third time, they still make mistakes; teachers will help them to correct their errors. the most important thing about this activity is that they should turn on their camera for teachers to follow their mouth movement. • tongue twister this method aims to help students have a good reflex in speaking english when they must read a sentence containing the words that have the same initial syllable, which is really difficult to say. they should read these sentences at a fast speed to practice controlling the way they pronounce that string of words. as much they practice, as they can improve their pronunciation style. there are some samples of the tongue-twister sentence below: 1) she sees many ships by the sea-shore 2) she saw the shade of a see-saw. 3) she sells a shell in a sea-shore. 4) this shoe-brush is sold in a shop • recording of learner’s production at the end of the course, the learner can record their voice when they tell the stories or sing a song to identify the mistakes and correct them fast. on the other hand, maurin (2018) advised the students to learn the phonetic alphabet because when they remember the alphabet, they can distinguish the differences between each sound to have an exact pronunciation for the syllables, which has the same way of reading. next, he suggested that students should clearly understand the spoken language rules. if they use the spoken language much, the way they pronounce the word of this language becomes more easily. if students have difficulty pronouncing a word, let ask other people to repeat that word, and students will record their https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen truong gia minh vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 134 voice to remember the way of speaking the word. then, they should listen to the radio as much as possible to identify the fluent pronunciation, and they can copy the way the character pronounces the hard word. finally, do not stop practicing pronunciation by themselves to improve their skills every day. there are seven ways to improve pronunciation that maurin (2018) has cited in his paper. however, in this paper, the author has just taken 3 of them because these ways seem so easy to conduct, and we should not spend much time and money for them to improve our pronunciation skills. every day we need to spend one hour applying one of these ways, and this process must happen continuously in one month to get the highest efficiency. it is also easy for us to find the materials for practicing like cds or television for listening, a repeating e-book for a tongue twister, and the telephone for recording learners' production. from these analyses, i also agree with van et al. (2021)'s opinion that is when students apply technology for learning english. they will recognize the effectiveness of all four macro skills, including listening, reading, writing, and speaking. b. how can teachers support students in english pronunciation? in learning english, especially in pronunciation activities, the teacher plays the role of a coach to check and guide the way students pronounce the words. while helping students, they should control some factors such as speech production and speech performance of the students. besides, they should help students make long-term and short-term plans, do group work on online platforms, work with the record system, and analyze each student's fluency level. finally, they should tell students to change their awareness of their wrong pronunciation and encourage them to change their pronunciation actively, and they will control the changing process of their students. 6. conclusion as we know, in this integration era, pronunciation skills become more and more important with students in their future careers and their lives. however, if the students do not know the effective ways of learning this skill, they cannot pronounce english fluently. besides, there are many ways for students to learn pronunciation by themselves at home. the most important thing that students should do now is try their best to learn english pronunciation by themselves, applying all of the methods cited in this article. simultaneously, the teacher also plays a vital role in students’ self-learning process via online platforms to help them be confident with their ability when they learn at home. according to kologdarh (2010), teachers should care about the needs and problems of pronunciation. this author also shows that teachers should have a detailed assessment for students to improve their pronunciation skills and avoid errors. on the other hand, teachers also need to help students distinguish british english and american english in different ways of pronouncing one word between two different cultures. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 135 from that, students can also improve not only their pronunciation skills but also they can improve their speaking skills and listening skills. references benwell, t. (2011). teaching pronunciation online. retrieved in https://www.teachingvillage.org/2011/06/07/teaching-pronunciation-online/ bhagan, s. (2021). teaching english online: convenient, meaningful and a great way to get money. retrieved in https://www.goabroad.com/articles/teach-abroad/teaching-englishonline bhasin, h. (2020). important of quantitative research. retrieved in https://www.marketing91.com/importance-of-quantitative-research/ bhatti, m. s. (2021). investigating the role of ict for teaching english at elementary level. asiacall online journal, 12 (2), 87-93. retrieved in https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/35 dalton, c. & barbara s. (1994). pronunciation. oxford: oxford university press. kologdarh (2010). esl/efl learner’ perception of their pronunciation needs and strategies. the forty-first annual state catesol conference, santa clara. lewis, r. (2020). how to improve your english pronunciation. retrieved in https://www.leonardoenglish.com/blog/how-to-improve-your-english-pronunciation maurin, m. (2018). improve your accent with these 5 simple tricks. retrieved in https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/how-to-improve-your-accent-with-these-5simple-tricks norris-holt, j. (2005). motivation as a contributing factor in second language. retrieved in http://iteslj.org/articles/norris-motivation.html nguyen, thi hong nhat (2021). developing bottom-up listening skills in a google classroom-based efl module. asiacall online journal, 12 (3),47-57. retrieved in https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/45 pourhosein, g.a. (2016). what factors influence the english pronunciation of efl learners. modern journal of language teaching methods, 6 (2), 314-326 prashant, d. p. (2018). importance of pronunciation in english language communication. pronunciation and communication, 7 (2), 16-17. retrieved from sep-2018_5.pdf (voiceofresearch.org) purwanto, a. (2019). teaching pronunciation using varieties of pronunciation teaching materials and practice. journal of english language teaching, 3 (2), 89-90 rogers, p. (2017). the importance of teaching pronunciation. retrieved in https://community.lincs.ed.gov/group/20/discussion/importance-teachingpronunciation shaaban, k., (2002). affect in language learning. retrieved from https://abisamra03.tripod.com/motivation/ https://www.teachingvillage.org/2011/06/07/teaching-pronunciation-online/ https://www.goabroad.com/articles/teach-abroad/teaching-english-online https://www.goabroad.com/articles/teach-abroad/teaching-english-online https://www.marketing91.com/importance-of-quantitative-research/ https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/35 https://www.leonardoenglish.com/blog/how-to-improve-your-english-pronunciation https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/how-to-improve-your-accent-with-these-5-simple-tricks https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/how-to-improve-your-accent-with-these-5-simple-tricks http://iteslj.org/articles/norris-motivation.html https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/45 http://www.voiceofresearch.org/doc/sep-2018/sep-2018_5.pdf http://www.voiceofresearch.org/doc/sep-2018/sep-2018_5.pdf https://community.lincs.ed.gov/group/20/discussion/importance-teaching-pronunciation https://community.lincs.ed.gov/group/20/discussion/importance-teaching-pronunciation https://abisamra03.tripod.com/motivation/ https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen truong gia minh vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 136 underhill, a. (2010). four reasons to teach pronunciation. retrieved in https://www.adrianunderhill.com/2010/11/23/four-reasons-to-teach-pronunciation/ van, l. k., dang, t. a., pham, d. b. t., vo, t. t. n., & pham, v. p. h.(2021). the effectiveness of using technology in learning english. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 24-40. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/26 biodata nguyen truong gia minh is a journalist at nguoi lao dong newspaper and is currently studying for a master of english language at hoa sen university, vietnam. she had 1 year of experience in working as a teacher assistant of english only day – an activity for students of university of economics and finance (uef) to improve their english pronunciation. her academic interest areas are about teaching and training english speaking and writing skills for university students. https://www.adrianunderhill.com/2010/11/23/four-reasons-to-teach-pronunciation/ https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/26 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nguyễn xuân tiến and lê xuân trường the design and development of english writing courses based on the moodle e-learning platform: their effectiveness nguyễn xuân tiến lê xuân trường advancenx@gmail.com ho chi minh city open university, vietnam, abstract this article surveys the design and development of effective english writing courses based on moodle. it aims to assess the use of moodle for teaching and learning writing and to investigate students’ and teachers’ attitudes to moodle modules designed for writing activities. in this study, cross-sectional survey research was used to investigate participants’ attitudes to moodle for writing courses and modules designed for writing. participants were 121 students of modern english composition classes at stu-iptc and 183 teachers of instructional technology classes at hcmcou, trained in moodle, offered accounts and privileges of designed courses to practice and experience for a long time, and qualified for the investigation. the data collection method was the questionnaire, including three issues: individual information, moodle for writing courses, and designed writing modules. the research results revealed that both students and teachers highly valued the use of moodle-facilitated teaching and learning writing. furthermore, they strongly agreed moodle designed modules developed writing skills: recognition of text structure, the provision of a stimulus and reality for writing, the practice of developing writing style creative, collaborative, and interactive. the implications of the study showed that high-quality designed courses resulted from cooperation between designers, teachers and technicians in exploiting features of tools and technical aspects of moodle. moreover, significant achievements of the study helped to determine the acceptance and use of the moodle in combination with a face-to-face classroom to improve the teaching and learning of writing. keywords: communication tools, inquiry and discovery-based learning, moodle, writing process, writing activities 1. introduction 1.1 background to the study writing is considered as an important tool of communication. thus, it is necessary to build the environment for the development of efficacious writing. up to now, there have been three writing environments. firstly, paper-based writing is a popular, traditional, and academic environment but it lacks word processing, graphic enhancement, and format support. secondly, web-based writing has faster text processing speed and more support tools but it only provides simple communication and lacks customizations of learning activities, diverse writing activities, and management of combined activities. lastly, the lms (learning management system) for writing, especially for moodle, integrates advantages of two writing environments above. it was just used to write a textbook (hunter, 2008), news story (cheung, fong, & wong, 2006), and focused on assignments in the collegiate classes with technical difficulties and pedagogical challenges (wu, 2008). therefore, it is necessary to build an effective writing environment to overcome foregoing gaps. from the foregoing writing environments, it is easily realized that moodle was considered as the best choice and may satisfy the requirements of university education (itmazi & megías, 2005, p. 3; al-ajlan & zedan, 2008, p. 63). in order to facilitate teaching and learning writing, it is required to design and develop online writing courses based on moodle. mailto:advancenx@gmail.com asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nguyễn xuân tiến and lê xuân trường 1.2 statement of the research problem from the background above, to facilitate and improve teaching and learning writing, stu-itpc (saigon technology university – international training programs center) has recognized that moodle along with a face-to-face classroom as an ideal platform for designing and developing effective writing activities. however, currently paper-based writing lacks tools of word processing, web-based writing lacks management of combined activities, and the lms for writing, especially moodle, only focused on writing in a collegiate environment and encountered technical problems and pedagogical challenges (wu, 2008). thus, there are really convincing rationales for designing and developing effective writing courses, including resources and activities, based on moodle. 1.3 research questions 1. to what extent does the use of moodle facilitate teaching and learning writing? 2. how do students and teachers respond to moodle modules designed for writing activities? 2. literature review 2.1 empirical research studies on the moodle system empirical research studies into the moodle system for english writing activities related to many features to enhance instructors’ teaching and to facilitate students’ learning, especially for cooperative activities. the following is some typical research studies in connection with writing activities based on moodle. the perceived usefulness and ease of the use of moodle led to the acceptance and use of moodle (šumak et al, 2009). moodle was the best system among other lms software to meet training requirements of university education (al-ajlan & zedan, 2008). most of the students who participated in interactive writing activities based on moodle achieved significantly better experience and learning effects than those who did not (liao & lin, 2011). the moodle learning environment offered effective written communication tools and made a friendly space for group activities (liao, f. chen & t. chen, 2011). thus, from previous empirical research studies, it is deduced that the implementation of writing activities based on moodle is feasible. develop asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nguyễn xuân tiến and lê xuân trường 2.2 theoretical framework for the study the theoretical framework is the relational structure, which supports related theories used for the research study. this framework has four key components: “courseware”, “resources”, “writing process”, and “writing activities” (figure 1). from the “courseware”, “resources” are used to design “writing process”, focusing on “writing activities”. noticeably, courses designed for “writing activities” can improve the “courseware”. this framework can be developed and expanded on other writing activities based on moodle. 3. research methodology 3.1. research design the research design not only included what was done to complete the research project, but also ensured that data were collected to answer the research questions. this design included the type of the research approach, research sites, participants, the design and development of online writing courses based on moodle, the data collection method, and the data gathering procedure. 3.1.1 the type of the study the type of the study was cross-sectional survey research used for asking participants different questions at a specific point of time. form course materials course modules file, text page, web page, link, directory, label. assignment, journal, lesson, quiz, chat, forum, glossary, wiki seeing, reading interaction, communication resources static course interactive course social course creating, modification, move, deletion writing process pre-writing, writing editing, revising publishing identification, expansion, writing, correction, report courseware modular layout, interface course management assessment strategies cooperative learning assessment cooperation analysis, design, implementation, development word essay paragraph parts of speech, function analysis, match genre, function type, function analysis, organization analysis, arrangement sentence meaning, structure, usage analysis, synthesis, transformation english writing activities based on moodle (social constructivist, cognitivist, connectivist school) figure 1: theoretical framework for english writing activities (2012) includes <type> is designed for <level> develop writing activities addition, design, development text structure recognition stimulus and reality for writing creative writing collaborative writing interactive writing asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nguyễn xuân tiến and lê xuân trường 3.1.2 research sites research sites were modern english composition classes at stu-itpc and instructional technology classes (dip 7, dip 8, tesol 3) at hcmcou. 3.1.3 participants participants included 121 students and 183 teachers, trained in moodle, were offered accounts and privileges of designed courses to practice and experience for a long time, and qualified for the investigation. surveys were conducted from early april 2010 to late may 2011 in classrooms. 3.1.4 the design and development of online writing courses based on moodle the design and development of online writing courses based on moodle included recognition of text structure using “quiz”, the provision of a stimulus and reality for writing using “assignment”, the performance of creative writing using “blog”, the practice of developing collaborative writing using “wiki”, and the rehearsal of interactive writing using the website programmed by an author of this article. 3.1.4.1 recognizing text structure using quiz this course consisted of two steps: identifying the text order and writing the essay. first, students recognized and showed the structure of the given essay and then wrote an essay with an assigned topic in a similar order. consequently, this course was more favourable in terms of word processing, graphic enhancement, and format support. 3.1.4.2 providing a stimulus and realistic situation for writing using assignment this course provided students with a realistic setting to reply to an assigned topic. to perform this, students followed a series of activities: choosing a topic, writing an essay, and checking grammar and plagiarism. as a result, this course provided a stimulus and realistic circumstance for writing and gave students full and detailed feedback on their writing papers. 3.1.4.3 performing creative writing using blog this course allowed students to write and respond to one another’s writing. it included text, pictures, audio, video, and links while its content was appealing, stimulating, and controversial. thus, this course supplied students with more multimedia, and strongly supported them in search for written blog contents and related reference materials. 3.1.4.4 practicing collaborative writing using wiki this course permitted students to work together on a single project. indeed, students were assigned their own specific tasks of the plan but contributed to the success of the whole project. owing to previewing writing papers of classmates, students could adjust to the content of their writing properly. hence, this course enabled a community to fulfill a big and complicated plan. 3.1.4.5 rehearsing interactive writing using website based on the website programmed by one of the authors, this course helped students practice online essay writing tutorial step by step. besides, it permitted students to check the course content every day. students also referenced online writing resources. additionally, the forum was established for them to express their ideas for the course. therefore, this course strengthened the interaction between users and the system. overall, all foregoing courses helped students practice writing activities diverse in genres and styles, which other writing environments could not supply. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nguyễn xuân tiến and lê xuân trường 3.1.5 data collection method the data collection method used was the questionnaire. there were two kinds of questionnaire: a questionnaire for students and a questionnaire for teachers. each questionnaire included three issues: individual information, moodle for writing courses, and moodle designed modules. all questions were built in the form of closed questions. in terms of presentation, 34 questions were put on the left along with four or five options to the right of each one. 3.1.6 data gathering procedure the data gathering procedure refers to the order of data collection. it consists of four stages as following: first, the designer designed and developed online writing courses. then, accounts were provided for participants to practice and experience online writing. after a long period of time, questionnaires were distributed and explained to participants to answer. finally, data were collected and organized from questionnaires. 4. findings and discussions 4.1 findings 4.1.1 research question 1: to what extent does the use of moodle facilitate teaching and learning writing? the framework of data analysis is criteria for the evaluation of results. first, the assessment for mean was established as follows: from 1.0 to 2.6: low; from 2.7 to 3.3: medium; and from 3.4 to 5.0: high second, the assessment for standard deviation (sd) was formulated as follows: the lesser the sd, the higher the reliability of the investigation. therefore, as for students’ and teachers’ responses, because the values of mean were high, it was concluded that most of participants strongly agreed the use of moodle facilitated teaching and learning writing. 4.1.2 research question 2: how do students and teachers respond to moodle modules designed for writing activities? because the values of mean were also high, it was shown that most of participants strongly agreed moodle designed modules developed writing activities. 4.2. discussions 4.2.1 research question 1: to what extent does the use of moodle facilitate teaching and learning writing? in comparison with al-ajlan’s and zedan’s (2008) research, this study showed consistently that moodle was an optimal choice for university education and difference was typical rationales for the use of moodle. moreover, with al-ajlan’s, zedan’s (2008), ali’s, and jaafar’s (2010) research, this study indicated that consistency was an effective feature of moodle tools and technical aspects of the moodle platform and that any difference lay in the learning contents of designed courses. 4.2.2 research question 2: how do students and teachers respond to moodle modules designed for writing activities? in comparison with lin et al.’s (2005) research, this study revealed consistency was different modules used to design for various writing activities and difference was types of moodle designed modules for courses. additionally, with liao et al.’s (2011) research, this study confirmed consistency was the asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nguyễn xuân tiến and lê xuân trường effective use of moodle modules for cooperative learning and difference was the instructional design plan for cooperative learning. 5. conclusions, implications, limitations and recommendations 5.1 conclusions moodle created a convenient environment for teaching and learning writing by providing support tools and management facilities; and moodle designed modules were highly assessed, when producing a wide range of writing activities, focusing on recognition of text structure, the provision of a stimulus and reality for writing, and the practice of developing writing style creative, collaborative, and interactive. 5.2 implications first, to design high quality online writing courses, designers need to closely cooperate with instructors, and technicians and know how to effectively explore features of moodle tools and technical aspects of the moodle platform for integrating technology advances into designed courses. second, the usefulness and ease of moodle determines the acceptance and use of the moodle e-learning system. 5.3 limitations this study was just concerned with survey research and did not examine other research studies. additionally, it only investigated undergraduates’ attitudes and did not consider those of students in colleges, foreign language centers, and vocational training schools. 5.4 recommendations  to confirm the results of this study, a similar study can be duplicated for other different universities and at different educational levels.  to exploit resources for learning writing, students need to be equipped with online learning methods and computer literacy.  to raise training performance, faculty members should participate in coaching courses on instructional technology and attend international conferences, seminars, and workshops. references al-ajlan, a., & zedan, h. (2008). why moodle. retrieved 2008, from http://www.aub.edu.lb/ cheung, l., fong, n., & wong, c. (2006). a new english writing curriculum for tertiary students: the use of moodle to construct a community of learners. apera conference. retrieved november 2006, from http://edisdat.ied.edu.hk/ hunter, l. (2008). moodle in the writing lab: foregrounding task design as topic in instructor-learner exchange. the jalt call journal, 4(1), 85-92. retrieved 2008 from http://www.jaltcall.org/ itmazi, j. a., & megías, m. g. (2005). survey: comparison and evaluation studies of learning content management systems. retrieved 2005, from http://www.docjax.com liao, c. & lin, s. (2011). an analysis of the interactive behaviors of self-learning management in a webbased moodle e-learning platform. retrieved 2011, from http://www.academicjournals.org/ šumak, b., heričko, m., pušnik, m., & polančič, g. (2009). factors affecting acceptance and use of moodle: an empirical study based on tam. retrieved 2009, from http://www.informatica.si/ wu, w. (2008). the application of moodle on an efl collegiate writing environment. journal of education and foreign languages and literature, 7, 45-56. retrieved june 2008, from http://people.chu.edu.tw/ citation asiacall online journal received: 08/10/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 08/11/ 2021 vol. 13, no. 1, 2022 accepted: 18/11/ 2021 pp. 73-81 online: 20/11/ 2021 citation | luu, t. m. v. (2022). a neuroscientific approach to understanding listening comprehension in efl contexts. asiacall online journal, 13(1), 73-81. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.004 a neuroscientific approach to understanding listening comprehension in efl contexts vy luu thi mai ho chi minh city university of economics and finance, vietnam corresponding author's email: vyltm@uef.edu.vn eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.004 abstract the potential relevance of neuroscience to education has been gaining attention from scholars and educators in recent years. as stated by tokuhama-espinosa (2021), the professionalization of great teachers involves not only the content and pedagogical knowledge but also the ability to leverage technology based on the understanding of brain efficiency. in this sense, the current paper attempts to bring five applicable principles emerging from neuroscientific findings into the context of language learning and teaching, particularly the development of listening skills. the paper begins by presenting some nuggets of neuroscientific knowledge related to language learning, which opens a novel perspective of conceptualizing the process of listening comprehension. it will then go on to a proposal of a brain-based listening technique as an alternative to teach listening. keywords: neuroscience, language learning, listening comprehension, brain-based listening 1. introduction neuroscience is referred to as the science of the nervous system (churches et al., 2017). neuroscience can be considered another source of evidence that can contribute to evidencebased practice and policy in education. according to dubinsky et al. (2019), knowing neuroscience is essential to understand better how students' brains work and how teachers can contribute to its functionality to facilitate language learning and improve the effectiveness of their teaching techniques. knowledge of neuroscience can be a powerful way to inform teachers of the theoretical bases for established or new classroom practice because it can affect teachers' views of learning. besides, it also provides a mental framework for teachers to understand nuanced psychological factors that influence classroom practice. numerous scholars have suggested integrating the latest neuroscience findings into education practice from different perspectives in recent years. for instance, the brain-targeted teaching model of hardiman (2012) gives teachers an instructional framework based on neuro and cognitive sciences research about how the brain and mind work. the six brain targets, representing six stages of the teaching and learning process, highlight the emotional and http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.004 mailto:vyltm@uef.edu.vn http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.004 https://asiacall.info/acoj vy luu thi mai vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 74 physical learning environments, designing instructions to enable students to demonstrate mastery of content and apply knowledge in creative problem-solving. meanwhile, zadina (2014) develops a multiple pathways model to raise teachers' awareness of the many pathways involved in learning. his core assumption is that understanding how the brain learns and what is required before introducing new information is essential to orchestrate optimal learning. similarly, taylor and marienau (2016) introduce the notion of theatre of knowing as a visual metaphor and storyboard for how learning occurs. the concept describes the interwoven relationships between two factors: the external and internal environment. they argue that educators can figure out how the brain engages in learning and how teachers engage in facilitation by comprehensively viewing this multifaceted relationship. likewise, posey (2019) put an emphasis on brain-based teaching strategies and a demand for attending to the social-emotional needs of learners by proposing a universal design for learning. this design portrays a systematic and proactive way to design learning experiences based on three identified brain networks involved in learning: recognition network (perception, language, comprehension); strategic networks (how we physically act, express and integrate executive function skills); affective networks (interest, effort, self-regulation). later on, jensen and mcconchie (2020) posit that how the brain operates can offer solutions for finding the best condition to maximize learning. they put forward an approach that stresses the engagement of strategies based on principles of how the brain learns (esp approach). the most up-to-date argument may come from tokuhama-espinosa (2021), who promotes six evidence-support fundamental concepts about the brain and learning. on this premise, she builds 21 learning tenets covering several topics across a range of human variance, which underscores the learners' differences. she uses these principles to create 40 evidence-informed pedagogies for online and face-to-face teaching, believing that these can serve certain purposes of teaching and learning needs in different contexts. all things considered; the abovementioned authors have acknowledged the enormous contributions of neuroscientific findings in terms of understanding learning mechanisms in the brain. their attention may be drawn to different facets of the learning brain. still, they all underlie the notion that creating an optimal learning environment requires the awareness of how the brain works to make learning happen. on the one hand, this knowledge offers a transformational viewpoint on teachers' professional practice. teachers can gain more insights into the learning mechanism and then develop the appropriate approach to make it happen. on the other hand, this knowledge also gives learners a good reason to be persuaded by the teachers' methods or strategies to maximize students' learning. given the emergence of this interdisciplinary approach in education, the author attempts to present five fundamental principles concerning the human brain's nature associated with language learning. these principles are distilled from an extensive review of secondary resources from both educational and neuroscientific disciplines. to avoid misinterpretations of these results, the author examines different perspectives from various neuroscientists to detect the most common evidence. subsequently, the data is also triangulated by revising numerous acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 75 educators' translations of these findings and their application. in this way, the content of the five principles is validated. the author also seeks to describe the l2 listening comprehension regarding the underlying concept of these principles. as a result, a brain-based listening technique is proposed as an alternative to the teaching of listening comprehension. 2. neuroscience-based principles for language learning the first and foremost principle about the human brain is that each brain is unique in terms of genetic makeup and neural pathways shaped by individual life experiences (medina, 2009; tokuhama-espinosa, 2021). these two factors contribute to the variation in how the human brain operates or learns something (barrett, 2017). in other words, each brain has followed "a unique trajectory based on its history, goals and practice" (eagleman, 2020, p. 150). therefore, the way learners approach a particular language tends to be coloured by how their brains have been wired based on their exposure to that language. the second principle showcases the significance of prior experiences in the process of learning (tokuhama-espinosa, 2021). its essence is underlined by david eagleman, who claims that "early experience becomes foundational. it develops into the architecture upon which everything subsequent is built. everything new is understood through the filter of the old" (2020, p. 140). simply put, all new learning passes through the filter of previous experiences or "operational histories" of a particular learner (lian & sussex, 2018, p. 7). learning is an act of meaning-making; the meaning of something to you is a web of associations based on your whole history of experiences. during the collision of old and new meanings, old meanings need to be challenged, refined, or even replaced so that learning can occur. the third principle concerns the ability of the brain to structurally change in relation to input from the environment, which is described as neuroplasticity (merzenich, 2013). indeed, the human brain is malleable. this capacity declines with age but exists throughout the lifespan. moreover, the adult brain remains plastic for both l1 and l2 (steinhauer & kasparian, 2020). this means that the more a person practices a new activity or a skill, the more proficient they can become at it. with extensive exposure or repetition, specific neural pathways are strengthened. therefore, in the case of language learning, extensive, deliberate practice can lead to the achievement of fluency or the mastery of any language skill. the fourth principle introduces the notion that our body and speech are synchronized during interactions (tsuchiya et al., 2020). this harmonious organization of change between body motion and speech occurs in both intra-individual and inter-personal manners. people tend to coordinate and imitate in communication, which accounts for interactional synchrony (dumas et al., 2010; orsucci et al., 2013). in communicative settings, brain synchronization is discovered between interlocutors (alejandro & andoni, 2018). this phenomenon benefits social interactions in facilitating prediction, reducing cognitive load for smoother information flow and building up affective bonds (hoehl et al., 2021). https://asiacall.info/acoj vy luu thi mai vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 76 the last principle is related to hemispheric asymmetries or the differences between the two regions of the human brain in terms of their specializations: the right hemisphere (rh) and the left hemisphere (lh). mcgilchrist (2019) argues that regarding the nature of attention and processing input, the primacy of the rh should be highlighted. specifically, according to mcgilchrist (2019), the rh is responsible for attention globally while the lh dominance is for local attention. in other words, whatever we experience comes first in the rh. this idea also explains the priority of the rh, whose tendency is to deal with new experiences or learn new information that often causes apprehension. that is to say, new and unfamiliar input must first be present in the rh before it shifts to being the concern of the lh, once it becomes familiar (mcgilchrist, 2019). this asymmetry or lateralization is also portraited in the operation of language. though both hemispheres are involved in most tasks, these contributions from each may not be equal. specifically, there is a dominance in the lh for most language processes, whereas the rh is more active in processing prosody and metaphor comprehension (haegen & cai, 2019). despite this asymmetrical specialization between the two hemispheres, it should be borne in mind that this lateralization in all functions is not absolute. still, both regions are involved in almost all mental processes; both constantly convey and transmit information in either direction several times a second (haegen & cai, 2019). 3.understanding l2 listening through a neuroscience lens according to worthington and bodie (2018), "although listening research has seen a resurgence in recent years, our understanding of key aspects of the listening process is woefully lacking" (p.11). another reason is that the listening process is quite complex because it is individual and personal, involving cognitive activities, affective and behavioral components (worthington & bodie, 2018). historically, listeners were viewed as passive processors or tape recorders; yet, later, there comes a realization that listeners are active searchers for meaning or even active model builders (anderson & lynch, 2003; brown, 1997). as the latter view underlies the activeness of the listeners, it seems to have numerous advocators. for instance, byrnes (1984) argues that during listening, learners are often inclined to focus on the word to construct meaning due to negative repercussions arising from having mastered their native language. on the contrary, brown (1997) draws more attention to the impact of learners' background knowledge and their unique life experience. likewise, buck (2001) describes listening as an on-going process of constructing and modifying an interpretation of the incoming signal based on relevant information available at that time and emerging from their knowledge repertoires. similarly, for anderson and lynch (2003), during listening, learners actively build their mental models to make sense of the signals. they postulate that listening is a process of building representations of auditory input as a result of combining new information with previous knowledge and experience in both linguistic and non-linguistic forms. meanwhile, rost (2016) highlights the integration of various types of processing: neurological, linguistic, semantic and pragmatic processing. he states that listening is an overlapping of these processes in a complementary manner. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 77 it can be seen that these scholars all are on the same ground saying that listening is a process of constructing meaning. however, they differ in explaining how this meaning-making mechanism works. most of them identify the presence of meaning, the contribution of prior knowledge and previous experience, the occurrence of an interaction between these mentioned factors. only rost (2016) presents a combination of processing types covering all facets, including a neurological perspective. however, he remains in the quest for identifying factors and putting them into categories. what makes the listening process through a neuroscience lens in the current paper distinguishable from these arguments is an acknowledgement of the existence of the unknown factors regardless of internal or external ones. the underlying reason is that if a history of an individual lifetime plays a crucial role in that person's learning process, as discussed in the first two principles, their meaning-making mechanism should be respected to maximize their learning. therefore, when the unique characteristics are taken into account, an endeavour to seek certainty by diagnosing all factors seems not to be correct. probably it may be helpful within the wall of classrooms, but in the long run, it may be ineffective in natural communicative settings, which are often filled with uncertain and unpredictable circumstances (marton, 2015). in this case, the notion of operational histories showcases this dynamic feature (lian & sussex, 2018). instead of listing the contributing external and internal factors in the listening process such as linguistic knowledge, background knowledge, prior knowledge, and experience, etc., the term operational histories highlight the activated elements that are supposed to be relevant online according to each learner's personal choice during the process of making sense of auditory input. taken together, the author argues that listening comprehension is the process of constructing meaning as a result of the interaction between the auditory input and internal representations through the listener's perceptual filter or operational histories in a particular context. the three variables, namely internal representations, operational histories and context, are characterized as personalized, varied, inconstant, volatile and unknowable. 4. a brain-based technique for listening practice in light of the alternative definition of listening comprehension above and the underlying assumption of principles 3, 4 and 5, the author proposes a listening technique that combines listening to filtered speech and normal speech in synchrony with body movements. this technique was created on the premise that it is possible to create optimal input as an awarenessraising activity to defeat the processing habits of l2 learners' brains (cai et al., 2021). this can challenge these learners' reliance on the neural of their native language to learn and process l2 (xie, 2018). moreover, this input can trigger the right hemisphere before it is processed by the left hemisphere (eagleman, 2020). in principle, learners have to listen to the filtered speech prior to the normal speech. a certain number of repetitions can be applied to each type of input depending on learners' proficiency level and the listening sources. they have to feel the melody with body movements. in the end, transcripts of normal speech are shown for self-check. the filtered speech refers to the low-pass filtered utterance at a cutoff frequency of about 320 https://asiacall.info/acoj vy luu thi mai vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 78 hz. at this frequency, the prosodic features (stress, rhythm and intonation) are preserved, but the segmental elements (phonemic, semantic, and syntactic) are degraded (luu et al., 2021). studies in brain imaging have found that low-pass filtered speech can activate a number of areas in the right hemisphere strongly than normal speech (fonseca et al., 2009; ischebeck et al., 2008). this is because the unintelligibility of filtered speech effectively prevents learners from attempting to decipher the signal's original speech content. in this way, it bypasses learners' mechanism of processing information, which is dominated by the lh, in turn stimulating the rh effortlessly. in other words, when learners listen to filtered audio, this interferes with their well-established l1 listening habit, which tends to identify linguistic features. under this circumstance, the prosodic features become more salient and more accessible during the listening process. while listening, learners have to hum along with the melody (for filtered speech) or repeat the utterance (for normal speech) in coordination with their body movements. the underlying reason for this synchrony is explained by the link between body and speech in interactions discussed in principle 4. learners can choose to move any part of their body (hand, fingers, legs, head, etc.) or even the whole body to feel the rhythm. by producing this kind of spontaneous beat movement, learners can sensitize and internalize the prosodic features maximally. the technique can be implemented in both traditional and virtual classrooms or even beyond. with the capacity to filter the audio, teachers can build a data bank of listening resources in a particular teaching course. they can choose to play the recordings during the lesson as usual or to design an online platform embedded with filtered and normal speech for learners to practice listening by themselves. in view of the individualized nature of listening comprehension, a selfaccess listening course is recommended because it can offer learners a personalized, self-paced listening environment and promote their learning autonomy. 5. conclusion overall, the paper set out to describe five principles concerning the human brain based on an extensive review of related findings in neuroscience and education. accordingly, an alternative interpretation of listening comprehension and a listening technique are developed on the core assumption of the five principles. the paper has argued that understanding how the brain operates and how it processes input is essential for teachers to create an optimal learning environment that maximizes learners’ listening performance. specifically, considering the uniqueness of the human brain, the significance of prior experiences in constructing meanings, the brain's capacity to remold structurally, the synchrony between speech and body, and the functional differences between two brain hemispheres, the paper suggests implementing optimal input or filtered speech in coordination with normal speech and body movements in listening pedagogy. a description of a protocol for listening practice is also discussed in traditional or virtual classrooms as well as in online learning platforms. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 79 this paper has gone some way towards enhancing our understanding of the human brain in the listening process and in language learning in general. it also provides some significant implications for educators and researchers. specifically, given the enormous benefits of neuroscience knowledge, more workshop or training opportunities regarding this interdisciplinary view for undergraduates, graduates and teachers should be encouraged. by acknowledging the challenges and concerns in connecting two fields, educators need to make considerable attempts to translate the neuroscientific findings into the domain of education, specifically language teaching and learning. in this way, the information can be understood in the right way, and teachers can avoid misleading interpretations. besides, teachers are advised not to make use of basic neuroscience findings and claim an educational application. instead, investigation and experimentation are strongly recommended. with the recent prevalence of online learning and teaching mode, there have been some attempts to find the appropriate approaches to teaching listening in the vietnamese contexts (ha & ngo, 2021; nguyen, 2021). future research can be carried out to investigate the implementation of this brain-based listening technique in improving learners’ listening comprehension in these virtual classrooms. this would be a fruitful area for further work. references anderson, a., & lynch, t. (2003). listening. oxford university press. barrett, l. f. (2017). how emotions are made. houghton mifflin harcourt. brown, g. (1997). listening to spoken english. longman. buck, g. (2001). assessing listening. cambridge university press. byrnes, h. (1984). the role of listening comprehension: a theoretical base. foreign language annals, 17(4), 317–329. cai, x., lian, a., puakpong, n., shi, y., chen, h., zeng, y., … mo, y. (2021). optimizing auditory input for foreign language learners through a verbotonal-based dichotic listening approach. asian-pacific journal of second and foreign language education, 6(1), 1-30. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-449878/v1 churches, r., dommett, e., & devonshire, i. (2017). neuroscience for teachers: applying research evidence from brain science. richard churches eleanor dommett ian devonshire. crown house publishing limited. dubinsky, j. m., guzey, s. s., schwartz, m. s., roehrig, g., macnabb, c., schmied, a., & cooper, j. l. (2019). contributions of neuroscience knowledge to teachers and their practice. neuroscientist, 25(5), 394–407. dumas, g., nadel, j., soussignan, r., martinerie, j., & garnero, l. (2010). inter-brain synchronization during social interaction. plos one, 5(8), e12166. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0012166 https://asiacall.info/acoj vy luu thi mai vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 80 fonseca, r. p., scherer, l. c., oliveira, c. r. de, & parente, m. a. de m. p. (2009). hemispheric specialization for communicative processing: neuroimaging data on the role of the right hemisphere. psychology & neuroscience, 2(1), 25–33. ha, g. l., & ngo, t. c. t. (2021). challenges in learning listening comprehension via microsoft teams among english majors at van lang university. the international journal of tesol & education, 1(3), 142–175. retrieved from http://ijte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/36. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11250/ijte.01.03.009 haegen, l. van der, & cai, q. (2019). lateralization of language. in g. i. de zubicaray & n. o. schiller (eds.), the oxford handbook of neurolinguistics (p. 877). oxford university press. hardiman, m. (2012). the brain-targeted teaching model for 21stcentury schools. sage publications. hoehl, s., fairhurst, m., & schirmer, a. (2021). interactional synchrony: signals, mechanisms and benefits. social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 16(1–2), 5–18. ischebeck, a. k., friederici, a. d., & alter, k. (2008). processing prosodic boundaries in natural and hummed speech: an fmri study. cerebral cortex, 18(3), 541–552. jensen, e., & mcconchie, l. (2020). brain-based learning: teaching the way students really learn. corwin. lian, a., & sussex, r. (2018). toward a critical epistemology for learning languages and cultures in 21st century asia. in a. curtis & r. sussex (eds.), intercultural communication in asia: education, language and values. springer. luu, m. t. l., lian, a., & siriyothin, p. (2021). developing efl learners' listening comprehension through a computer-assisted self-regulated prosody-based listening platform. call-ej, 22(1), 246–263. marton, f. (2015). necessary conditions of learning. routledge. mcgilchrist, i. (2019). the master and his emissary: the divided brain and the making of the western world. yale university press. medina, j. (2009). brain rules: 12 principles for surviving and thriving at work, home and school. pear press. merzenich, m. (2013). soft-wired: how the new science of brain plasticity can change your life. parnassus publishing. nguyen, t. h. n. (2021). developing bottom-up listening skills in a google classroom-based efl module. asiacall online journal, 12(3), 47–57. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/45 orsucci, f., petrosino, r., paoloni, g., canestri, l., conte, e., reda, m. a., & fulcheri, m. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 81 (2013). prosody and synchronization in cognitive neuroscience. epj nonlinear biomedical physics, 1(1), 1–11. pérez, a., dumas, g., karadag, m., & duñabeitia, j. a. (2019). differential brain-to-brain entrainment while speaking and listening in native and foreign languages. cortex, 111, 303–315. posey, a. (2019). engage the brain: how to design for learning that taps into the power of emotion. ascd. rost, m. (2016). teaching and researching listening. pearson. steinhauer, k., & kasparian, k. (2020). brain plasticity in adulthood—erp evidence for l1attrition in lexicon and morphosyntax after predominant l2 use. language learning, 70(52), 171–193. taylor, k., & marienau, c. (2016). facilitating learning with the adult brain in mind. josseybass. tokuhama-espinosa, t. (2021). bringing the neuroscience of learning to online learning. teachers college press. tsuchiya, a., ora, h., hao, q., ono, y., sato, h., kameda, k., & miyake, y. (2020). body movement synchrony predicts degrees of information exchange in a natural conversation. frontiers in psychology, 11(april), 1–10. worthington, d. l., & bodie, g. (2018). defining listening: a historical, theoretical and pragmatic assessment. in the sourcebook of listening research : methodology and measures (p. 3). wiley-blackwell. xie, y. (2018). cognitive neural mechanism in second language learning. journal of scientific and technical research, 5(4), 5–7. zadina, j. n. (2014). multiple pathways to the student brain: energizing and enhancing instruction. jossey-bass. biodata vy luu thi mai is currently a lecturer at ho chi minh city university of economics and finance in vietnam. she got her phd in english language studies at suranaree university of technology in thailand. she has been teaching english for more than 10 years. she has presented in many international conferences (thailand, china, vietnam). her research interests include theories in language learning and teaching, listening comprehension, pronunciation, prosody, call. citation asiacall online journal received: 31/10/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 22/11/2021 vol. 13, no. 1, 2022 accepted: 28/11/2021 pp. 82-92 online: 30/11/2021 citation | ho, t. m. l., & nguyen, t. b. k. (2022). utilizing digital resources to foster young learners’ engagement in online learning classrooms. asiacall online journal, 13(1), 82-92. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.005 utilizing digital resources to foster young learners’ engagement in online learning classrooms ho thi my linh1, nguyen thi bao khuyen2* 1 faculty of international languages and cultures, hoa sen university, vietnam 2 vus the english center, vietnam *corresponding author’s email: winnienguyenkhuyen@gmail.com eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.005 abstract young learners' engagement is a key factor in determining successful teaching and learning. teachers have to differentiate their teaching approach in order to maximize students' motivation. especially, many educators try harder to gain more students' engagement in online learning after the school closure affected by the covid-19 pandemic. in order to stimulate students' motivation, teachers are required to deploy various digital resources on the internet. however, teachers have been facing challenges in utilizing relevant and sufficient online materials to facilitate and engage learners in the learning process, which results in increasing learning productivity. thus, this article aims to propose some practical teaching techniques using digital resources to foster engagement of young learners in online learning classrooms. keywords: online learning, students’ engagement, digital resources 1. introduction according to b&company vietnam & bean survey team (2020), by 20th april 2020, more than one billion students have been heavily affected by the covid-19 outbreak. however, learning hasn't been disrupted by school closure thanks to online learning with the assistance of technology. over the past two years, about 22 million students in vietnam have attended online classes due to the pandemic outbreak. according to duong (2021), 7.35 million students were reported to study online in september 2021, owing to the lockdown. although both educators and learners have not much experience in teaching and learning online, they may be familiar with video learning that is totally different from teaching and learning online using a platform connected with the internet. moreover, some teachers and students refuse to participate in this procedure because they have not received much well-prepared training. it is obviously true that teachers will struggle to manage the students and engage them to learn through screens. therefore, in this article, the authors are trying to bring some suggestions of utilizing digital resources to encourage learners to learn more effectively. http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.005 mailto:winnienguyenkhuyen@gmail.com http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.005 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 83 2. literature review 2.1. online learning online learning and e-learning are used to describe distance education, but now they have become more popular terms to mention the teaching and learning process that happened through online platforms with the use of the internet. according to taylor (2001, p. 2), online learning has been known as a "fifth-generation" version of distance education which is "designed to capitalize on the features of the internet and the web." it means that education procedures are being taken place by instructors who facilitate students' learning with interactive elements, engage students with various activities that match students' learning styles, and encourage students to learn collaboratively and critically through a platform (tapscott, 2009). in fact, online learning is bringing a lot of benefits for learners and instructors in the way of its operations. it meets the demand of the greater student population and enhances students’ digital skills. moreover, students can learn anytime and anywhere, and they are able to interact with their classmates or teachers through virtual conferences or discussion forums. according to cathy and farah (2020), research has proven the effectiveness of online learning with access to the right technology. on average, about 25-60% more learning materials can be retained from learning online than traditional learning. students also take less time to learn online than in a traditional classroom owing to self-paced learning based on their academic preferences and learning styles. however, research shows that both teachers and students have been challenged with online learning regarding technical issues, improper training for online teaching, inappropriate online testing systems as well as lack of interaction and engagement (cathy and farah, 2020). 2.2. young learners’ engagement student engagement addresses problems regarding low achievement, less motivation, and high dropout rates (shukor et al., 2014). in the light of other research, dixson (2015) indicated student engagement is, generally, the extent to which students actively engage by thinking, talking, and interacting with the content of a course, the other students in the course, and the instructor. student engagement is a key element in keeping students connected with the course and, thus, with their learning". to engage students in online learning, teachers should have their students be proactive participants, encourage them to collaborate with each other, and make learning fun. technology in general and digital resources, in particular, are beneficial for increasing student engagement. many e-learning resources have included e-learning platforms, applications, software, and websites that facilitate learning. however, the inability to deploy online resources or overusing various digital resources may result in the failure to engage students in virtual classrooms. selecting and deploying suitable digital resources to increase student engagement requires digital knowledge, skills, and teaching experience. young learners are known as any students whose range of ages and developmental stages of children from infants, young children, and older children. one of the major characteristics of young learners is their short attention span which they may have full attention for about 10 to 15 minutes (mckay, 2006). that explains why students can only gain their learning from direct learning, real objects, interesting media, and visual aids (harmer, 2007). meanwhile, it is important for teachers to be aware that the mood of young children tends to change every other minute, and they are easily bored, but they are very active, curious, and willing to learn new things. then, when teaching them, teachers are advised to use some expressive and purposeful media to increase their motivation (brumfit et al., 2003). moreover, cameron (2001) also explains that the activities, media, and materials that the teachers provide for teaching young learners have to fit with students' interests rather than the teachers' interests. similarly, sukarno (2008) states that the media and activities should capture children's interest and curiosity. hence, it is extremely prerequisite for educators to select, modify and rebuild resources, especially digital resources, in teaching online. https://asiacall.info/acoj ho, t. m. l., & nguyen, t. b. k. vol. 13; no. 1, 2022 84 2.3. digital resources it is clear to see that students are interested in the material presented. they will engage and learn more. it means that learners will learn best only if teachers bring authentic and creative materials in the classroom, which play an important role in conveying the value and importance of the information. especially in the virtual learning classroom, materials that teachers make on the web are called digital resources. on the internet, digital resources can be information that helps students widen their understanding, or they can be a procedure that teachers can use many different useful internet tools to help learners study. similarly, shariful (2010, p.24) states that “digital resources or digital information resources are those resources whose deal with both born-digital and digitized materials which can be either accessible from library’s in house database or from the world-wide-web, in that case, materials must have to preserve the copyright law, for both the born-digital and digitized format, some resources will be permissible to furnish information in full text and others will be limited to metadata and some resources will be freely accessible for anyone from anywhere in the world and others will have limited accessibility due to the library's policy and for cost-related issues and also for the authentication.”. in fact, van et al. (2021) found that students achieved improvement in language skills, especially speaking skill (57%) and writing skill (31%) thanks to utilizing "educational apps, smartphones, audio tools, computer (75.30%, 60.80%, 19.40%, and 19.10% respectively)" (p. 38). however, there are some considerations for teachers to pay more attention to using digital resources in their classes. first of all, when selecting digital resources and planning their use, teachers have already considered the lesson and learning objective, context, approach, learner styles, and learning environment. secondly, it is clear that not all materials from the internet are appropriate for every single type of class. as a result, instructors need to modify and construct the existing openly licensed resources to create or co-create new digital educational resources matched with lesson objectives as well as learner groups. actually, many teachers are using the irrelevant resources that have already been made and shared by others and applying them to their classes. consequently, it may bring back so many drawbacks that the learners wonder what they are doing. lastly, with online learning, teachers should organize digital content and make it available to learners with the respect and correct application of privacy and copyright rules. that's the reason why teachers need to be aware of the importance of utilizing digital resources to foster young learners’ engagement because of unlimited and uncontrollable resources from the internet. the following session will suggest some practice internet websites and tools that instructors can utilize to modify, create and recreate the digital resources for their young learners. 3. recommendations 3.1 classroom management 3.1.1 classdojo classdojo (http://classdojo.com) is a popular tool and a free virtual classroom management web or mobile app that serves as a digital class folder. teachers can submit students' portfolios to keep track of their characteristics or learning style as well as to create records of their behaviors during the class with multiple behavior categories (rivera, 2019). it is not only good for teachers to follow students' learning progress with very effective functions such as general attendance checks, random names, or timers, but it is also great for students and parents to know how they are performing in the class. certainly, with the rewarding system, classdojo aims to maintain a positive learning acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 85 environment that encourages and reinforces the whole class or individual learners to perform desirable behaviors. it is also very personalized by allowing students to input and select behaviors that are worth it. as a result, it can shape learners' collaboration and engagement learning environment. more importantly, students are stimulated to work with groups to achieve particular goals that further enhance their academic performance in a positive way in the future. 3.1.2 virtual badges virtual badges (https://badge.design/) is one of many websites to create virtual stickers, certificates, and badges, which are known as its heart, a student-centered strategy. it can help students see how to achieve a goal with a reward or how they try better next time to win those rewards that are parts of the learning process. another advantage of getting virtual badges is to prove their accomplishment or skill achieved displayed online and share to everyone all over the world. this internet tool helps instructors modify and design their own rewarding systems to match their learners’ style or learning objectives. obviously, it becomes a more achievable goal for students to work in groups or individuals to win the badges designed to their own values and styles. 3.2 teaching vocabulary according to coady & huckin (1997), vocabulary plays a crucial central role in language and critical importance to the typical language learner. hornby (2004) also stated that a vocabulary is a total number of words in a language that is used by a person that helps learners to be able to understand and pick up the meaning of the conversation or the reading text. by learning vocabulary, the students can add many new words that have been known or unknown before and are used in their daily activities. in the normal class setting, teachers have to use many different techniques to teach vocabulary; for instance, using flashcards, drawing on the board, or real objects to present the vocabulary meaning and playing face to face games to practice the vocabulary. however, using the appropriate and effective digital resources to teach vocabulary becomes more important in the digital world. it requires an instructor to present the vocabulary through the screen in an effective way that motivates them to learn and helps them get involved in learning. using flashcards is one of many ways to teach vocabulary. according to baleghizadeh & ashoori (2011), a flashcard is cardboard consisting of a word, a sentence, or a simple picture. now, teachers can create or recreate it with a digital flashcard their own flashcards using the internet tools. 3.2.1 cram.com cram.com (www.cram.com) is known as flashcard exchange, a web-based application for creating, studying and sharing flashcards. teachers can create a set of flashcards by using pictures in the front and typing the text in the back. it is also great for learners to enhance their learning autonomy by adding voice or sound for vocabulary pronunciation. moreover, the website also designs some gamified vocabulary activities from these sets of vocabulary flashcards that teachers have designed. teachers can get students to play some memory games or matching games using these flashcards during the teaching procedure. moreover, at home, students can do self-learning by making their own flashcards then challenging their friends to find which one set is the best. the last benefit of this internet tool is its convenience which means instructors can use and reuse, edit, modify and share to anyone at any time and anywhere. https://asiacall.info/acoj ho, t. m. l., & nguyen, t. b. k. vol. 13; no. 1, 2022 86 3.3 teaching grammar grammar is one of the language aspects of teaching and learning the language. its role in second language teaching is apparent. the grammatical devices of a language are necessary means to support learners to link all their ideas systematically to express meaning. moreover, it requires teachers to understand a wide range of techniques to develop grammar teaching strategies to suit specific learner characteristics. in the end, it helps learners effectively apply their grammar understanding and knowledge in a communicative context, and it is also the main objective of teaching grammar. therefore, as teaching online, teachers need to pay more attention to exploring and utilizing the digital resources to produce grammar worksheets and grammar games to make students practice grammar points to communicate in a context. 3.3.1 board games – tools for educators board gameplay is an important role in teaching because it is a good activity for students to practice language, but it is also useful for them to work on social and cognitive skills. while playing a board game, students have to participate, reinforce language contents, language aspects and language skills to play. according to the general education curriculum updated in 2019 by the educational department, board games are one of the main pillars of teaching in schools because they stimulate learners and provide context for them to generate language to use in situations (casas, 2020). meanwhile, wright (2006) states that it is a great way for students to consistently practice their language skills using communication with other players participating in the board game. the website called tools for educators (www.tools for educators.com) is to provides teachers with an excellent tool to personalize the board game with different aims for different lessons. all teachers need to do is to choose the "board game" function and submit the requests for students to complete. for instance, they have to make three different sentences using relative clauses, or they can have bonus points to move up a few spaces. the activity can be done in groups as competitive games and cooperative games, which emphasize winning or losing, but it makes the players try their best to work well with their teams to end up with the best results. 3.4 teaching language skills fundamental language skills include receptive and productive skills that are also known as passive and active skills. receptive skills defining a learner's ability to receive and understand the language input are reading and listening skills, whereas productive skills, including speaking and listening skills, enable learners to produce language by using speech or text (sreena and ilankumaran, 2018). despite the categories, the four language skills are correlated and should be integrated to develop communication. 3.4.1 teaching receptive skills receptive skills engage learners in reading and listening tasks. according to saricoban (1999, as cited by nomads, 2013), listening is defined as the ability to understand the speaker's accent, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and comprehension of meaning. when teaching listening skills in virtual classrooms, teachers have been encountering challenges in properly maximizing technology for online teaching and making good preparation for suitable teaching materials (susilowati, 2020). in order to overcome the difficulties of teaching listening online, yılmaz and yavuz (2015) suggest teaching phonetics by utilizing engaging listening activities and acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 87 examining similar sounds or pairs. furthermore, learners should be provided with authentic language for practical input to speak with their friends, play digital games through listening lessons. 3.4.1.1 teaching listening and reading reading is a significant skill that enables learners to understand a written text based on their vocabulary and background knowledge in the second language. in addition, reading enables learners to improve vocabulary, learn new ideas, and develop their knowledge (constantinescu, 2007, as cited by nomads, 2013). in the digital world, pasaribu (2020) proposed that students can have access to reading materials and activities available online to choose their texts, adjust their reading time, strategies and monitor their progress thanks to self-assessment. one of the five ways to develop digital literacies for young learners that castek et al. (2006) suggested is utilizing online stories on the web. online stories are engaging and interactive tools to get learners motivated with reading and enhance literacy skills. with the purpose of developing receptive skills, this research recommends some digital resources, including online stories, videos, interactive listening, and reading games, to educators and learners. in light of the findings, vega (2019) emphasizes the significance of teaching "concepts of print, phonemic awareness, and phonics" at a young age to build a basic foundation for reading skills. 3.4.1.2 kiz phonics kiz phonics (https://www.kizphonics.com) is a website to help teachers focus more on practicing students' receptive skills. on the basis of a synthetic phonics approach, the kiz phonics curriculum offers a complete set of activities structured by levels for preschool, kindergarten, first, and second-grade learners. using kiz phonics worksheets, phonics games, phonics flashcards, listening materials, word families' activities, phonics short stories, phonics lesson videos, and powerpoint, young learners find joy in learning to read by combining letters to form sounds, reading unfamiliar words. this kidz phonics website facilitates teaching and learning phonics as a beginning step of developing receptive skills by enabling educators and learners to select suitable phonics activities for all learning styles. teachers can choose the levels and use resources to teach listening and reading at some teaching stages, including presentation and practice. moreover, teachers don't need to make any preparations for lesson plans, powerpoint presentations, and worksheets, thanks to the available resources on the kiz phonics website. after using songs, stories for context setting, and powerpoint for sound presentation, teachers can implement interactive games for young learners to practice engaging sounds and words. finally, teachers can monitor their students with individual worksheets. eventually, kiz phonics is an excellent progressive program to teach kids to read using a synthetic phonics approach. 3.4.2 teaching productive skills productive skills known as active skills, require language learners to transmit and produce information in either written or spoken form (golkova and hubackova, 2014). scholars prove that productive skills and receptive skills are inseparable and unsuccessfully developed without integration. furthermore, golkova and hubackova (2014) point out a mutual relationship of speaking and writing skills as well as engaging methods to develop productive skills with the assistance of technology. in fact, digital resources and competencies create opportunities for learners to increase their critical thinking, creativity, develop their communication, and "collaboratively build new knowledge” (julie, 2014, p. 38). https://www.kizphonics.com/ https://asiacall.info/acoj ho, t. m. l., & nguyen, t. b. k. vol. 13; no. 1, 2022 88 3.4.2.1 teaching speaking nomass (2013) defines speaking as communication requiring spoken language. some scholars point out linguistic components that are essential for developing speaking skills based on accuracy and fluency. according to negoescu et al. (2021), accuracy involves grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation, whereas fluency refers to “the intonation, the speech rate, and the stress” (p. 162). moreover, nomass (2013) suggests using "speech synthesis programs modern computer programs" to "generate voice signals and decode human sound. these programs are defined as artificial intelligence computer programs and can be a useful tool for improving speaking capability. practicing with such programs will strengthen vocabulary and pronunciation abilities as well" (p. 114). eventually, based on nguyen and vo's (2021 p. 83) research, the result indicates the participants improved their language skills by using the english learning applications, including elsa speak, duolingo, and bbc learning. the researchers also point out significant benefits of maximizing the use of those apps in language learning in terms of their features such as “free-option” and accessibility. however, educators have struggled with interacting with individual students for language checks to ensure speaking accuracy and fluency when teaching speaking online. 3.4.2.2 speechace for pronunciation check, accuracy, and fluency enhancement, speechace is one of the best solutions. the speech act is designed to develop in-class speech recognition technology which aims to help learners develop their speaking skills. their vision is to make practicing and improving speaking attainable without intensive one-on-one instruction, which allows learners to practice pronunciation. this browser is beneficial to students' reception of accurate pronunciation of sounds, words, phrases, and sentences and recording their voice by repeating the words or sentences. speech act technology also gives feedback, which monitors learners' progress by checking their pronunciation mistakes, listening to the samples, and learning how to make accurate pronunciation. after the uploaded voice is checked automatically in a computerized process, learners are informed of the percentage of native-like pronunciation (moxon, 2021). additionally, this website supplies learners with speaking topics or pronunciations for a language review, which is appropriate for learning levels. with the support of technology, especially artificial intelligence, the function of speech recognition allows learners to record their voices and receive speech analysis in speaking activities graded by levels. 3.4.2.3 teaching writing according to nomass (2013), the writing process is challenging to learners regarding brainstorming and organizing ideas by using grammar and vocabulary correctly. similarly, selvarasu et al. (2021) state teaching writing includes relating students' prior knowledge, using vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, and writing styles. in virtual writing classes, selvarasu et al. (2021) advocate that virtual writing is ineffective due to a lack of monitoring, feedback giving, and peer assessment in the online class. as a result, language learners, specifically at a young age, are not engaged in writing activities or motivated to do their written work. the following parts are going to suggest some productive skill tools for teachers to engage students in virtual classrooms. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 89 3.4.2.4 book creator book creator (https://bookcreator.com/) is a free website for everyone who wants to practice their writings skill to use. it is a convenient tool for teachers to improve students' writing skills. teachers can easily assign writing tasks for students to write in the class or at home, and they can mark them later when students share their works. moreover, in writing virtual classrooms, students are guided to create their own written work, including interactive comics, stories, digital portfolios, and publish online. then, they are enabled to share their writing and read their friends’ books. this website also allows users to insert images, audio, and video that can enhance their creative skills to make interactive stories or books. that’s the reason why book creator is a good tool for teachers to facilitate language reinforcement in a fun and engaging way. 4. conclusion in conclusion, the internet benefits to the teaching and learning process are undeniable. especially when education is switched from offline to online in the pandemic time, it becomes more vital to retain students’ engagement in their learning through screens. in this study, the authors have stressed the need to leverage and utilize digital resources, which is tremendously beneficial to students if teachers devote more time to selecting, modifying, producing, and recreating the relevant digital supplements. with the good strategy using effective digital resources, teachers deliver their lesson livelily and boost students' engagement through screen effectively. references b&company vietnam & bean survey team (2020). e-learning in vietnam before and after covid-19 outbreak. retrieved from http://b-company.jp/online-learning-en/ baleghizadeh, s., & ashoori, a. (2011). the impact of two instructional techniques on efl learners' vocabulary knowledge: flashcards versus word lists. mextesol journal, 35(2), 19. brumfit et al. (2003). teaching english as a foreign language 2nd edition. united states: routledge. cameron, l. (2001). children learning a foreign language. lynne cameron, teaching languages to young learners, 1-20. casas i faig, g. (2020). the role of board games in efl teaching to young learners. castek, j., bevans‐mangelson, j., & goldstone, b. (2006). reading adventures online: five ways to introduce the new literacies of the internet through children's literature. the reading teacher, 59(7), 714-728. cathy, l. and farah, l. (2021). the covid-19 pandemic has changed education forever. this is how. world economic forum. retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-education-global-covid19-onlinedigital-learning/ https://bookcreator.com/ http://b-company.jp/online-learning-en/ https://asiacall.info/acoj ho, t. m. l., & nguyen, t. b. k. vol. 13; no. 1, 2022 90 coady, j., & huckin, t. (1997). second language vocabulary acquisition: a rationale for pedagogy. cambridge university press.coady, j., & huckin, t. (1997). second language vocabulary acquisition. c ambridge university press. dixson, m. d. (2015). measuring student engagement in the online course: the online student engagement scale (ose). online learning, 19(4), n4. duong, t. (2021). pandemic enforces remote learning in 24 of vietnam's 63 localities. vnexpress. [online] available at.retrieved from https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/pandemic-enforces-remote-learning-in-24-of-vietnams-63-localities-4359097.html accessed on sep 21, 2021. golkova, d. and hubackova, s. (2014). productive skills in second language learning. procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 143, pp.477-481. harmer, j. (2007). the practice of english language teaching. harlow. england: pearson education. hornby, a. (2004). oxford advanced learners dictionary of current english. oxford university press. julie c. (, 2014). online reading comprehension: challenges and opportunities. texto livre: linguagem e tecnologia, 7(2), pp. 30-43. retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.17851/19833652.7.2.30-43 mckay, p. (2009). assessing young language learners.mckay, penny. 2006. assessing young language learners. united kingdom: cambridge university press. moxon, s. (2021). exploring the effects of automated pronunciation evaluation on l2 students in thailand. iafor journal of education, 9(3). negoescu, a. g., boştină-bratu, s., & morar, l. l. (2021). reflections on teaching speaking for efl students in an online environment. in international conference knowledgebased organization (vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 160-164). nguyen, t. n. q., & vo, n. t. t. (2021). the need of applying english learning apps to help van lang university students improve their spoken english performance. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 72-86. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/33/22 nomass, b. b. (2013). the impact of using technology in teaching english as a second language. english language and literature studies, 3(1), 111. retrieved from https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.822.73&rep=rep1&type=pdf pasaribu, t. a. (2020). challenging efl students to read: digital reader response tasks to foster learner autonomy. teaching english with technology, 20(2), 21-41. rivera, c. j. (2019). using classdojo as a mechanism to engage and foster collaboration in university classrooms. college teaching, 67(3), 154-159. selvarasu, e., thomas, a., sundareswaran, i., rahaman, a., farzana, s., & pareli, m. k. (2021). teaching writing using online tools: an experimental study at the university of technology and applied sciences. international journal of linguistics, literature and https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/pandemic-enforces-remote-learning-in-24-of-vietnam-s-63-localities-4359097.html https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/pandemic-enforces-remote-learning-in-24-of-vietnam-s-63-localities-4359097.html http://dx.doi.org/10.17851/1983-3652.7.2.30-43 http://dx.doi.org/10.17851/1983-3652.7.2.30-43 https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/33/22 https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.822.73&rep=rep1&type=pdf acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 91 translation, 4(6), 196-201. shariful, i., (2010). “present status of digital resources and users perceptions towards them among the university libraries of bangladesh: an exploratory study,” m.a. thesis, university of dhaka, 24. shukor, n. a., tasir, z., van der meijden, h., & harun, j. (2014). a predictive model to evaluate students’ cognitive engagement in online learning. procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 116, 4844-4853. spencer. j. salend (2009). classroom testing and assessment for all students: beyond standardization. thousand oaks, california: corwin press. p. 112. isbn 978-1-41296643-6. retrieved 2010-11-23. sreena, s., & ilankumaran, m. (2018). developing productive skills through receptive skills–a cognitive approach. international journal of engineering & technology, 7(4.36), 669-673. retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20200218172536id_/https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f532/e3 541c57964a8c1677400acbbdfdb566e50a.pdf sukarno, s. (2008). teaching english to young learners and factors to consider in designingthe materials. jurnal ekonomi dan pendidikan, 5(1), 17229. susilowati, r. (2020). the challenges of online learning in listening class during covid-19 pandemic. edukasi lingua sastra, 18(2), 56-72. tapscott, d. (2009). the net generation as learners. grown up digital: how the internet generation is changing your world, tapscott, mcgraw-hill, new york, ny. taylor, j. c. (2001). fifth-generation distance education. keynote address delivered at the icde 20th world conference, dusseldorf, germany, 1-5 april. retrieved from http://www.usq.edu.au/users/ taylorj/conferences.htm. van, l. k., dang, t. a., pham, d. b. t., vo, t. t. n., & pham, v. p. h. (2021). the effectiveness of using technology in learning english. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 24-40. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/26 vega, j. (2019). learning and teaching phonics: an interactive guide for first grade parents.vega, j., 2019. learning and teaching phonics: an interactive guide for first grade parents. wright, a., betteridge, d., & buckby, m. (1992). games for language learning. cambridge: cambridge university press. yılmaz, h., & yavuz, f. (2015). the problems young learners encounter during listening skills. procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 197, 2046-2050. https://web.archive.org/web/20200218172536id_/https:/pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f532/e3541c57964a8c1677400acbbdfdb566e50a.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20200218172536id_/https:/pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f532/e3541c57964a8c1677400acbbdfdb566e50a.pdf https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/26 https://asiacall.info/acoj ho, t. m. l., & nguyen, t. b. k. vol. 13; no. 1, 2022 92 biodata ho thi my linh is a doctoral candidate in educational management at horizon university. she has obtained her m.a degree in tesol. currently, she is associate dean of the faculty of international languages and cultures at hoa sen university. previously, she held the position of training director at languagecorps asia and training quality manager at vus the english center. she is particularly interested in esl, efl teaching methodologies, learning approaches or strategies to help teachers bring the most engaging and creative learning environment to their students. nguyen thi bao khuyen, who is working as a training quality manager at vus, is taking a doctor of education program and received her m.a. degree in tesol. with 12-year experience in elt teaching and 4-year expertise in academic management, she is responsible for improving campus teaching quality through mentoring teachers, holding training workshops and contributing to program development. she is keen on doing research on education trends and digital applications, efl teaching strategies that enhance student engagement and maximize academic performance. citation asiacall online journal received: 12/10/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 25/11/2021 vol. 13, no. 1, 2022 accepted: 06/12/2021 pp. 122-131 online: 08/12/2021 citation | obari, h., lambacher, s., & kikuchi, h. (2022). learning english through a challenge-based learning project during the covid-19 pandemic. asiacall online journal, 13(1), 122-131. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.007 learning english through a challenge-based learning project during the covid-19 pandemic hiroyuki obari1*, steve lambacher2, hisayo kikuchi3 1 school of economics, aoyama gakuin university, tokyo, japan 2 school of social informatics, aoyama gakuin university, sagamihara, japan 3 school of global collaboration, aoyama gakuin university, sagamihara, japan *correspondence: hiroyuki obari, aoyama gakuin university, japan. e-mail: obari119@gmail.com eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.007 abstract this study focuses on challenge-based learning (cbl) with native japanese undergraduates from waseda university in tokyo (n=27). the study was implemented from may 2021 to november 2021 using zoom and the sns programs facebook and line for added support. pedagogical training focused on helping students find solutions to many world issues in the 21st century, such as sdgs, ai, society, cross-cultural iq, and global leadership. in addition, throughout the zoom online program, training in higher-order thinking skills and oral presentations were emphasized. finally, survey results disseminated to the student participants (july 2921) are presented. the survey focused on gauging students' opinions about their virtual learning experiences during the covid-19. some of the notable survey results included: (1) 92% of students felt the online classes improved their oral production skills; (2) about 80% of students felt that they acquired seven 21st century skills; (3) about 74% of students acquired higher-order thinking skills; and (4) 96% of students felt the interaction with campus crusade for christ (ccc) members helped them change their worldviews and improve english proficiency. the results indicated that cbl could effectively provide ample opportunities for students to use english regularly and improve their higher-order thinking and oral productions skills even during the covid-19. keywords: higher-order thinking skills, flipped learning, challenge-based learning 1. introduction the covid-19 pandemic has significantly impacted all aspects of society, particularly education. as a part of sustaining academic continuity during the pandemic, virtually all institutions and universities have switched from face-to-face classrooms to videoconferencing (nguyen & nguyen, 2021). the switch to online learning has resulted in various platforms such as zoom and youtube, the main tools used in the present study. research has shown teachers have exhibited positive opinions toward studying through online education using zoom. for example, dau (2022) examined teachers' methods and perceptions of teaching english to http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.007 http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.007 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 123 children in vietnam during covid-19. according to the results, teachers' three most popular platforms were zoom, zalo, and youtube. despite some reported challenges, many teachers expressed enthusiasm for remote instruction. serhan (2020), on the other hand, found that students negatively viewed zoom use, although flexibility was cited as a significant benefit of using zoom for education. obari (2021) found that a combination of blended learning, such as hybrid learning with zoom virtual classroom instruction, could effectively increase native japanese undergraduates' english competence. the present study focused on improving cross-cultural communication skills and widening the worldviews of university students for developing intercultural awareness and 21st-century skills through online learning using zoom. the 21st century has already brought astonishing technological achievements with the internet of things, ai cyber-physical systems, vr/ar/mr, and big data (learning analytics). as a result, our lives have been transformed in many ways, and education is dramatically affected. the paradigm shift is now taking place because of the following factors: advancement of ict and mobile technologies, crowd environments, developments of ai/iot, and covid-19as. as a result, the teacher's role has changed to that of a mentor, a facilitator, and a curator to deal with 21st-century skills. digital technologies have changed life, communication, thinking patterns, channels of influence on other people, social skills, and social behaviors. therefore, it is crucial to learn how to successfully transform into new language education to prepare for the digitalized society. a constructivist approach to flipped learning can motivate students by activating their brains to create new knowledge and reflect more consistently and deeply on their language learning experiences. furthermore, bloom's higher-order thinking skills training is vitally important in education (figure 1). the 21st century faces an unpredictable future, with creativity the key to education. this research includes two research questions. (1) how could we integrate 21st-century skills into language education? (2) how could we train the students to develop higher-order thinking skills? so, how can online learning with zoom and interaction with campus crusade members for christ (ccc) contribute to enhancing higher-order thinking skills in language education? ten tools were included in this study to support students who created powerpoint slides and digital stories in preparation for becoming digitalized citizens – (horizontal report 2021, a youtube video on ai and society, cross-cultural iq, global leadership, worldviews, ontology and epistemology, science and theology, world heritage sites, 17 sdgs, and global issues https://asiacall.info/acoj obari, h., lambacher, s., & kikuchi, h. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 124 from the oxford martin school). figure 1: bloom's taxonomy 2. literature review alan turing (1950) once said, "i propose considering the question, 'can machines think?'". turing invented computers in the 1930s and soon became fascinated by the idea that computers might one day be intelligent. in 1950, he published a scientific paper on whether a machine could 'think.' the paper introduced the 'turing test' (wooldridge, 2018, p.6). ninety years have passed since the invention of the computer. nowadays, artificial intelligence (ai) has intervened in every aspect of our lives in the 21st century. ai today is everywhere, and it will soon become ever more prominent because ai software can reliably and efficiently make better decisions than people in a vast range of settings. in the future, ai will be invisibly embedded everywhere in which decisions are made (wooldridge, 2018, p.44). recently, ai speakers can be experienced efficiently and smoothly using hand-held devices, enhancing the construction of broader learning environments and viewpoints (kepuska & bohouta, 2018). ai/mobile technologies have succeeded in transforming learning methodologies. one such methodology adopted in recent years is blended learning (bl) (obari, lambacher, & kikuchi, 2020). bl combines traditional face-to-face classroom methods with computer-mediated activities, resulting in a more integrated approach to language learning. ai, mobile devices, and social media are the key components of the next generation of this novel wave of educational instruction. digital content is also transforming and expanding as ai, and mobile technologies develop and improve. the growth of mobile social networking sites (msns) has enabled teachers to considerably increase the number of ideal learning opportunities through experiential learning activities with the help of these emerging technologies. for example, while the students were making presentations, the peer evaluation with the mobile device was used to assess students' presentations. this activity helped students engage more in oral production with quick feedback from peers. in addition, flipped lessons acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 125 were put into practice which focused on the presentations with digital storytelling and discussions in the classroom after students gained sufficient comprehensible input about the assigned tasks. as a result, their listening, speaking, and writing skills, to some extent, were reinforced. the students studied worldviews and held discussions with ccc (campus crusade for christ) members, which helped them change their worldviews through online, face-to-face interactions at the breakout room. learning 21st-century skills (figure 2) should be integrated into training, and 90% of students agreed it helped broaden their skills. various digital technologies were used to understand different topics, and the distinction between the classroom and outside-class activities was distinguished. each student could gain as much comprehensible input outside of the class through assignments and engage more in interaction and discussions with critical and creative thinking as they could inside the classroom. whether it is a virtual interaction or not, most important in learning english is human interaction and how much comprehensible input we can gain from multiple learning sources, whether analog or digital. figure 2: 21st century skills: 3rs and 7cs 3. methods all universities in japan decided to teach classes using virtual learning environments with zoom, teams, webex, and other learning tools, from may 2020 to january 2021. the lead author of this study taught ten classes at three universities, mainly with zoom and facebook. this section will describe how the students struggled with virtual learning and show its advantages and disadvantages from student feedback on a questionnaire. 3.1 training procedure (1) all students at three universities had their english lessons using real-time virtual learning with zoom and facebook. the learning materials were uploaded on facebook in advance. (2) students engage in real-time learning with zoom, listen to the author's mini-lectures, and participate in breakout sessions with more active discussions about the contents. https://asiacall.info/acoj obari, h., lambacher, s., & kikuchi, h. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 126 (3) students prepared powerpoint slides about their assigned work and delivered several presentations in front of all the students. however, they sometimes joined breakout sessions with four students and gave their presentations with peer assessment using peereval software on smartphones. (4) flipped learning was conducted throughout the semester, actively engaged in presentations and discussions about the contents assigned in advance. (5) students learned presentation skills by downloading the video contents of successful presentation by oxford university press. each unit consisted of 8 units containing 3-minute video content. (6) professor weakley from the us was invited as a guest lecturer several times and engaged in virtually teaching worldviews, global leadership, and cross-cultural iq. he also actively took part in the breakout sessions and interacted with many students. sometimes his students joined the virtual classroom from the us every three weeks and enjoyed discussing the cross-cultural differences between japanese and christian-oriented values. these sessions were most important for students to learn their worldviews. (7) several lectures from oxford university professors about scientific realism and worldviews, and the students prepared powerpoint slides with more presentations and discussions using zoom breakout sessions (figure 3). figure 3: a sample zoom lesson. 3.2 presentation assessment with peereval (1) students delivered 5-10-minute english presentations about the assigned tasks with powerpoint slides. (2) all students had their presentations evaluated by their peers using the peereval software on a smartphone, with six items being assessed about presentation skills. after each presentation, acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 127 immediate feedback was provided with comments about improving their presentation skills (figure 4). (3) students were highly engaged in learning the contents of the cross-cultural issues and worldview studies, including the advancement of ai. figure 4: peer eval assessment with a smartphone 3.3 feedback on the student questionnaire questionnaires on virtual online learning asked if participants (n=27) of this study acquired the 21s-century skills or not. (1) did you develop critical and problem-solving skills? (n=27) a. 96% agreed b. 4% neutral (2) did you develop the skills of creativity and innovation? (n=27) a. 85.2% agreed b. 14.8% neutral (3) did you develop the skills of collaboration, teamwork, and leadership? (n=27) a. 85.2% agreed b. 14.8% neutral (4) did you develop the skills of cross-cultural understanding? (n=27) a. 81.5% agreed b. 11.1% neutral c. 7.4% disagreed (5) did you develop the skills of communication and media literacy? (n=27) https://asiacall.info/acoj obari, h., lambacher, s., & kikuchi, h. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 128 a. 88.9% agreed b. 11.1% neutral (6) did you develop the skills of computing and ict? (n=27) a. 81.5% agreed b. 14.9% neutral c. 3.6% disagree (7) did you develop the skills of career & self-reliance? (n=27) a. 77.8% agree b. 18.5% neutral c. 3.7% disagreed (8) did you acquire higher-order thinking skills? (n=27) a. 74.1% agreed b. 25.9% neutral (9) did the interaction with the campus crusade for christ (ccc) members at the breakout room help you improve your english proficiency? (n=27) a. 92.6% agreed b. 7.4% disagreed (10) did the interaction with ccc members at the breakout room help you change your worldviews and become more interested in foreign cultures? (n=27) a. 96.3% agreed b. 3.7% neutral (11) did the visiting professor's lectures change your worldviews and help you to improve your english proficiency? (n=27) a. 91% agreed. b. 9% disagreed (12) was the virtual presentation at the breakout room with zoom effective in learning english? (n=27) a. 92.5% agreed b. 7.5% neutral (13) what type of lessons do you like most? (n=27) a. 18.5% face to face lesson acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 129 b. 55.6% synchronous online zoom lesson c. 7.4% hybrid lesson d. 18.5% video-on-demand lesson 4. results/findings and discussion virtual online zoom lessons were carried out for two terms in two classes. according to the survey questions about 21st-century skills from questions (1) to (7), almost 80% ~95% of students agreed that they developed seven 21st-century skills, enjoyed the zoom lessons, and felt it effectively taught english. question (8) about acquiring higher-order thinking skills indicated that only 3/4, 75% of students could develop it, but 1/4, 25% did not think so. for future research, the reason for not developing this skill must be more researched. according to questions (9) to (11), more than 90% of students agreed that interacting with foreign english speakers a lot every three weeks helped them enhance their english-speaking ability and keen on learning other cultures. in addition, by observing the online classroom, students were highly engaged in interaction in english to develop their higher-order thinking skills for the digitalized society. last year when the zoom lesson began, only 30 % of students felt they could learn english even with virtual online lessons. this year i invited many different foreign speakers to my virtual zoom class every three weeks (first term) and every other week (second term) to increase the amount of interaction. according to question (12), more than 90% agreed that the virtual presentations helped the students improve their english. furthermore, questions (13) indicated that more than 55% of students liked the online zoom lesson better than last year's questionnaire. we assumed that the cbl project and interaction with ccc members helped students improve higher-order thinking skills and critical thinking skills. inviting the visiting scholars during virtual lessons was more manageable as the foreign lecturer significantly helped students improve their english proficiency and become more open-minded. to some extent, future lessons could be easily integrated with ai and virtual online classes through interactions with foreign people. 5. conclusion living in society 5.0 with dx due to the rapid advancement of cutting-edge technologies, ai/vr will be playing a vital role in language education to deal with urgent, complex world problems using ai, vr, and learning analytics. this study provided hints for 21st-century learning to enhance higher-order thinking skills and critical thinking skills through online virtual dialogues with ccc members even during the covid-19 crisis. these results indicate that the integration of the cbl training program with https://asiacall.info/acoj obari, h., lambacher, s., & kikuchi, h. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 130 presentations played a crucial role in improving the students' overall language proficiency and expanding their worldviews. in addition, the students were virtually engaged in interacting more with young ccc members to study different worldviews. the results suggest that integrating the cbl project with 21st-century skills, including peereval, and hybrid learning with zoom virtual classroom teaching, may be an effective way to improve the english proficiency of native japanese undergraduates. in future research, more cognitive sides of examining higherorder and critical thinking skills, what is going in the brain, should be more carefully researched with mri (magnetic resonance imaging). references armstrong, p. (2010). bloom's taxonomy. vanderbilt university center for teaching. retrieved from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/. bernie trilling & charles fadel. (2012). 21st century skills: in our life time. jossey-bass. dau, t. t. l. (2021). remote teaching amid the covid-19 pandemic in vietnam: primary school efl teachers’ practices and perceptions . asiacall online journal, 13(1), 121. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/101 kepuska, v., & bohouta, g. (2018, january). next-generation of virtual personal assistants (microsoft cortana, apple siri, amazon alexa, and google home). in the 2018 ieee 8th annual computing and communication workshop and conference (ccwc) (pp. 99-103). ieee. https://doi.org/10.1109/ccwc.2018.8301638 kurzweil, r. (2005). the singularity is near: when humans transcend biology. abridged japanese edition arranged with ray kurzweil c/o loretta barrett books inc., new york. le, t. t. m. (2021). a case study of students’ views on effective online learning. asiacall online journal, 12(5), 24-33. retrieved from https://www.asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/73 nguyen, t. k., & nguyen, t. h. t. (2021). the acceptance and use of video conferencing for teaching in covid-19 pandemic: an empirical study in vietnam. asiacall online journal, 12(5), 1-16. retrieved from https://www.asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/77 obari, h., lambacher, s. & kikuchi, h. (2020, june). utilizing ai smart speakers to improve the english skills of japanese university students. paper presented at jaltcall 2021: remote teaching and beyond, aomori, japan. hiroyuki, o. (2021). the integration of 21st century skill and virtual learning with covid 19. asiacall online journal, 12(3), 22-27. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/30 peereval: retrieved from https://peereval.mobi/ about:blank about:blank acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 131 serhan, d. (2020). transitioning from face-to-face to remote learning: students' attitudes and perceptions of using zoom during covid-19 pandemic. international journal of technology in education and science, 4(4), 335-342. trilling, b., & fadel, c. (2009). 21st century skills: learning for life in our times. john wiley & sons. turing, a. m. (1950). computing machinery and intelligence. mind 49,433-460. wooldridge, m. (2009). an introduction to multiagent systems. john wiley & sons. acknowledgments soken grant (2018~2022) and jsps kakenhi (2019~2022), grant in aid for scientific research (c), grant number: 19k00798 supported this work. biodata hiroyuki obari is a professor emeritus at aoyama gakuin university. he now teaches part-time in the faculty of law, waseda university, and the tokyo institute of technology graduate school. he has been a visiting researcher at the national institute of advanced industrial science and technology (aist) since 2006. born in 1953, he received his ba from the university of oklahoma (political science), ma from icu (international relations), second ma from columbia university (tesol), and ph.d. from the university of tsukuba (computer science). he served as a visiting researcher at the university of oxford (1998, 2007, 2018~2020). he specializes in call, tesol, worldview studies, and edutec. his recent publications include mccarty, s., obari, h., & sato, t. (2017). implementing mobile language learning technologies in japan. springer. stephen lambacher is a professor of english in the school of social informatics at aoyama gakuin university in tokyo, japan. his research and teaching interests include call, phonetics, pronunciation, and the use of mobile e-learning technologies and social media to bolster l2-learning. he was previously an associate of professor of english at the university of aizu, a computer science university in fukushima, japan. hisayo kikuchi is a professor and coordinator of the english program in the school of global studies and collaboration at aoyama gakuin university in tokyo, japan. her research and teaching interests include call, clil, and emi. citation asiacall online journal received: 15/11/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 01/08/2022 vol. 13, no. 4, 2022 accepted: 01/08/2022 pp. 44-54 online: 10/08/2022 citation | casibual, j. p., & nacua, j. b. (2022). correlation between internet literacy and vocabulary level: implication towards reading comprehension. asiacall online journal, 13(4), 44-54. doi: https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221344 correlation between internet literacy and vocabulary level: implication towards reading comprehension joseph p. casibual jr 1*, julrem b. nacua 1 1 western mindanao state university, philippines * corresponding author’s e-mail: joseph.casibual@wmsu.edu.ph * https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7839-233x https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221344 abstract in-depth research on reading comprehension receives less attention in basic education, despite the fact that the problem is just as critical, if not more so, in this pandemic era. this study aims to learn the dynamics of reading comprehension to draw a conclusion on the phenomenon. terry (2022) observed a strong connection between vocabulary and reading comprehension. however, meager studies have correlated two variables – internet literacy (iv) and vocabulary level (dv) – with combined implications for reading comprehension. with the globalization of online learning, urban demography's visibility was catered with 83 senior high school students as respondents. the data revealed a low correlation. generally, the high mean for online literacy and high mean in the performed evaluation showed the participants' awareness of how to use the digital side of learning and a decent vocabulary level. null hypothesis ii was accepted in this research. interestingly, this low correlation could be affected by the students' internal and external strategies, which created an impetus for their reading comprehension aside from digital utilization. keywords: reading comprehension, internet literacy, vocabulary level, senior high school 1. introduction reading comprehension is the ability to re-learn how to read, grasp, understand, and connect. the relationship between reading comprehension ability and vocabulary level is tricky. the primary purpose of reading comprehension teaching is to assist students in acquiring the necessary knowledge, abilities, and experiences in order to become effective and enthusiastic readers. unfortunately, according to merez (2020) of abs-cbn news, filipino pupils scored lowest out of 79 countries in a global reading comprehension assessment. poor reading comprehension among filipino pupils is a truth that the country must acknowledge in order to reform its educational system. on the other hand, in order for students to read and understand academic literature effectively, instructors must guarantee that they have an adequate vocabulary. however, the relationship between reading comprehension ability and vocabulary level is tricky (capodiece et al., 2020). vocabulary awareness is an important aspect of language learning that must be taken into account while attempting to improve reading comprehension. as a result, it's critical to understand what it takes for a learner to comprehend what he or she is reading, particularly when faced with academic texts. according to mar & ancho (2020), low reading ability is one of the main reasons students drop out of school. this low reading ability could be related to a lack of academic vocabulary education. to have effective teaching, https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221344 mailto:joseph.casibual@wmsu.edu.ph https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7839-233x https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221344 acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 45 students must understand and comprehend the text's language. in 1996, the california department of education coined the term "internet literacy" (tinmaz et al., 2022). literacy in digital technology refers to the ability to use a computer, software program, database, and other technologies for educational, work, or personal reasons. covid-19, on the other hand, increases pupils' educational challenges. concerns about pupils' reading comprehension have arisen as a result of the new form of learning. in the absence of teachers and other learning strategies or sources such as libraries, free computer-laboratory access, social groups, study groups, and even friends to ask and clarify unfamiliar and difficult material, the new mode of learning makes it difficult for students to comprehend academic texts or modules. reading comprehension is a top priority in increasing filipino english proficiency. focusing on internet literacy's impact on the vocabulary level of students is a discernible aspect to delve into since we are in the era where digital technology is simultaneously utilized to increase learning. this is consistent with the findings of abidin et al. (2021); using an electronic dictionary or technology to help pupils expand their vocabulary is more beneficial. this idea is yet to be considered since we need to cater to the idea of the assertions by alemi and lari (2020). their research findings concluded that the kid's reading abilities are improving regardless of the vocabulary learning media they utilize, whether sms or traditional written vocabulary. also, walker and white (2020), stated that technological inclination is expected if such a generation is born within the digital era, and this specifically could contribute to the development of internet literacy. however, we also need to consider that there are some areas where there is limited access to internet connectivity. this could potentially mean that there are some students whose motivation in using the internet for the merit of vocabulary level development is not as expected. contrasting research findings have led to the idea that there is a demographical effect on the establishment of results. it is only imperative for it to be catered in order to assess the situation and provide a transparent suggestion on learning strategy for the improvement of reading comprehension realistically. 2. literature review 2.1 technology as wielder of vocabulary size according to cilento & mota (2020), a generation that has grown up surrounded by computers is more likely to use digital gadgets than previous generations. the capacity to use the internet is referred to as internet literacy. accordingly, this approach may lead to the false assumption that all young people are interested in, motivated by, and enthusiastic about digital technology. this assertion is consistent with alemi and lari's (2021) research findings. it is elucidated that the kids' reading abilities are improving regardless of the vocabulary learning media they utilize, whether sms or traditional written vocabulary. the use of the internet in english instruction, particularly vocabulary, has been reported in some research, indicating that millennial students can increase their vocabulary size by using digital technology. according to abidin et al. (2021), using an electronic dictionary to help pupils expand their vocabulary is more beneficial. https://asiacall.info/acoj joseph p. casibual jr, julrem b. nacua vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 46 2.2. the effectiveness of technology in learning english a study by alemi and lari (2021) find out about the effectiveness of using technology in learning english. however, few studies have shown the effectiveness of technology in all english skills; speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills. the goal of using technology in learning english brings a strong potential to enhance language skills for learners and promote the process of learning english quickly. 2.3 investigation towards the extent to which kind of reading comprehension is more preferable a study by julie coiro (2021) suggests that offline reading comprehension is much more important than online reading comprehension. the researchers found that people with better reading comprehension were able to read more quickly and easily. students who earned a 0 on one or both of the online reading comprehension scores were unable to complete any of the assignments effectively. 2.4 preference towards offline reading comprehension according to sharma et al. (2022), our generation has access to a magnificent resource that has never been available before. on the other hand, the ideal learning method is utilized by former scientists, teachers, writers, and academics who carefully absorbed the complete material of textbooks and spent enough time reading knowledge that it became ingrained in their nerves. whatever the source, the key to learning and gaining knowledge is to make the content easier to understand for better learning, and that includes tangible educational materials visible to the eyes and can be perceived in the sense of touch. 2.5 problematizing online reading comprehension according to coiro (2021), it has been proved that students prefer offline reading comprehension to online reading comprehension in her study "predicting reading comprehension on the internet: contributions of offline reading skills, online reading skills, and prior knowledge." this is a topical and relevant problem that needs to be investigated because we are moving towards a more technological learning environment, and if students' online reading comprehension is inadequate, it could lead to future statistics of poor online reading comprehension among students. 2.6 internet literacy doesn’t affect vocabulary level according to the findings of a study conducted by weganofa & lutviana (2022), there is no link between students' internet literacy and their vocabulary level. other elements, it might be assumed, have an impact on students' vocabulary levels. in the same sphere, t vocabulary mastery is critical because it encompasses all words that kids must understand in order to have access to background knowledge, express ideas, communicate, and learn new things. when a student speaks in an ungrammatical manner, the interlocutor may attempt to deduce the intended meanings. however, if he does not have a sufficient ‘vocabulary reservoir' in his memory, he will find it difficult to retrieve any notion in his head that has to be expressed. acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 47 2.7 relationship between vocabulary size and reading comprehension according to milton and hopkins (2021), learners would need a vocabulary of roughly 4,500– 5000-word families to deal with the greatest degree of difficulty (c2). however, hu and nation (2020) found that learners need to know between 8,000 and 9,000 words to be able to read novels and newspapers. reading graded texts, which are intended specifically for language learners, necessitates a smaller vocabulary size. according to the findings of a study conducted by moghadam (2021), the depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge are positively associated, meaning that learners with a high vocabulary size also had a deeper understanding of the words. martin-chang and gould, on the other hand, discovered a robust link between vocabulary and reading comprehension. vocabulary knowledge is essential for reading comprehension because it acts in the same way that background knowledge does. 2.8 relationship between internet literacy, vocabulary level, and reading comprehension walker and white (2020) opined that a generation born within the digital era is technologically inclined to use such aspects. this inclination could develop into the capacity to use the internet, referred to as internet literacy. this assertion is consistent with alemi and lari's (2020) research findings. it is concluded that the kids' reading abilities are improving regardless of the vocabulary learning media they utilize, whether sms or traditional written vocabulary. however, the use of the internet in english instruction has been reported in some research that students can increase their vocabulary size by using digital technology to learn english. according to abidin et al. (2021), using an electronic dictionary to help pupils expand their vocabulary is more beneficial. as an educational priority, reading comprehension has been a recent topic for development in methodological aspects to motivate the capacity of students' comprehension of texts and learning materials provided by the educational institution. contrasting research findings have led to the idea that there is a demographical effect on the establishment of results. 2.9 learning strategies for reading comprehension according to curie (2020), research suggests that most learners employ a variety of strategies, each of which contributes differently to their performance. her research has offered more evidence for the idea that learners should be given a wide range of strategies to choose from, whether offline or online, rather than being limited to the strategies that are assumed to work for everyone without taking into account individual differences. 2.10 use of english vocabulary learning strategies with technology-enhanced language learning tools technology has become an integral part of language education in general and english language learning in specific. accordingly, the use of technology-enhanced language learning (tell) tools in english language learning has become common as they can improve knowledge retention and increase engagement. ghalebi et al. (2020) believed that learners could gain a large amount of vocabulary through vocabulary learning strategies. 2.11 technology in english education in remote mountainous areas the study focuses on the teachers' flexibility in employing technology in their teaching amid https://asiacall.info/acoj joseph p. casibual jr, julrem b. nacua vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 48 the limited conditions of their areas. it finds out that teachers there tend to apply technology in after-class activities instead of in-class ones and make use of offline applications on smartphones to boost language teaching. it reaffirms the feasibility of technology-based learning even in less advantageous regions. 2.12 research questions the study's main objective is to determine and correlate the extent of students' internet literacy and vocabulary level among parasan national high school senior high school students on how it implicates reading comprehension. specifically, the research aims to answer the following queries: a) what is the level of their internet literacy? b) what is the extent of the respondents' vocabulary level? c) is there a significant relationship between internet literacy and the extent of vocabulary level among senior high school students? d) what is/are the implication/s of the findings in item no. 3 to the reading comprehension of students? null hypothesis there is a very low significant link between the two variables; internet literacy and vocabulary level towards the students reading comprehension. 3. methods 3.1 pedagogical setting& participants the study was conducted in parasan national high school, which is located within the locality of molave, zamboanga del sur. due to a meager number of studies on the given context, the rural demography was chosen in order to give significance to the investigation of the case of the study. the rural demography of the said locale has close to no access to an internet connection, not limited to the institution, which has affected students' online reading comprehension in terms of meaning acquisition of vocabulary words. since the effect of covid19 prohibits face-to-face teaching due to safe protocol mandates, students are not allowed yet to go to campus. 83 senior high school students of parasan national high school participated in the conduct of research. the participants are composed of 46 females and 37 males. the participants were chosen in order to assess their vocabulary level and reading comprehension before taking any entrance admission test for the collegiate level. 3.4 design of the study this study is quantitative-descriptive in nature since the questions posed will be answered by numerical data. specifically, this investigation will utilize a correlation approach which is a type of non-experimental design. tan (2020) defines a correlation approach as a quantitative method of research in which you have two or more quantitative variables from the same group of participants, and you are trying to determine if there is a relationship between the two acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 49 variables. a correlation approach was used to determine if there was a significant relationship between internet literacy and vocabulary level with its implication for reading comprehension. 3.5 data collection & analysis the information was gathered through a survey questionnaire, which was preceded by a letter of approval from the research adviser and the school administrator. with the new normal and new manner of teaching that forbids students from entering the classroom, a copy of the survey was distributed by inserting it into students' modules. consents from parents are also offered for ethical evaluation. the findings were tallied and calculated after the survey questionnaire and test were completed. the information gathered was used to conduct analysis and interpretation. the researchers will not specify the names of the participants for the purpose of confidentiality. the researchers used simple random sampling to determine the students that were included as respondents in the study. the sample items were drawn at random. in calculating the sample size, the researcher used slovin's formula, where n was the sample size. n was the population size, and "e" was the allowable or the margin of error. also, the researcher used the 8% margin error to get the sample. to choose the final 178 samples, simple random sampling was applied to give all elements a chance to be included in the sample. all students during the sampling were equally given a chance. then, the random students comprised the respondents. the researchers used simple random sampling. they list down all the names of grade 11 and 12 students of parasan national high school. they used a fishbowl technique in drawing the names of students randomly. students' test responses will be scaled based on their internet literacy and vocabulary levels, with the goal of enhancing students' reading comprehension. the survey was completed on a 4-point likert scale by the respondents. the researchers will offer a data summary backed up by findings from peer-reviewed journals. the amount and distribution of the variables will be determined using the mean and standard deviation. the relationship between the two variables will be determined using pearson's r correlation coefficient (iv and dv). mean, standard deviation, and pearson r are needed to answer the research questions queries. the information was processed correctly and analyzed. a 5-item survey was used to determine the students' internet literacy. a vocabulary level test adapted from meara, 1994, 1996 as the nearest thing to a standardized test was used in the study to assess the vocabulary level of students. the questions largely tested the student's ability to seek the desired meaning of a vocabulary term. 4. results/findings and discussion this section presents the interpretation and discussion of the analysis results derived from the investigation. table 1. respondents’ internet literacy descriptive statistics no. respondents mean sd interpretation 81 3.26 0.76 very high https://asiacall.info/acoj joseph p. casibual jr, julrem b. nacua vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 50 according to table 1, the participants generally had very high internet literacy, as shown by the high mean and low standard deviation. this finding alludes to the idea that the level of the students' internet literacy is almost the same. the participants mostly strongly agreed that (q1) usually they search for unfamiliar words on google – an online search engine to search for someone or something. – also, they mostly agreed that (q2) searching unfamiliar words in merriam webster and oxford dictionary – offline applications to look up any word in the dictionary anytime, anywhere. – these findings showed the students' tendency to be permissive in using online and offline searching tools to help them understand the meaning of a difficult or vocabulary word. the use of the internet in english instruction, particularly vocabulary, has been reported in some research, indicating that millennial students can increase their vocabulary size by using digital technology. according to abidin et al. (2021), using an electronic dictionary to help pupils expand their vocabulary is more beneficial. however, it's not always the case. this finding alludes to the relevance that internet connection has the potential capacity to increase the student's vocabulary level. these could give insight into the participants' internet literacy, considering that vocabulary level is a determinant of a successful understanding of a text. table 2. participants’ vocabulary level descriptive statistics no. respondents mean sd interpretation 81 12.66 3.10 high as shown in table 2, the participants' vocabulary level was high, as shown by the high mean and high standard deviation. the finding alludes to the idea that although the students' vocabulary level was high, it doesn't mean that all students have the same vocabulary level. the writing activity was used to measure the vocabulary level inserted from the self-learning module. it was also shown that students have good vocabulary levels because they mostly got good scores. it was apparent that most students can choose correct answers upon reading and answering the sentences stated to hint at the vocabulary word. this result validates hu and nation (2020), who have found that learners need to know between 8,000 and 9,000 words to be able to read novels and newspapers. reading graded texts, which are intended specifically for language learners, necessitates a smaller vocabulary size. this means that just because most of the participants' got good scores on the test, it doesn't mean that they have higher vocabulary levels. however, it is rational to state that the participants' have a good vocabulary level based on the assessment that was given to them. acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 51 table 3. correlation between parental support and reading motivation pearson’s r n correlation coefficient sig. (2-tailed) parental support reading motivation 83 .226 .040 *correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). the data presented in table 3 shows a low correlation between the students' internet literacy and their vocabulary level. therefore, the null hypothesis was accepted. the data shows that although the participants have a very high internet literacy and high vocabulary level, it was established that students' vocabulary level was considerably good but not limited to internet literacy but due to other factors outside the boundary of digital learning. according to walker and white (2020), a generation that has grown up surrounded by computers is more likely to use digital gadgets than previous generations. the capacity to use the internet is referred to as internet literacy. walker and white (2020) warn, however, that this approach may lead to the false assumption that all young people are interested in, motivated by, and enthusiastic about digital technology. this assertion is consistent with alemi and lari's (2021) research findings. it is concluded that the kids' reading abilities are improving regardless of the vocabulary learning media they utilize, whether sms or traditional written vocabulary. 5. conclusion based on the findings of the study, the level of participants' internet literacy is very high, with a mean of 3.26 and 0.76 standard deviations. the extent of the participants' vocabulary level is high, with a mean of 12.66 and 3.10 standard deviation. the statistical analysis suggested a low correlation between the students' internet literacy and the extent of their vocabulary level with r = 0.226 and 0.04 p-value at a 0.04 significance level. this research aimed to establish a relationship between internet literacy and vocabulary level. the goal of the study was to understand the association between internet literacy and the vocabulary level of the students in the alternative delivery mode on how it implicates their reading comprehension. this study filled the gap in research and the problems in parasan national high school, senior high students. it provided explanations to the queries of rationale on how it creates implication to the main issue – reading comprehension. – based on the findings, it can be concluded that vocabulary level development shouldn't be limited to the idea of internet literacy for ideal reading comprehension, even if we are advancing towards more flexible learning with the use of digital aspects. this is relevant according to the findings of a study conducted by moghadam (2021). the depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge are positively associated, meaning that learners with a high vocabulary size also had a deeper understanding of the words in the context of reading comprehensively. for this reason, there should be an inference toward the findings of hurwitz & schmitt (2020), who proved that there are different strategies that learners do for https://asiacall.info/acoj joseph p. casibual jr, julrem b. nacua vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 52 successful learning, and it contributes differently to learners' success, specifically in reading comprehension. the limitation of this study is that the new typical setting has hampered the study's approach. the distribution and retrieval of the modules were significantly delayed due to various lockdowns enacted within the school. it also reduced the amount of time the researcher had to interact with the participants. another issue was that the data was collected using a non-random sample. the participants were given a survey questionnaire and a consent form, and 83 students willingly completed and returned the survey, with the information being used in the study. a non-random sample could have lacked representativeness, compromising the generalizability of the findings. on the other hand, the results demonstrated that the data is reliable and that the conclusions may be applied generally. nonetheless, the study's findings must be discussed in terms of this limitation. based on the findings of the study, practitioners should consider the following recommendations: contrasting effect on the findings of coiro (2021), who stated the extent to which new reading comprehension abilities may be required as teenagers read for information on the internet. however, their research is in contrast with the findings of walker and white (2020), who warned that this approach might lead to the false assumption that all young people are interested in, motivated by, and enthusiastic about digital technology. also, there should be an integration of different strategies in reading comprehension aside from online learning so as to empathize with the current problems of the locale, such as limited internet devices, limited signal, and limited internet connection. it is highly recommended to conduct profiling of learners in vocabulary level development whether they are passive or active in vocabulary level development. this will serve as a guide to justify the vocabulary level descriptive statistics interpretation. before that, there is a need to utilize the standardized test and integrate it into a reading comprehension evaluation to reinforce students' learning. references abidin, m. j. z., pour-mohammadi, m., shoar, n. s., cheong, s. t. h., &jafre, a. m. (2021). a comparative study of using multimedia annotation and printed textual glossary in learning vocabulary. international journal of learning and development, 1(1), 82-90. https://doi.org/10.5296/ijld.v1i1.1070 alemi, m., &lari, z. (2020). sms vocabulary learning: a tool to promote reading comprehension in l2. international journal of linguistics, 4(4), 275–287. https://doi.org/10.5296/ijl.v4i4.2318 capodieci a, cornoldi c, doerr e, bertolo l and carretti b (2020) the use of new technologies for improving reading comprehension. front. psychol. 11:751. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.0075 cilento, i & mota, f. (2020). competence for internet use: integrating knowledge, skills, and attitudes. computers and education, 1(4), 441-450. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeo.2020.100015 https://doi.org/10.5296/ijld.v1i1.1070 https://doi.org/10.5296/ijl.v4i4.2318 acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 53 coiro, j. (2021). predicting reading comprehension on the internet: contributions of offline reading skills, online reading skills, and prior knowledge. journal of literacy research, 43(4), 352-392. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1086296x11421979. ghalebi, r., sadighi., r & bagheri, m. (2020) vocabulary learning strategies: a comparative study of efl learners. cogent psychology, 7 (1), 24-33. doi:10.1080/23311908.2020.1824306 hu, m., & nation, i. s. p. (2020). vocabulary density and reading comprehension. reading in a foreign language, 23(1), 403-430 hurwitz, l. & schmitt, k. (2020). can children benefit from early internet exposure? shortand long-term links between internet use, digital skill, and academic performance. computers and education, 146 (1), 62-74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103750 merez, a. (2020). palace: poor reading comprehension of pinoy students a 'reality'. https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.abscbn.com/amp/news/12/05/19/palace-poorreading-comprehension-of-pinoys-students-a-reality milton, j., & hopkins, n. (2021). comparing phonological and orthographic vocabulary size: do vocabulary tests underestimate the knowledge of some learners? canadian modern language review, 63, 127-147. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/cml.2006.0048 moghadam, s. h. (2021). the relationship between depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/32622/5/soodehhamzehloumfp2012.pdf nguyen thi ngoc anh, le thanh huyen (2021). technology in english education in remote mountainous areas: being flexible to bend. asiacall online journal sharma, d., sood, a.k., darius, p.s.h. et al. (2022). a study on the online-offline and blended learning methods. journal of the institution engineers, 16 (4), 1281-1289. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40031-022-00766-y tan, l. (2020). correlational study. in thompson, w.f. (ed.), music in the social and behavioral sciences: an encyclopedia (pp. 269-271). thousand oaks: sage publications. tinmaz, h., lee, yt., fanea-ivanovici, m. et al. (2022). a systematic review on digital literacy. smart learning. environments, 9 (21), 577-588. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-022-00204-y tran quoc thao, and nguyen pham thanh tha (2021). non-english majored students’ use of english vocabulary learning strategies with technology-enhanced language learning tools. asiacall online journal, 17(4), 455-463. terry, b. (2022). vocabulary and reading comprehension. words their way: word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction (5th ed.). https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.abscbn.com/amp/news/12/05/19/palace-poor-reading-comprehension-of-pinoys-students-a-reality https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.abscbn.com/amp/news/12/05/19/palace-poor-reading-comprehension-of-pinoys-students-a-reality http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/cml.2006.0048 http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/32622/5/soodehhamzehloumfp2012.pdf https://asiacall.info/acoj joseph p. casibual jr, julrem b. nacua vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 54 van lam kieu, dang truc anh, pham d. bao tran, vo t. thanh nga, and pham v. phi ho (2021). the effectiveness of using technology in learning english. asiacall online journa, 12(2), 24-40. https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/26 walker, a., & white, g. (2020). technology-enhanced language learning: connecting theory and practice. oxford: oxford university weganofa, r., & lutviana.r. (2022). the correlation between internet literacy and passive vocabulary size. lingua cultura, 12 (4), 339-343. doi:10.21512/lc.v12i4.4113. biodata joseph p. casibual jr., maels is an instructor at western mindanao state university philippines teaching language, literature, and research-related courses. his field of specialization is in linguistics and literature. he’s been doing research on gender, folklore, cultural studies, and applied linguistics and have presented in local and international research conferences. he is now currently a candidate of phd in english major in literary studies wherein his dissertation focuses on the queer scholarship and its phenomenology. julrem b. nacua is an undergraduate student under the bsed-english program of wmsumolave. his field of interest as a budding researcher focuses on gender studies, literary adaptation and language education. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, evelyn k. montecalvo & geldolin l. inte electronic learning as an alternative delivery of english writing tutorials for the improvement of capitol university’s students’ writing skills evelyn khanser montecalvo geldolin luza inte capitol university, philippines geldolin_inte@yahoo.com abstract the study is quasi-experimental which aimed to compare the writing skills of students in the traditional face-to-face tutorial using appropriate reference materials (control group) and the students in the online cd-rom tutorial (experimental group) using the module developed by the researcher. it attempted to answer the following questions: 1) what are the levels of writing skills of the students in the traditional face-to-face tutorials and the cd-rom tutorials during the pretest and posttest periods? and 2) how do the students in the two groups differ in their pretest and posttest mean scores? the posttest mean scores showed that the students in the online cd-rom mode of tutorial yielded better results in terms of writing skills achievement than the students in the traditional face-to-face tutorial. based on the findings of the study, it was concluded that the students in the experimental group have improved their writing skills from poor level in grammar to a very good level and from good in vocabulary and mechanics to excellent level, after they were exposed to the online cd-rom mode of tutorial. based on the findings and conclusions, the researcher recommended that: the cd-rom module be used as remedial lessons; students should be exposed to the use of technologies such as software, courseware and word processor focusing on writing skills development; and english professors should develop more cd-rom modules on writing, listening, speaking, reading and study skills that consider the needs of the students. keywords: electronic learning, cd-rom module, english writing tutorial, writing skills introduction this study aimed to compare the writing skills achievement levels of two groups of subjects: the control and experimental groups who were exposed to two different modes of tutorial, namely, the traditional face-to-face tutorial using appropriate reference materials and the e-learning cd-rom tutorial using the module, which was designed and developed by the researchers. the respondents of the study were sixty (60) freshman college students (30 belonged to the control group and 30 belonged to the experimental group) of capitol university, in cagayan de oro city. the study was anchored on the transformational model of rapatan (1999), which used the cognitive approach. specifically, it attempted to answer the following questions: 1. what are the levels of writing skills of the students in the traditional face-to-face tutorials and cd-rom tutorials during the pretest and posttest periods, considering the following writing components, to wit: 1.1 relevance and adequacy of content 1.2 compositional organization and cohesion 1.3 referential adequacy (vocabulary) 1.4 grammatical accuracy 1.5 mechanical accuracy mailto:geldolin_inte@yahoo.com asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, evelyn k. montecalvo & geldolin l. inte 2. how do the students in the two groups differ in the following: 2.1 means of the pretest scores of the control and the experimental groups 2.2 means of the pretest and posttest scores of the control group 2.3 means of the pretest and posttest scores of the experimental group 2.4 means of the posttest scores of the control and experimental groups hypotheses based on problem number 2, it is hypothesized that: ho1 there is no significant difference between the means of the pretest scores of the control group and the experimental group. ho2 there is no significant difference between the means of the pretest scores and posttest scores of the control group. ho3 there is significant difference between the means of the pretest scores and posttest scores of the experimental group. ho4 there is significant difference between the means of posttest scores of the control and experimental groups in the areas of content, organization and grammar. methodology this research made use of the non-equivalent control group design, specifically, the untreated control group design with pretest and posttest. the design was quasi-experimental, where it involved sixty college freshman students who were enrolled in english 2a (writing in the discipline) in capitol university. the study underwent three stages: the pre-experimental, experimental and post experimental stages. the preexperimental stage involved the development of the cd-rom module, which was evaluated by english professors of the university and experts of the field. another activity was the administration of the standardized pretest in writing to both the control and experimental groups to find out if they have equal initial performance. during the experimental stage, each group of students was exposed to different modes of tutorial delivery to improve their writing skills. the control group was given tutorial lessons through the traditional face-to-face method in the university writing laboratory for a total of fifteen hours using appropriate reference materials. the experimental group, on the other hand, was tutored through e-learning mode of tutorial delivery for a total of fifteen hours in the cisco laboratory using the cd-rom module. said module served as the experimental treatment of the study. finally, during the post-experimental stage, the researcher administered a posttest, which used the same standardized writing test to find out if there was an improvement in the writing skills of the students. the interval between the pretest and the posttest was fortyfive school days. the diagram below illustrated the flow of the study: asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, evelyn k. montecalvo & geldolin l. inte pre-experimental experimental post experimental stage stage stage control group cd-rom pretest post test module (writing (writing development skills test) skills test) experimental group experimental treatment the diagram shows the operational framework of the study. in the analysis of data, simple percentages, weighted mean averages and t-test were used as statistical tools. specifically, t-test for independent groups was used to determine the difference between the means of the pretest and the posttest of the two groups, while t-test for correlated matched groups was used to test the difference of the means of the pretest and the posttest between the control and experimental groups. a standardized achievement test adapted from the book, communicative language testing by cyril j. weir (1999) was used. the five writing skills components included in the study were content, organization, vocabulary, grammar and mechanics. moreover, the students had to write an essay which was assessed according to the relevance and adequacy of content, organization and cohesion, referential adequacy, grammatical accuracy, and mechanical accuracy. the criteria were based on english as a second language (esl) composition profile. the table below showed the composition scoring profile: writing skill component mean score level criteria comments relevance and adequacy of content 20-17 16.99excellent very very knowledgeable; substantive; and excellent development of thesis. very relevant to assigned topic knowledgeable; substantive; thorough development asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, evelyn k. montecalvo & geldolin l. inte 13 12.99-9 good good of thesis; relevant to assigned topic some knowledge of subject; adequate range; limited development of thesis; mostly relevant to topic but lacks detail writing skill component mean score level criteria comments 8.99-5 4.99-1 poor very poor limited knowledge of subject; little substance; inadequate development of topic does not show knowledge of subject; nonsubstantive ; irrelevant and inadequate; not enough to evaluate organization and cohesion 20-17 16.9913 12.99-9 8.99-5 4.99-1 excellent very good good poor very poor very fluent expression, ideas so appropriately and clearly stated and supported; very succinct, effectively organized, very logical sequencing, very cohesive fluent expression, ideas clearly stated, wellorganized; logical sequencing; cohesive somewhat choppy, loosely organized but main ideas stand out, limited support; logical but incomplete sequencing non-fluent, ideas confused or disconnected, lacks logical sequencing and development does not communicate, no organization or not enough to evaluate referential adequacy 20-17 16.9913 12.99-9 8.99-5 excellent very good good poor very sophisticated range of vocabulary. has a thorough mastery of appropriate and concise english very adequate range, effective word/idiom choice and usage, word from mastery, appropriate register just adequate range, occasional errors of word/ idiom choice and usage, but meaning not obscured limited range, frequent errors of word/idiom form, choice, usage, meaning confused or obscured asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, evelyn k. montecalvo & geldolin l. inte 4.99-1 very poor essentially a translation, little knowledge of english vocabulary, idiom word and form, or not enough to evaluate grammatical accuracy 25-21 20.9916 excellent very good very effective complex constructions; no errors of agreement, tense, number, word order, function/ articles, pronouns, prepositions; conveys bilingual competence effective simple constructions, few errors of agreement, tense, number, word order, functions, writing skill component mean score level criteria comments 15.9911 10.99-6 5.99-1 good poor very poor article, pronouns, prepositions simple constructions; several errors of agreement in tense, number, word order/function, articles, pronouns, prepositions but meaning seldom obscured major problems in simple/complex construction, agreement, tense, number, word/order/function, articles, pronouns, prepositions and/or fragments, run-ons deletions, meaning confused or obscured virtually no mastery of sentence construction rules, dominated by errors, does not communicate, or not enough to evaluate asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, evelyn k. montecalvo & geldolin l. inte mechanical accuracy 15 – 13 12.9910 9.99-7 6.99-4 3.99-1 excellent very good good poor very poor demonstrates effective mastery of convention; no error in spelling, punctuation, capitalization mastery of convention, very few errors of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, paraphrasing occasional errors of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, paraphrasing but meaning not obscured frequent errors of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, paraphrasing, poor handwriting, meaning confused or obscured no mastery of conventions, dominated by errors of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, paraphrasing, handwriting illegible, or not enough to evaluate summary of findings 1.1 on the levels of writing skills of the control group during the pretest the pretest mean scores of the students in the control group (traditional face-to-face tutorial) described them to be “poor” in the areas of content, organization, vocabulary and grammar; and “good” in mechanics. on the whole, the control group was described to be “poor” in their writing skills. 1.2 on the levels of writing skills of the experimental group during the pretest the pretest mean scores of the students in the experimental group (cd-rom mode of tutorial) described them to be “poor” in the areas of content, organization and grammar; and “good” in vocabulary and mechanics. on the whole, the experimental group was described to be “poor” in their writing skills. 1.3 on the levels of writing skills of the control group during the posttest the posttest mean scores of the students in the control group described them to be “very good” in the areas of content, organization, vocabulary and grammar; and “excellent” in mechanics. 1.4 on the levels of writing skills of the experimental group during the posttest the posttest mean scores of the experimental group described them to be “very good” in grammar and “excellent” in content, organization, vocabulary and mechanics. 2.1 on the significant difference between the pretest means of the control and experimental groups when the means of the pretest scores in the areas of content, organization, vocabulary, and mechanics of the two groups were compared, the difference was “not significant”; but when the means of the two groups in the area of grammar was compared, the difference was significant”. on the whole, there was “no significant difference” between the means of the pretest scores of the control and the experimental groups. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, evelyn k. montecalvo & geldolin l. inte 2.2 on the difference between the means of the pretest and posttest of the control group when the means of the pretest and posttest scores in the five writing skill areas of the control group were compared, the difference was “significant”. 2.3 on the difference between the means of the pretest and posttest scores of the experimental group when the means of the pretest and posttest scores in the five writing skill components of the experimental group were compared, the difference was significant.” 2.4 on the difference between the posttest means of the control and experimental groups when the means of the posttest scores in the areas of vocabulary and mechanics of the two groups were compared; the difference was “not significant”; but when the means of the two groups in the areas of content, organization and grammar were compared, the difference was “significant”. on the effect of the cd-rom module on the students’ writing skills the cd-rom module was instrumental in the improvement of the students’ writing skills, most specifically in the areas of content, organization and grammar. conclusion 1. the online cd-rom module is a good alternative mode of delivering english writing tutorial lessons to students for it helps in the improvement of students’ writing skills, considering the five writing components, most specifically in the areas of content, organization and grammar. 2. the students in the control group have improved their writing skills from poor in the areas of content, organization, vocabulary and grammar to very good level; and from a good level in mechanics to excellent level, after they were exposed to the traditional face-to-face mode of tutorials. 3. the students in the experimental group have improved in their writing skills from poor level in grammar to a very good level, and from a poor level in content and organization to excellent level, and from good level in vocabulary and mechanics to excellent level after they were exposed to the online cd-rom mode of tutorial. 4. the online cd-rom mode of tutorial using the module developed by the researcher yielded better results in terms of writing skills achievement than the traditional face-to-face mode of tutorials using any appropriate reference materials, based on the posttest mean scores of the students in the five writing skill components. recommendations 1. since the findings show the effectiveness of the use of the e-learning cd-rom module for the improvement of students’ writing skills, it is recommended that it be used by the writing laboratory staff of capitol university as remedial lessons to students who need assistance in the improvement of their writing skills. 2. the capitol university administration should provide more computers with cd-rom in the writing laboratory to give opportunity to students to access the module and learn writing skills concepts. 3. students should be exposed to the use of technologies such as software, courseware and word processors focusing on writing skills development. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, evelyn k. montecalvo & geldolin l. inte 4. professors should serve as role models on the use of technology in instruction to encourage and motivate students to do the same. 5. professors should be trained on how to design and develop self-instructional materials like cd-rom modules that consider the needs of the students, as well as the culture of the community. 6. english professors should design and develop more cd-rom modules, not only on writing skills but also on the other basic areas of communication skills such as listening, speaking and reading as well as study skills. 7. considering that there is also a significant increase in writing skills of students who were exposed to the traditional face-to-face method of tutorials, staffs and tutors of capitol university writing laboratory may use a judicious blend of the cd-rom mode of tutorial and face-to-face tutorial delivery when necessary. 8. other researchers can look into another empirical research focusing on pure online writing tutorials. 9. researchers of other disciplines using online mode of tutorial delivery can also conduct similar studies. references campbell, g. (1990). contemporary issues in american distance education. new york: pergamon press. carague, o. m. (1998). reinventing of education through information technology. quezon city, philippines: katha publishing co., inc. davie, l. (1989). facilitation techniques for the online tutor. midweave communication, computers and distance education. new york: pergamon press. foster, r. m. (1999). building learning communities in cyberspace. san francisco, ca: josey-bass publishers. gauntlett, d. (1996). video critical. luton: university of luton press. khanser, m. a. (2002). e-class: a journey into the world of virtual learning. davao city, philippines: khanser publishing house. lane, j. et. al. (2002). writing clearly, 2 nd ed. usa: heinle and heinle publishers. rapatan, m. (1999). the state of selected philippine graduate school research on the use of educational multimedia in various content areas. new technologies, old pedagogues. asia-pacific education research. weir, c. j. (1990). communicative language testing. new york: prentice hall. ____________. english as a second language composition profile the effectiveness of using technology in learning english asiacall online journal received: 03/01/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 30/01/2021 vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 accepted: 5/02/2021 pp. 24-40 online: 06/02/2021 24 the effectiveness of using technology in learning english van lam kieu1, dang truc anh1, pham d. bao tran1, vo t. thanh nga1, pham v. phi ho1 1 van lang university, vietnam correspondence: van lam kieu, van lang university, vietnam. email: vanlamkieu0907@gmail.com abstract this study found out about the effectiveness of using technology in learning english. however, few studies have been shown the effectiveness of technology in all english skills: speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills. third-year students of the foreign language department at van lang university participated in this study for two weeks. the questions revolved around learning english and using technology in learning english. the researchers collected all the responses. the goal of using technology in learning english brings a strong potential to enhance learners' language skills and promote the process of learning english quickly. after using technology in learning english, we examined the impacts of the teaching on the four skills, and this effect is expressed as a percentage (30%, 50%, 80%) based on the results obtained from the questionnaires. keywords: technology, learning english, the effectiveness of using technology, english skills. 1. introduction 1.1. background of the study there has been a lot of research on using technology in learning english. himmelsbach (2019) stated that when the internet is connected, we can access and collect information 24 hours a day. moreover, we can find almost everything on the internet, and it has regularly updated versions. for students, this access helps them find study materials and learning software to interact and open resources from famous universities in the world. using technology in learning is an online world where learners use their image as their profile picture to immerse themselves in one place with various contexts. second life offers students chances to connect and to cooperate with other learners while away from classes. moreover, the learners can discover and communicate with the other and immerse themselves in the language they are learning (zazulak, 2016). one of the benefits of using technology in learning english is engaging students in new ways. according to arifah (2014), accessing the internet will help motivate readers to learn. we can use pictures, films, and music to combine with the lessons to increase their intellectual awareness and develop their thinking ability. another benefit is that students can use english-related apps on their phones. according to speck (2019), english language learners will benefit if they approach technology. nowadays, we are using technology in many different ways, especially in education. hopkins (2017) said that people just knew something close to them in the past. however, technology has changed all their minds. now students can communicate with their friends, family, and teachers immediately via smartphones. furthermore, motteram (2014) claimed that the users such as teachers and students could access the internet to seek various information and debate with their classmates about what they have just found out in the world. thank you for technology, especially the internet, learners can access to studying easily. learners can broaden their study extent when they have classes supported by technology (larsenfreeman and anderson, 2011). according to ahmadi (2018), technology makes learners study smoothly, but we should be considered using it as a support tool in learning. there are several methods in teaching vocabularies, such as using mobile phones or mobile applications. furthermore, these things also accept learners to learn beyond the classroom. on the other hand, teaching activities will not restrict the places everywhere that students can take part with their lecturers and other students (hashemifardnia, 2018). computer technology and the internet will use the benefits of studying, enhancing, rehearsing, and developing speaking skills. efl students can use some technology such as computers, tablets, and smartphones to access the internet to communicate with foreigners and improve the language (alsied and pathan, 2013). mailto:vanlamkieu0907@gmail.com acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 25 1.2. statement of the problems using technology has become popular with everybody in every area. especially in the covis-19 pandemic is spreading worldwide, so many countries have been applying technology to learning, specifically in learning english. for example, in vietnam, there are a lot of schools, colleges, and universities that use technology in learning. however, many students and teachers have some difficulties using technology to learn english. for instance, students and teachers hardly connect together, or teachers cannot motivate students as traditional learning. therefore, they do not want to use technology in learning. on the other hand, using technology still has become more general, including learning english. the reason for using technology in learning english more widely is that it has many advantages. for instance, pronunciation will be improved by using pronunciation test apps. communication skills also will be more proficient. furthermore, technology helps education be expanded, and modern technology supports people to achieve many outstanding achievements in future learning, particularly in learning english. 1.3. the purpose of the study the main purpose of this research is to clarify the benefits that technology brings to students and teachers. 1.4. significance of the study large numbers of research papers have provided advantages from the use of technology in language learning. technology helps educators and learners have more options for english learning. this below is how technology brings benefits for students and teachers: • students can use educational apps such as elsa, duolingo, etc., to improve their vocabulary and pronunciation. • in the covid-19 pandemic, technology allows students to connect to teachers while away from class. • technology gives teachers a lot of software to create more life-like lessons for students. 2. previous review 2.1. theory review what is technology? technology is the invention, change, use, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, professional skills, systems, and organizational methods, to solve a problem, improve an existing solution, achieve a goal, or perform a specific function. using technology in learning english uses software or applications on phones or computers that can assist in learning. application software is used, such as duolingo, elsa speaking, oxford's dictionary, etc. 2.2. literature review there are several surveys and researches for using technology in language learning. in 2016, alsulami researched intending to find the impact of technology on learning english for female efl students in effatt college. he used questionnaires with likert scale questions for this research. the statistical package analyzed this study's data for social sciences (spss) to obtain results. the findings clearly indicate that social media, software, audio tools (youtube, skype, mp3 player), and educational apps on smartphones positively affect. however, the useful impact of using technology in english learning depends on how students or learners use it. in 2012, one research was done by shyamlee and phil with the topic "use of technology in english language teaching and learning". two authors used qualitative analysis to find out the pros and cons of applying multimedia technology to english language teaching and learning, such as e-mail, the internet, electronic dictionary, powerpoint, etc. the results obviously show that using multimedia technology can enhance teachers' and students' teaching effect and interaction. moreover, technology also makes the course content flexible. everything has two slides, however, technology also keeps students' thinking potential restricted. all in all, the authors claimed that technology should not be overused because it is just a support tool for teaching and learning english. this article was written by parvin and salam (2015). this commentary is related to the value when using technology methods in the english language and improving english skills. afterward, this writing aims to recommend more acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 26 technology devices such as audiovisual materials in the primary schools to develop children's capability in english because the education wants to concentrate on grammar and obliges children to learn by heart the new words in the past. this research's methods were surveyed to analyze the unbelievable changes when applying a new way like audiovisual materials into the primary schools. the following data collection was observed by the team members (2013) that divided into three parts: comparing the different results of examination between ict and nonict, paying attention to the debated team between students and teachers, and the last one is monitoring devices at school that includes the number of observation type such as classes is over 50, classes have a recorded video that is 13, observed classes without ict are 33. the main results make people know about ict and nonict schools, the debating team, and class observation. furthermore, these findings want the other people to understand more about the changes when comparing use or do not use technology and also create innovation when applying it to education in successful ways. another research was done by patel (2015) with the topic significance of technology enhanced language learning (tell) in language classes. he used a questionnaire and analysis method for this research. the findings indicate that many opportunities that english teachers created to help students meet their language goals in technology improved language learning in a language environment. all in all, this research makes an effort to outline some of the trends growing in technology-enhanced language learning. technology is popular with everyone in every area, including education. an article was written by costley (2014) with the topic the positive effects of technology on teaching and student learning. the author used analysis for this paper. this paper showed that technology has a positive effect on language learning. moreover, technology is effective in all age groups and helps students with special learning needs. in summary, using technology in learning english has many following benefits: increased student motivation, engagement, collaboration, and technology skills. this article was written by rahami and katal (2012) to show the innovation of using podcasting technology in studying a language. this writing illustrates the estimation of students when using a metacognitive listening skill. besides that, the purposes of this observation are to reveal the position of methods awareness about metacognitive listening skills and ready to use technology in podcasting for studying english. this survey analyzes how using podcasting technology affects university students. afterward, students introduce using podcasting technology and making it more helpful. those students are also participants of this research, with 141 people from four universities. this study accounts for almost 41% masculine and 60% feminine students. then, the sample (about 90%) argues digital devices that can be used to electronic devices. the main results want to teach university students to have more knowledge about metacognitive listening skills, and through using podcasting technology in studying english, the necessary things of students are attitude, understanding, or experience. the authors of this research are yang and chen (2007) to reveals the influence of using internet devices in learning english as a foreign language. this commentary lets students have more opportunities to use technology in the foundation course. this study's main purpose lets students know if students study english through multimedia technology, it will require new studying methods and selfdirected studying. the participants have 44 people to complete this research paper, and all of the participants are masculine students in the grade tenth. besides that, 12% never uses the internet before, 88% left has experience of using technology devices (internet, e-mail, and so on). data collection divides into many parts such as discussion, questionnaires, document analysis, and email. this research wants to show technology devices that can be useful for enhancing students' english skills, even for teaching methods, and improving communication skills. fithriani (2019) study to investigate the popular media in indonesia facebook is indeed a useful learning tool that efl university students use in their classroom learn to write advanced. the researcher used questionnaires, discussions, and interviews on facebook with 53 students, including 40 female students and 13 male students. the results show that using facebook in the writing classroom has helped students boost their confidence, communication skills and improve their english, especially writing skills. the study's conclusion has acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 27 confirmed that facebook is an effective learning tool for students in their classes. another study did by trasierra in 2018 with the main purpose is to analyze the disadvantages and advantages of using information and communication technologies (icts) in english as a foreign language (efl). the research paper participant is primary education english teachers in catalonia, and the data collection has collected in questionnaires by google form. through surveys, he has analyzed teacher vision problems in using technology in the classroom. this research's limitation is the results are based on limited data collection. and the author considers having more studies in terms of the disadvantages of icts in english learning. the article is observed by mofareh (2019) to demonstrate the positive outcomes of technology after using technology in education. for our research, the study wants to change the old teaching methods into modern methods such as using technology. this is because the old teaching research has some problems that are not as expected. students and teachers are the participants in our research. besides that, the research paper reveals between 75% and 85% that students accept these traditional teaching methods, from 60% to 80% that students do not pleased with these methods to study. the final results want students to have more confidence to achieve with flying colors in english and show more traditional teaching methods. 2.3. research question the paper will provide us the answer to the following questions: what technologies (social media, computer software, audio tools, and educational apps) do learners use in learning english? what have been the positive results of using technology in learning english? 3. methodology 3.1. research context van lang university was established in 1995. the president of this university is a professional tran thi my dieu. nowadays, van lang has three campuses. the head office is located in district 1, the second campus located in binh thanh district, and the last campus is located in go vap district. van lang is a private university that has 30 faculties. each year, about 17.000 new students enroll in this school. van lang university not only has the slogan of van lang, which is morality-will-creativity but also has a song called "van lang dai hoc duong". 3.2. population and sampling method our research's goals focus on the faculty of a foreign language, and the participants are the junior students. we feel these students are a suitable object to complete our research topic because of the same major. we choose a convenient method to make completely sampling methods. our group will divide into three steps: • the first step: we listed each subject's class that we studied to know the population in every single class. • the second step: we printed the research paper in every class's exact population and checked the questions again. • the third step: we gave the paper to the students, and we asked them to fill in to finish research questions. 3.3. research design we choose questionnaire and interview to survey this study. we make 19 questions for questionnaires and ten questions for interviews. in questionnaires, number 1 to number 4 questions answer for the first research question. the rest of the questions answers for the second research question. in the interview, we have number 1 answers for the first research question and number 2 to number 10 answers for the second research question. 3.4. data collection we collected data by questionnaire and interview at van lang university during a week. we surveyed by giving 288 questionnaires to third-year students in the faculty of foreign languages, and we have obtained 288 responses for this. we also interviewed 10 students for this research. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 28 3.5. procedure we wrote questionnaires and interview based on two research question: • what technology (social media, computer software, audio tools, and educational apps) learners use to learn english? • what have been the positive results of using technology in learning english? we have discussed how to create questions that satisfy two research questions. after that, we printed 300 questionnaires and ten interview questions to give thirdyear undergraduates in the faculty of foreign languages. we started giving them from nov 9-14, 2020, and on nov 15, 2020, we analyzed the data. we went to each class that third-year students were studying and asked for the teacher's permission. each survey students take about two to three minutes, only about 10 minutes for interviews. 3.6. data analyze after collecting evaluation data on the study: • summary and categorization of data. • then present the data regarding the number of examples, questions percent… by the graph. • firstly, ‘descriptive statistics’ is used to describe data. • after that, ‘inference statistics’ helps to compare data. 4. results 4.1. the demographic data of participants relating to survey participants, 288 students were surveyed for the effectiveness of using technology in learning english. all of them are third-year students in the foreign language departments of van lang university. the participants were studying in the first semester of the academy year. we have decided to select junior students for the survey because we are also junior students of the university, which helps us have more advantages in getting opinions such as arranging time easily. 4.2. research question 1 what technologies (social media, computer software, audio tools, and educational apps) do learners use in learning english? question number 1 to number 4 in questionnaires answers the research question 1, which was created to explore what kind of technologies students often use in their english learning (question 3). questions 2 and 4 have explored participants' feelings when using technology to study english. and number 1 has discovered the way that students often learn english. chart 1. the way of student practice english. chart 1 shows how students practice english. as indicated in the questionnaires, students have chosen technology to learn english by 68.8%. this number shows that the application of technology to learn english is no longer unfamiliar to students. and it is really beneficial, so the percentage of students who chose to study with technology is so much. 43.3% of students have chosen to practice individually. this is 36.50% 41.30% 68.80% 0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% 70.00% 80.00% practice with other people practice individually practice with technologies acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 30 also a pretty large percentage. it means that students are hesitant about learning with others even though they practice english very effectively. studying alone can also bring great results, but it is very difficult to help you spot mistakes as easily as studying with fellow students. chart 2: technology is useful for students in learning english chart 3. the feeling of participants when using technology in learning english chart 2 and chart 3 reveal that the number of students choosing technology useful for learning english and easily using is a lot, the rate is 96% and 91%, respectively. it means that technology really works for them and they like applying it, and it hard for any disadvantages to the learners. they can be easily accessed anytime and anywhere. 4% of students think that technology is not beneficial. that is a very small percentage, but it is shown that they maybe have not applied technology in the right way, so it has not worked for them yet. in addition, 9% of participants said that using technology to learn is difficult. this number suggests that there are still some limitations. for instance, students must have an internet connection to use english learning apps, or students are bothered by advertisements while studying on software or computer. chart 4. the kind of technology that participants apply to learn english this chart shows the most common technology that learners regularly use to learn english. as can be seen, the highest percentage of all cases is educational apps (75.30%). it means that the learning apps are very popular among students, and those are easy to download and easy to use. nevertheless, smartphones and tablets were also selected by many students (60.80%). as you know, smartphones are a kind of technology that almost everyone has today. students choose smartphones and tablets to learn english because they are so compact and have many features to aid in learning. and learners can carry them easily. 96% 4% yes no 91% 9% easy dificult 75.30% 60.80% 19.40% 19.10% 0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% 70.00% 80.00% educational apps smartphone, tablets audio tools computer and computer software acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 31 to sum, the data from question 1 to question 4 indicated that the use of technology in learning english is increasingly popular and effective for students. furthermore, the data also shows that it is easier for learners to study technology. some kinds of technologies like educational apps, smartphones, tablets are used the most by learners for their convenience. however, technology in learning english also has a few limitations, such as having a lot of advertising while studying and having to have an internet connection to learn. in this study, we have 10 questions for interviews, and questions number 1 and 2 will show us the answer to research question 1. we interview face-to-face with 10 junior students to have in-depth information for the research question. the participants in the interview are coded s1, s2, to s10. we create question 1 to want to know which technologies students use the most in learning english. s1, s2, s3, s4, s5, s6, s7, s8, and s10 said that smartphones are used the most. however, s9 has used computers the most. this result shows that smartphones are really good tools for english. it is very small but contains a lot of information and data. moreover, students can download learning software or information to their smartphones to study anywhere and anytime. those are the reason smartphones are so popular in english learning. furthermore, question 2 helps us explore the purpose of students when using technology in learning english. the main purpose when i using technology is looking up a dictionary, consulting friends, improving listening skills, and learning new words. student 1 the purpose is to use a dictionary online to search for new words and translating. student 2 my purpose is to use the internet to search for information for a research paper, using an online dictionary to find out the meaning of new words, discussing with my fellow student through messenger when we are at home. student 3 the purposes are enhancing vocabulary and 4 english skills: reading, listening, writing, and speaking. student 4, 5, and 6 my aim is to seek many vocabularies and checking pronunciation. student 7 i think my purpose is to communicate with foreigners. student 8 i want to take part in the english clubs on facebook. student 9 the purposes: accessing information and finding new words in the dictionary online. student 10 in general, the main purpose has given the most of the responses is using an online dictionary and improve their 4 english skills. it means that in learning a foreign language, it is necessary to understand the meaning of the words, so students use the dictionary online. however, in some cases, the students depend too much on the dictionary. in addition, 4 english skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing is also mentioned. as can be seen, students are also increasingly focusing on all skills rather than just focusing on listening or speaking. to summarize the interview, the answer to research question 1 was clearly that smartphones are applied the most by students while learning english because they give us a flexible ability to download and access information. besides, using online dictionaries and enhancing their english skills is the main purpose of using technology. an online dictionary helps students have the opportunity to an in-depth understanding of the meaning of new words. and focusing on 4 english skills will help them become more fluent in english. 4.3. research question 2 what have been the positive results of using technology in learning english? question number 5 to number 12 of the questionnaire, which was designed to explore how four english skills of third-year students in van lang acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 32 university applied technology in learning english. and question number 5 has explored the first skill. chart 5. speaking skills have been enhanced after using technology in learning english as can be seen in chart 5, about 96% of students in van lang university said "yes" to this question. this explains that speaking skills have improved the most after using technology in learning english. and the rest of 4% is that students still cannot improve their speaking skills through study with technological devices. chart 6. the percentage of speaking skills have been enhanced after using technology chart 6 reveals that students' speaking skills have improved at an average level is 57%. this implicated that speaking skills are enhanced significantly when students apply technology to learning english. moreover, this percentage also showed that students apply the right technology to learning english, so it brings students amazing results. for example, they can use smartphones to call foreigners to practice speaking. next, about 23% is the percentage of the level of the improvement more than 80% of students after using technology in learning english. it shows that their speaking skill is likely to improve a lot after using technological devices in learning english. although the percentage of the improvement level is more than 80%, which is still low, this number shows that students know how to use technology in learning english. the remainder of this question's percentage is 20% presented that using technology in learning english is not as helpful as they expected. chart 7. listening skills have been developed after using technology in learning english as can be seen from data in chart 7, it showed that 96% of students at van lang university said “yes” to this question. this explains that listening skill has been improved a lot after using technology in learning english. and the rest of the 4% is that students still cannot improve their listening skills through study with technology. chart 8. the percentage of listening skills have been developed after using technology chart 8 showed that students' listening skills have improved at an average level of 40%. this implicated that listening skills increased not very much when students apply technology to learning english. furthermore, this number also shows that students apply technology correctly to studying english. next, about 36% showed that their listening skills had been enhanced the most (more than 80% of listening skills) after using technological devices to learn english. this percent is extremely high. this explains that students 96% 4% yes no 20% 57% 23% 30% 50% 80% 96% 4% yes no 24% 40% 36% 30% 50% 80% acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 33 know exactly how to use technological devices in learning english, and technology helps them practice listening skills. they improve their listening skills by more than 80% because they always listen to english songs and stories or news in english on youtube like voa learning english or learning apps supporting students to practice listening. the rest of the percentage of this question is 24% presented that using technology in learning english is useful for them to study english. chart 9. reading skills have been improved after using technology in learning english our research paper stated that 95% of students at van lang university said "yes" to this question. this explains that reading skills have been enhanced significantly after using technology to learn english. and the rest of the 5% is that students still cannot improve their reading skills by studying technology. chart 10. the percentage of reading skills have been improved after using technology this chart presented that students' reading skills have improved at an average level is 58%. this implicated that listening skills increased rather well when students apply technology to learning english. in addition, this explains that almost all students usually apply technological devices to learning english, especially in reading skills. thanks to technology and the internet, students can read more and more online newspapers and english stories to be experts at reading skills. next, about 14% showed that their reading skill is likely to improve not much after applying technology to learning english. the rest of this question's percentage is 28% (level of improvement at 30%). it shows that the improvement of reading skills is very low. this number presented that using technology in learning english is not as useful as they wanted. chart 11. writing skills have been improved after using technology in learning english as can be seen in this chart, about 94% of students at van lang university said “yes” to this question. this explains that writing skill has been improved the most after using technology in learning english. and the rest of the 6% is that students still cannot improve their writing skills through study with technological devices. chart 12. the percentage of writing skills have been improved after using technology this chart showed that 51% of reading skills had been improved at a weak level. this number indicated that using technological devices in learning english is not 95% 5% yes no 28% 58% 14% 30% 50% 80% 94% 6% yes no 51% 31% 18% 30% 50% 80% acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 34 helpful. students cannot know exactly how to use technology to improve their writing skills, so they feel that their writing skills have been improved when they study with their face-to-face instructors. however, writing skill has improved at an average level is 31%. this implicated that listening skills enhanced but not much when students apply technology to learning english. this percent also shows that many students still apply technology to learning english. for example, they can enhance their writing skills through grammarly apps or check plagiarism apps to prevent them from having some plagiarism and grammar mistakes when they practice writing in english. next, about 18% showed that their writing skill is likely to improve not much after applying technology to learning english. in sum, question 5 to question 12 indicates that listening skill has been improved the most in four english skills surveyed by third-year students at van lang university. on the other hand, writing skills increased not as much as listening skills. finally, the rest of the two skills (speaking and reading skills) were enhanced sufficiently. all four english skills have been improved significantly by studying with technological devices. in the interview, question number 6 to question number 9 will show us the answers to research question 2. we interviewed person-in-person 10 students to have in-depth information for this research question. the participants in this interview will be coded s1, s2 to s10. we create question 6 in order to know how effective technology in speaking skills. according to s1, s2, s3, s4, s5, s6, s7, s8, s9, and s10, they said that: my speaking skill has been improved a lot. student 1, 5, 7, 8, and 9 speaking skill has been enhanced averagely. student 4 and 10 technological devices are not helpful for me in practicing a speaking skill at all. student 2, 3, and 6 we design question number 7 to explore how listening skills developed after using technology to learn english. also, we have an interview face-to-face with 10 students at van lang university. technology helps me improve my listening skills a lot because i usually practice listening skills through youtube videos. student 1, 5, 6, 7, and 8 my listening skill has been improved but not much. student 2, 3, 4, 9, and 10 question number 8 was created to know how reading skills improved after using technology to learn english. i enhance my reading skill at an average level, learn some new words and read newspapers in english. student 2, 3, 4, 8, and 9 my reading has been improved not much. student 5, 7, and 10 i do not improve my reading skill at all. student 1 and 6 question number 9 was designed to get how writing skills improved after using technology in learning english. my writing skill has been improved a lot by using grammarly and check plagiarism apps. student 1, 3, 7, 8, 9, and 10 my writing has been enhanced averagely. student 4 and 6 i do not use technology to practice my writing skill. student 2 and 5 to summarize the interview, we designed these questions in the interview to answer research question 2. we find that there are different answers to each question. generally, all four skills have been improved. however, there will be various levels for each skill. firstly, speaking skill has been improved averagely. next, reading and writing skills have not been enhanced much. finally, listening skills are improved the most when using technology to support their learning english. next, from question 13 to question 19 are the small questions of research question 2 to meet learners' necessities when they want to know more about the benefits of using technology in learning english. for questions 13 and question 14, they illustrate how using pronunciation test software corrects the fault when we speak english. afterward, quizzes 15 and 16 explore acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 35 some advantages of using an online dictionary to meet the study. besides that, from question 17 to question 19 want to seek learners' enjoyment when applying technology into education. finally, question 13 to question 19 plays a significant role that finds out how many percentages learners improve after using technology in learning english. chart 13. pronunciation has been better after using pronunciation test software chart 13 shows data about how many learners affect pronunciation after using the software. 64% is the highest rate in this chart, and it represents that students improve a lot after using the software and still limit to use technology a lot. besides that, the learners account for 34% who develop english skills after using technology and know-how to use it efficiently. the lowest rate is 2%, which means that most learners also know to use technology to complete the study's task. it has very few people who do not know the advantages of using technology to learn english. chart 14. how pronunciation test software helps students as can be seen in chart 14, it divides into three rates, which make learners know the significant role in pronunciation when speaking english. the highest rate (67%) expresses that learners use the software to find out the pronunciation's faults to know which words they pronounce false. besides, the rate is 50.90% that the rate illustrates learners want the software to check pronunciation and fix it when learners pronounce false. the last rate accounts for 27.40%, which means that very few people know this utility and do not care about this one's benefits. chart 15. how online dictionaries bring students benefits 64% 34% 2% yes but not much much improved no 67% 50.90% 27.40% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% identity mistakes correct the mistakes set up studying reminders 56.10% 48.10% 23.30% 0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% easy to access easy to find easy to understand acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 36 this chart reveals that how online dictionaries easily to use. the highest rate is 56.10% that represents learners can access the dictionaries wherever, whenever, because it does not limit some aspects. 48.10% is the second rate, which means the advantages of online dictionaries help learners easily find the words that learners want. moreover, there are many online dictionaries on the internet, so learners have many choices to decide. the part "easy to understand" accounts for 23.30%, which shows that there are still some restricted areas that online dictionaries cannot explain clearly to learners. chart 16. the usage of the dictionary helps students more confident when you speak english with many new words chart 16 illustrates how the influence of the dictionary affects speaking skills. it seems that most learners feel they improve a lot after using it, but there are still some areas that learners do not understand (65%). the average rate is 30% that describes some learners when using a dictionary, they feel more confident speaking with native speakers, and they easily use a dictionary. the lowest rate is 5%, which means that very few people do not improve by using a dictionary. as can be seen from the data in chart 17, it shows the necessity when applying technology in learning english classroom. the highest rate accounts for 81%, which illustrates the number of people who agree to use technology that provides many benefits to help learners understand lessons. the second rate is 15%, which represents that some students understand very little about using technology in the classroom because the technology still argues in learning english also teaching. the last rate accounts for 4%, which means some people do not like this type of study. it seems that they feel easily understand when studying in the traditional classroom. chart 17. using technology in learning english classroom will make it easier to understand the lesson chart 18. using technology will increase students' enjoyment of learning english chart 18 relates to students' feelings when applying technology in learning english. the highest number accounts for 93%, which represents that learners feel excited when using technology and help them boost their pleasure in studying english. 7% left that means very few people do not like this way of studying. chart 19. how technologies increase students' enjoyment of learning english 65% 30% 5% yes but not much more confident no 81% 4% 15% yes no a little bit 93% 7% yes no asiacall online journal received: 03/01/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 30/01/2021 vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 accepted: 5/02/2021 pp. 24-40 online: 06/02/2021 0 the last chart provides that technology affects students' feelings in which way, and there are many ways to make students feel interested in learning english. reducing boredom in the classroom is 60.10% that means students like applying some modern devices into education to make learners have more opportunities, which can decline the sadness in class. 49% stands for the number of learners who feel communication between students and teacher increase a lot based on using technology. the last rate is 35.80%, which describes the lessons as more interesting, lively, and easy to understand for learners after using technology to learn english. to sum up, questions 13 to question 19 want to know how many percentages of the participants feel that using technology in the classroom. furthermore, we estimate how people's rate effects after using technology in studying english. afterward, we emphasize some apps that can make learners improve a lot and pay attention to learners' emotions to seek the best way that is suitable for learners. interview questions 3, 4, 5, and 10 create to investigate the influence of using technology in studying english. our team members interview faceto-face 10 participants and record their voices to collect the data for these four questions. to question 3 relates to the benefits of using technology in learning english: i can access sources and information easily anywhere and anytime. student 1 and 6 the benefits of using technology in learning english: enhancing vocabulary. student 2 the benefits: providing abilities to access sources, watching many videos in terms of how to improve english on youtube. student 3 there is no limitation of information and document on the internet. student 4 technology helps me find out and correct some mistakes in pronunciation. student 5 i can improve pronunciation better, know more vocabularies, more structures student 7 i have a chance to earn money student 8 i feel more convenient when using technology in learning english student 9 technology provides different opportunities to make learning more fun and enjoyable 60.10% 49% 35.80% 0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% 70.00% reduce boredom in classroom increase the interaction between students and teachers help the lecture more vivid acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 37 student 10 continue with question 4, it relates to using technology affects which skills in english: speaking skills are improved a lot because i keen to learn british accents so i just search on youtube about it and practice day by day. it helps me a lot. student 1 i think my listening and speaking skills have improved a lot because there are many sources to download and practice on the internet. student 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 i think reading skills and writing skills have improved a lot because i usually read online newspapers and journal articles to have new words for my reading skills and use grammarly for my writing skills. student 3 my writing skill is improved a lot after using technology in learning english. student 4 moreover, question 5 illustrate the impact of technology in learning english technology is one way to raise english skills, but it still bases on learning. if they learn hard, they will be better. and if they don't, then technology doesn't help. i have improved my speaking skills a lot through media and youtube. student 1 technology affects my listening skill a little bit. student 2, 6, and 9 technology helps me reduce boredom when learning english. there are many educational apps that the very vivid interface. student 3 technology affects me a little bit. technology just helps me improve my vocabulary and writing skills. student 4 instead of studying in books, learning with technology has made me more active, interested. student 10 the last question is number 10; it commends about the pronunciation part. i think i can be fluent in pronunciation through some foreigners on social media. student 1, 4 my pronunciation has enhanced, like clearer pronunciation. student 2, 5, 8 my pronunciation also has improved too much. i can pronounce correctly american accent through elsa app. student 3 my pronunciation improved slightly after using technology to correct my pronunciation mistakes. student 6 i think technology helps me pronounce more correctly and clearly. student 7 and 8 learn english through phone apps that support speech recognition. from there, i can correct the voice and practice to have a correct voice. student 10 to wrap up, those questions want to investigate some aspects that help learners have real experiences in learning english based on using technology and illustrate which skills after using technology will improve a lot. besides that, our research emphasizes the influence of using test software or using online acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 38 dictionaries in learning english classroom and attaches special importance to the learner's feelings when applying many ways to study english. 5. discussion most of the research papers in the literature review have studied a small part of the english language. on the other hand, our study focuses on english skills, including listening, speaking, reading, and writing. comparative with alsulami (2016) research paper, he found that the participants always use smartphones (52.8%). besides, facebook, twitter, whatsapp, and blogs always are used a lot (50%). however, our study showed that the participants use educational apps the most (75.30%). there are several different methods between our research and the article “the effectiveness of using technology in english language classrooms in government primary schools in bangladesh” wrote by parvin and salam (2015). the first thing, the participants of our topic will focus on students more. nevertheless, the research paper on google scholar concentrated on teachers more. on the other hand, our methods aim at collecting the rate of developed skills after using technology in learning english. in contrast, the authors’ research investigates how some devices (audio-visual content) affect education. another comparison that demonstrates our topic is the article "the role of metacognitive listening strategies awareness and podcast-use readiness in using podcasting for learning english as a foreign language" by rahimi and katal (2012). our topic’s participants emphasize using technology (mobile phones or computers) to study english. however, the research paper’s participants choose the form of using podcasting technology to enhance english skills. the research paper “technology-enhanced language learning: a case study” from yang and chen (2006) clearly shows the differences with our group's topic. our research illustrates technology that will have more opportunities to develop our english skills. on the other hand, the authors' study reveals that video conferencing promotes english communication skills. in the study "using facebook in efl writing class: its effectiveness from students' perspective" by fithriani (2019), facebook is social media that the participants of this study use the most, with a total of 52 users. by contrast, we just focus on smartphones and computers because we think that facebook is on smartphones and computers. shyamlee and phil (2012) showed that there are many kinds of technological devices used in teaching and learning english like radio, electronic dictionary, computers, and so on. specifically, our research indicates that students use educational apps, smartphones, audio tools, computer, (75.30%, 60.80%, 19.40%, and 19.10% respectively). in costley's (2014) study, he claimed that technology is the best tool for students to learn. comparing our research with his paper shows that using technology in learning differently. in his research, wiki technology helps students a lot because students receive feedback immediately from the instructor to use this form of technology. on the other hand, our research shows that writing skill has been improved a little (30%). patel's (2017) research, computer-mediated communication (cmc) is very useful for students in speaking and writing in a foreign language. according to our research, technology helps the student improve their speaking skill a lot (57%) and writing skill at a low level (31%). “the use of technology in english language teaching” by mofareh (2009) has different methods from ours. our group's topic emphasizes technology, which is crucial in learning english. nevertheless, the research paper showed that students achieved highlevel english skills by 75-95% when teachers used modern teaching techniques. in the literature review, trasierra (2018) study has shown the advantages and disadvantages of using icts in the classroom. comparative with our study, the participants of his study have just focused on teachers. however, the icts tools that help students improve listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills are computer, youtube, dictionary online, duolingo, etc. it is a similar result to our research paper. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 39 6. conclusion data from question 1 to question 4 in the study suggest that the use of technology in learning english is becoming increasingly widespread and productive for learners. besides, knowledge also can learn from technology more easily. due to its usability, certain kinds of technology such as educational apps, smartphones, and tablets are often used by learners. however, using technology in learning english still has some drawbacks, such as certain commercials and an internet connection to learn while using. data from sentences 5 to 12 indicate that of the four english skills surveyed by 3rd-year students at van lang university, listening abilities are the most enhanced. on the other hand, writing skills have not increased as much. finally, the remaining two skills have been strengthened (speaking and reading skills). by studying with technical devices, all 4 english skills are greatly improved. furthermore, question 13 to question 19 would like to know how many percentages of respondents believe that they use technology in the classroom. besides, we estimate how individuals' rate influences the study of english after using technology. subsequently, we highlight some programs that can help learners change a lot and pay attention to learners' feelings to find the best approach that is acceptable for learners. a very important role is played by searching and analyzing data. it is not easy to acquire the data. researchers have to ask questions and collect them afterward. currently, this research has not reached all students at van lang university studying english. 288 students collected the results of the questionnaire, and 10 students were interviewed (this result is too few). 3rd-year students conducted the research, so it had not connected students in other disciplines as well as in other years. the results showed that using technology in learning english is very important. so it is even more important to get data and collect opinions. researchers need to pay more attention when choosing this research paper's participants, such as taking data from all students studying english and other disciplines to get diverse and objective details. only focus on the questionnaire really associated with using technology to learn english and interviewing 15-20 questions directly with students at school. can send these questionnaires to students of other schools if there are time and opportunity. this will help to enrich the database. references [1] v. himmelsbach. technology in the classroom in 2019: 6 pros and cons. top hat [internet], 2019, https://tophat.com/blog/how-doestechnology-impact-student-learning/ available from: top hat. [2] s. zazulak. 7 examples of technology for english learners. pearson [internet], 2016, https://www.english.com/blog/technology-forenglish-learners/ available from: english. [3] a. hashemifardnia, e. namaziandost, f. esfahani. the effects of using whatsapp on iranian efl learners’ vocabulary learning. journal of applied linguistics and language research, 2018, volume 5, 257-267. [4] j. speck. $20 million technology investment helps build a product that benefits everyone. the role of technology in english learning [internet], 2019, https://wallstreetenglish.com/blog/technologyenglish-learning/ available from: wall street english. [5] b. hopkins. advantages of technology in education. social media for educators [internet], 2017, https://www.academiaapps.com/advantages-oftechnology-in-education/ available from: academiaaps. [6] g. motteram. the benefits of new technology in language learning. british council [internet], 2013, https://www.britishcouncil.org/voicesmagazine/the-benefits-of-new-technologylanguage-learning/ available from: british council. [7] d. larsen-freeman, m. anderson. techniques& principles in language teaching, 3rd edition. oxford university press, new york, 2011. [8] m. r. ahmadi. the use of technology in english language learning. international journal of research in english education (ijree), 2018, volume 3(2), 115-125. https://tophat.com/blog/how-does-technology-impact-student-learning/ https://tophat.com/blog/how-does-technology-impact-student-learning/ https://wallstreetenglish.com/blog/technology-english-learning/ https://wallstreetenglish.com/blog/technology-english-learning/ https://www.academiaapps.com/advantages-of-technology-in-education/ https://www.academiaapps.com/advantages-of-technology-in-education/ https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/the-benefits-of-new-technology-language-learning/ https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/the-benefits-of-new-technology-language-learning/ https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/the-benefits-of-new-technology-language-learning/ acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12, no. 2, 2021 40 [9] arifah. study on the use of technology in elt classroom: teachers' perspective. institutional repository, 2014, 43-44. [10] s. alsied, m. pathan. the use of computer technology in efl classroom: advantages and implications. international journal of english language & translation studies, 2013, volume 1(1), 44-51. [11] s. alsulami. the effects of technology on learning english as a foreign language among. canada, 2016, volume 12, 1-16. [12] s.d. shyamlee, m. phil. use of technology in english language teaching and learning: an analysis. international conference on language, medias and culture, 2012, volume 33, 150-156. [13] r.h. parvin, s.f. salam. the effectiveness of using technology in english language classrooms in government primary schools in bangladesh. fire: forum for international research in education, 2015, volume 2(1), 4759. [14] costley, k. c. the positive effects of technology on teaching and student learning. arkansas tech university.(2014) [15] patel, d. s. significance of technology enhanced language learning (tell) in language classes. journals of technology for elt, 7. (2017) [16] rahimi, m., & katal, m. (2012). the role of metacognitive listening strategies awareness and podcast-use readiness in using podcasting for learning english as a foreign language. science direct, 28(4), 1153-1161. [17] yang, s. c., & chen, y.-j. (2006). technologyenhanced language learning: science direct, 23, 860-879. [18] mofareh, a. a. the use of technology in english language teaching. schlink, 2, 168180. (2009) [19] fithriani, r. using facebook in efl writing class: its. knowledge e, 2019, 634-635. [20] trasierra, m. the use of technology in efl classroom. semantic scholar, 1-59.(2018) citation asiacall online journal received: 23/09/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 24/10/2021 vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 accepted: 25/10/2021 pp. 114-128 online: 26/10/2021 citation | hoang, t. d., phan, t. l., & le, h. p. (2021). non-english major students' perceptions towards toeic online learning and testing. asiacall online journal, 12(5), 114-128. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.008 non-english major students' perceptions towards toeic online learning and testing thi doan hoang1, thuy linh phan1*, hong phuong le1 1ho chi minh city university of social sciences and humanities, vietnam *corresponding author’s email: kellylinh156@gmail.com eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.008 abstract due to the pandemic, schools in vietnam are currently closed, resulting in a substantial shift from face-to-face to e-learning, as well as significant educational modifications. correspondingly, both learning and testing must be modified to fit the current covid-19 outbreak, emerging the need to address students' perceptions on the usage of the aforementioned issues. this study was carried out to evaluate how students perceived online learning and testing in toeic preparation courses at a university in hcmc, as this issue has grown increasingly impossible to ignore. the data for this study, which involved 55 students, was collected using a case study with the employment of interviews and surveys. the findings revealed that while online learning aided students during the covid-19 epidemic, students still encountered some obstacles due to diminished teacher-student interaction and technological challenges. besides the advantages of toeic online testing during this outbreak, the complicated manipulation, cheating, and unstable internet connection were considered as the disadvantages of students. this paper is intended to serve as a resource for teachers who are in charge of toeic online courses as well as a vehicle for further studies. keywords: toeic preparation courses, online learning, online testing 1. introduction the covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on many parts of life around the world, including schooling. over 1,6 billion students, 100 million instructors, and educational institutions in over 190 countries were affected by school closures last year (unesco, 2020). to date, the pandemic has caused considerable educational disruptions, with complete or partial school cancellations. as a result, today's educational system has undergone major modifications. not only institutions but also each and every learner must change in order to adapt to current conditions. the unexpected closure of schools and universities in vietnam has resulted in a significant movement from traditional to virtual classrooms. the change requires teachers to use technology in conjunction with interaction to fit the teaching and learning process and meet students' needs. according to bhatti (2021), technology in education is a critical step that aids teachers and students throughout the teaching and learning time. in addition, technology is an important element in e-learning because it may assist students in enhancing their english proficiency (nguyen, 2021). https://asiacall.info/acoj eoi:%20http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.008 eoi:%20http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.008 mailto:kellylinh156@gmail.com :%20http:/eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.008 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 115 in fact, implementing an e-learning platform is thought to be a good solution to meet the covid19 pandemic. with the abrupt move from traditional classrooms to online ones, a number of concerns have arisen that need to be investigated in terms of the benefits and challenges that both teachers and students face. students' perceptions of performance, pleasure, and preference for the new learning platform, in particular, should be considered. in addition to online learning, the testing procedure has been altered, which significantly impacts students' learning methods and outcomes. as a result, teachers must place a strong emphasis on online assessment. in light of the current situation, students have signed up for a variety of e-learning courses. in many institutions, english is one of the required courses. to achieve graduation requirements, university students must obtain an english certificate. as a result, during the pandemic, a high number of students enroll in toeic online courses. learners face numerous challenges when participating in virtual classrooms using new learning technology. furthermore, they must take online examinations rather than paper tests, which is considered difficult exam. hence, the study's main goal was to see how non-majored students felt about toeic online learning and testing. english teachers can then strengthen their teaching methods to assist students in dealing with the inevitable covid-19 pandemic. 2. literature review 2.1. an overview of the toeic course toeic is a fair and valid evaluation of english-language listening and reading skills for the workplace widely used worldwide. because of its significance, the toeic listening and reading test is one of the standardized english proficiency examinations that most institutions and colleges in vietnam utilize to determine graduation requirements. the main purpose of the test of english for international communication (toeic) is to evaluate people who work in an international setting who speak a language other than english as their first language's everyday english skills (ets, 2015a, 2016a; powers & powers, 2015). as a result, toeic courses at the university under scrutiny are meant to help students understand and respond to issues in real-world circumstances. lesson content intentionally focuses on grammar and words that are utilized in real-life situations. teachers give students with grammar points and vocabulary linked to toeic topics in each lesson. teachers also teach students various test-taking tactics so that they can maximize their time and achieve higher results. 2.2. online learning in education almost all institutions and colleges in vietnam have chosen to convert to online learning in order to assure learning continuity. according to douglas & van der vyver (2004), online learning has gotten a lot of attention as a way to provide alternatives to traditional face-to-face, instructor-led education. “e-learning,” sometimes referred to as online learning, web-based learning, distance learning, and technology-based learning, is a concept that has garnered significant global attention; the importance of e-learning is therefore universal (waight et al., 2004). according to karatza et al. (2007), online learning refers to the use of any kind of electronic forms of information, which delivers knowledge and courses, as well as to the use of a network's advantages. long (2004) classified two types of e-learning which are asynchronous and synchronous modes. these two modes of e-learning are characterized by the nature of learner-facilitator interaction. asynchronous mode provides learners with information that the learner can interact https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang, t. d., phan, t. l., & le, h. p. vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 116 with thereafter; meanwhile, the use of chat rooms, online dialogue among learners, and between learners and the facilitator are typical of the synchronous mode. teachers and students participate in scheduled classes that they can register for on their own at the institution under investigation, which uses synchronous interactive settings. cantoni, cellario, and porta (2004, as cited in hassan et al., 2012) listed various advantages of e-learning such as being less expensive to deliver, self-paced (e-learning courses can be taken when needed), faster (learners can skip material they already know), provide consistent content (while traditional learning different teachers may teach different material about the same subject), work ( e-learners can take training sessions when they want), easily and quickly updated (online e-learning sessions are especially easy to keep up to date because updated materials are simply uploaded to a server), lead to increased retention and a stronger grasp on the subject (due to many elements that are combined in e-learning to reinforce the message such as video, audio, quizzes, and interaction), easily managed for learning. long (2004) mentioned a variety of advantages of elearning regarding institutions and learners. in terms of personal learner advantages, seven advantages often mentioned were reduced travel time and costs for learners, self-paced learning whereby learners can control their schedules, convenience of any time and any place, opportunity for repeated practice, ease of review, self-responsibility, and freedom. on the contrary, several challenges of online learning have been explored by researchers. in their case study, barrot et al. (2021) found out that the learning environment was the greatest challenge, specifically distractions at home and limitations in learning space and facilities. furthermore, online learning restricted students' learning experience (e.g., internship and laboratory experiments), limited their interaction with peers and teachers, caused depression, stress, and anxiety among students, and depleted the financial resources of those who belong to lower-income groups. nguyen (2021) discussed four disadvantages of online learning: the overmuch amount of work, technical problems, no self-discipline, limited interactions, and anxiety overusing technology. obviously, there are not only advantages but also disadvantages to this new approach to learning; thus, students' experiences and opinions should be considered. specifically, students at the university under study have been coping with this learning approach for a while, so it is a must for educators to look into their current circumstances in order to make any adjustments if possible. 2.3. online testing the toeic listening and reading test was a paper-and-pencil, multiple-choice evaluation in the years leading up to the pandemic. in the event of an outbreak, however, universities and colleges will need to change their approach to learning and testing. online assessments are intended to be used as an alternative to face-to-face tests; as a result, adopting an assessment procedure that relies on electronic versions of exams necessitates extensive planning (sarrayrih & ilyas, 2013). quizzes and tests are the most popular types of testing, with students synchronously answering multiple-choice questions. students access a link provided by teachers during the allotted time and then take 15-minute quizzes. when the timer runs out, teachers close the link. in the same vein, the final tests, which last 90 minutes, are carried out. because this type of assessment adjustment is new to vietnamese students, they may have different perspectives on the subject. as a result, investigating students' attitudes about online learning and testing is critical. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 117 2.4. research questions to fulfill the purpose of the study, the survey was seeking to answer the following research questions: 1. what advantages and disadvantages do students have during the use of online learning? 2. how do students perceive the implementation of online testing? research design 3.1. research participants the participants in this study were 55 non-english major students who had completed toeic preparation course three at a private university in ho chi minh city. they were all vietnamese at different english levels and had passed the ministry of education and training's national college entrance exam. these participants were chosen based on the convenience of the researchers. 3.2. research design in order to meet the aims of the study, the research approach used in this paper would be a mixed-methods design. according to creswell and plano clark (2011), a mixed methods research design is a way for gathering, analyzing, and "mixing" quantitative and qualitative methodologies in a single study or a series of studies to better understand a research subject. the toeic program was a nine-week training course comprising a five-period class per week for the first five weeks of toeic virtual lessons. then for the rest of the course, the number of classes for each week was doubled. a structured questionnaire using google forms, followed by telephone interviews, was used to collect data. subsequent to the completion of the courses, the researchers would conduct an online survey of all respondents to learn more about their impressions of the toeic online courses' learning and evaluation. in addition, five students were interviewed over the phone in order to gain their inner thoughts about toeic virtual lessons. the information gathered through surveys and student interviews would be thoroughly scrutinized by spss 22 and thematic analysis software, respectively. 3.3. instruments to collect sufficient data for the research, two standard instruments, including questionnaire and interview, were used. 3.3.1. questionnaire a survey was employed as a research tool to supplement the data and gain a better understanding of the use of toeic online lessons. the questionnaire was delivered to 64 students immediately after they finished their exam, and the data obtained consisted of 55 entirely completed questionnaires. at first, students were given a two-part questionnaire utilizing google forms to collect personal information as well as their opinions on toeic online learning and testing. part 1 included five items that elicited personal information, including gender, major, undergraduate academic level, and the number of participated online courses. in part 2, participants were required to choose a number. then in part 2, participants selected a number on a 5-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) to react to 17 questions on this course, particularly their understanding and experience with the toeic online course during the covid-19 pandemic period. these statements were initially composed in english and then translated to vietnamese to grasp the https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang, t. d., phan, t. l., & le, h. p. vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 118 point and give the best responses. following that, they must evaluate their final performance at the end of the course in terms of benefits and drawbacks. the reliability of the questionnaire is presented as follows. table 3.1. reliability of the questionnaire cronbach’s alpha advantages of toeic online learning .717 disadvantages of toeic online learning .700 advantages of toeic online testing .702 disadvantages of toeic online testing .704 cronbach's alpha of .60 was considered satisfactory by clark & watson (1995). furthermore, bynner & stribley (1979) indicated that cronbach's alpha internal consistency larger than .67 was acceptable (as cited in ho, 2015). as a consequence, the four alpha values of .717, .700, .702, and .704 were acceptable. 3.3.2 interview after gathering the questionnaire statistics, five students were chosen at random for the interview to identify the core problems. because of the covid-19 pandemic, participants were given phone interviews to answer questions based on survey data. the talks were held and recorded in vietnamese in order to get thorough information about participants' attitudes regarding toeic online learning and assessment. the data were then transcribed by an online speech-to-text tool (amberscript.com), translated into english, and extensively examined to provide a comprehensive understanding of the concerns. the english versions were automatically coded by thematic analysis software with the aim of breaking the text up into themes. findings and discussions as previously stated, the goal of this survey is to determine non-english major students' attitudes regarding toeic online learning and assessment. the researchers identified two major themes in students' perceptions of the course for this study: perceptions of toeic online learning and perceptions of toeic online assessment. 4.1. students’ perceptions towards toeic online learning 4.1.1. advantages of toeic online learning to identify the advantages from learning toeic online, students' responses on the toeic online learning were analyzed. the descriptive statistics are provided in table 4.2. students' responses to the toeic online learning were studied to determine the benefits of learning toeic online. table 4.2 shows the descriptive statistics. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 119 the chart below shows that students agreed with the advantages of online learning (item la2 la6) in the questionnaire (mean score 3.382-4.364). the use of online classrooms during the covid-19 epidemic received the most agreement (m=4.364) among the five benefits stated above. meanwhile, they were uninterested in learning toeic on the internet (m=2.855). a small minority of respondents (18.1%)expressed interest in online lessons. table 4.1. students’ perceptions about the advantages of toeic online learning variables 1 2 3 4 5 mean build excitement for learning 0 (0%) 20 (36.4%) 25 (45.5%) 8 (14.5%) 2 (3.6%) 2.855 choose flexible learning location 0 (0%) 1 (18%) 11 (20%) 32 (58.2%) 11 (20%) 3.964 access to online materials 0 (0%) 2 (3.7%) 19 (34.4%) 30 (54.6%) 4 (7.3%) 3.964 record online lectures 1 (1.8%) 1 (1.8%) 11 (20%) 36 (65.5%) 7 (12.7%) 3.891 complete assignments faster 1 (1.8%) 5 (9%) 25 (45.5%) 20 (36.4%) 4 (7.3%) 3.382 correspond with covid-19 crisis 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 2 (3.6%) 31 (56.4%) 22 (40%) 4.364 note. 1: totally disagree, 2: disagree, 3: neutral, 4: agree, 5: totally agree with regard to the table, the highest figures were those with neutral attitude and disagreement at 45.5 % and 36.4 %, respectively. likewise, less than a fifth (18.1%) agreed that toeic online lessons could excite the participants. as a result of this, it can be concluded that the majority of participants are not interested in virtual classrooms. the findings agreed with mahyoob's viewpoint (2020). the majority of efl students, according to the researcher, were dissatisfied with their online learning. they believed that virtual classrooms would not be able to assist them in making the necessary linguistic improvement. it's difficult for me to focus for four hours on online lessons. when learning listening parts, i get bored and fatigued easily. i like to take toeic classes with my teacher and friends at school since i can engage with them. (s2) i get bored looking at the screen for long periods of time. online classes, in my opinion, are not as fascinating as those at school. (s4) as shown in table 4.1, 78.2 % (accounting for 43 respondents) showed their agreement and strong agreement in their favor of choosing a learning location during the covid-19 epidemic. participants stressed the flexibility of choosing a learning location as one of the benefits of toeic online learning. this helped them save time and money on travel expenses. online learning is an easy way to bring remote lecturers into a course. this result confirmed what bartley & golek (2004) had discovered concerning the flexibility of locations without the time and expense of travel. https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang, t. d., phan, t. l., & le, h. p. vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 120 my commute to school takes more than 45 minutes, but now i can stay at home and participate in toeic class. i believe that learning english at home rather than at school is much more convenient for my friends and me. (s1) in my perspective, enrolling in a toeic online class is preferable because it eliminates my need to commute from home to school. as a result, i'll be able to save money and time. (s3) the majority of participants (accounting for 61.9%) found it easy and fast to download online materials, while only two students (3.7%) had difficulty getting the e-book used in the toeic course. thurmond (2003) claimed that online learning gave learners access to a wealth of online materials. they also discovered that getting to relevant websites was simple. as a result, students could enroll in a variety of classes without having to spend time or money on textbooks. furthermore, one of the benefits that most of the participants (78.2%) can obtain from toeic online sessions is the ability to record online lectures. students can record lectures to watch later if they don't understand the lessons or are unable to participate in an online classroom, unlike in an offline classroom. these findings are consistent with those of muthuprasad et al. (2021) from the same covid-19 phase, who found that the majority of respondents prefer recorded lessons and live sessions that can be recorded since it allows them more flexibility in learning. when the respondents were questioned about the advantages of learning toeic online, this finding was relevant to the interview outcomes. when i am unable to attend a toeic lesson, i can download the recordings. i think it's a good approach for me to keep track of the lessons. (s2) i am unable to record the entire lecture when i am at school. however, i am allowed to record the lectures and watch the videos if i do not understand some grammar issues. (s4) with 45 percent and 43.7 percent, respectively, the number of participants who claimed a neutral attitude toward doing online assignments was slightly higher than the number of participants who agreed on this topic. meanwhile, only 6 (2.7%) of participants denied finishing assignments more quickly. finally, a large majority of respondents believed that toeic online programs should be used during the covid-19 crisis. because toeic is one of the graduation requirements, students should enroll in this course even if they are learning online. they said they appreciated using toeic online learning during the present period, and they shared the following information. because i am now a senior, i need a toeic certificate in order to fulfill graduation requirements. i believe that students, particularly fourth-year students, should take advantage of online education. (s1) one of the most important subjects at university is english. i enjoy learning toeic at school because it allows me to engage with my teacher. however, because of the covid19 epidemic, i am now unable to participate in any offline classes. (s5) 4.1.2 disadvantages of toeic online learning in the table below, descriptive data from the next four questionnaire items about the drawbacks of toeic online learning were coded and analyzed. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 121 table 4.2 students’ perceptions about the disadvantages of toeic online learning variables 1 2 3 4 5 mean reduce teachers-students interaction 0 (0%) 3 (5.5%) 13 (23.6%) 35 (63.6%) 4 (7.3%) 3.727 lack online learning strategies 0 (0%) 7 (12.7%) 30 (54.5%) 15 (27.3%) 3 (5.5%) 3.255 get accustomed to conventional learning method 0 (0%) 7 (12.7%) 36 (65.5%) 10 (18.2%) 2 (3.6%) 3.127 lack sufficient digital infrastructure devices (electronic devices,…) 1 (1.8%) 2 (3.6%) 11 (20.0%) 35 (63.6%) 6 (10.9%) 3.782 as shown in table 4.2, 70.9 percent of respondents (representing 39 people) agreed or strongly agreed with the idea of limiting teacher-student interaction. only three of them (5.5 percent) were dissatisfied with the online classroom's communication restrictions. the lack of nonverbal communication such as body language, facial expression, and eye contact hampers students' interest. this finding supports evidence from the research of barticulon et al. (2021) and wut (2021) within the same context during the covid19 period, poor communication or lack of clear directions from educators distract students from their learning process. online learning, according to interviewees, increases their passiveness since teachers are unable to directly observe their actions. i usually turn off the camera when participating in online classes because my room is untidy. i do not want to catch others' attention. moreover, i can lay the blame on technical problems so that teachers cannot read my face, mood, and actions. (s5) in my opinion, the virtual classroom has no facial expressions and body gestures as well, which significantly decreases its vividness... it may lessen students' motivation and activeness... (s3) in addition, the proportion of respondents' lack of experiences of online learning nearly tripled the percentage of disagreements on this issue with 33.8% and 12.7%, respectively. the learning process previously was conducted in schools with a face-to-face system, but during the covid19 pandemic, the learning process was carried out from home through the online system by utilizing existing media. because online learning is still a new concept, shifting entirely to online learning challenges students in educational institutions in vietnam. consequently, this digital transformation of teaching methods brought with it a number of practical issues as well as behavioral changes, which had a close correlation with the findings in ribeiro (2020). i have a few experiences with toeic online learning. when suddenly changed from the traditional learning method to a new learning method, i was quite confused. i attended the classes; however, i could not keep up with my classmates. (s2) i cannot apply my previous learning strategies like peer learning. to be honest, following teachers' instructions is uneasy, and it is difficult to ask my friends for help at the same time as i did. (s5) https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang, t. d., phan, t. l., & le, h. p. vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 122 twelve students (accounting for 21.8%) were familiar with traditional learning methods, while more than half of them (12.7%) stated no difference between traditional learning methods and online learning methods. it is worth noting that nearly two-thirds of respondents (36 students) maintained a neutral attitude to this issue. as wut (2021) mentioned, the lack of teamwork with their peer students is one of the major challenges in online courses. in a conventional classroom setting, learners can directly discuss with their professors and peers to seek possible answers to their queries or feasible solutions to various issues or hurdles to their learning. however, it is difficult to achieve in online courses. obviously, conventional classroom settings provide a sense of pleasure with their peers, whereas contemporary online learning platforms establish a less communicative environment. i consider that there are no more differences between online learning and traditional learning. .... however, my friends usually complain about the inconvenience of interaction and cooperation with classmates during lessons. (s1) i was familiar with the traditional classroom environment. hence, when joining the new online course, i liked a fish out of water. it took time to get used to this learning method… i see that teamwork skills in toeic traditional classrooms are more effective than in online ones. (s4) finally, the lack of proper electronic gadgets was the most accepted difficulty of toeic online learning during the covid 19 outbreak, accounting for 74.5% (including 41 respondents). students' living standards are inextricably linked to the quality of high-tech equipment they own, resulting in a negative online learning experience. this finding is consistent with that of appanna (2008) about the infrastructure differences among learners, which can be a strain on students’ budgets. when asked, the interviewees claimed that their technological devices made it difficult for them to focus on the teacher's presentation. due to financial problems, i cannot own a laptop, and it is difficult for me to observe or read the passage through my mobile screen. this really made me annoyed, and i could not answer the questions correctly. (s3) my laptop configuration is an out-of-date mode, so it often performs poorly and lags whenever i access the online classroom. (s2) 4.2. students’ perceptions towards toeic online testing 4.2.1. advantages of toeic online testing students’ perceptions on the advantages of toeic online testing were tabulated and presented in table 4.5; then the data were interpreted as follows. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 123 table 4.3. students’ perceptions about the advantages of toeic online testing variables 1 2 3 4 5 mean lessen the anxiety 1 (1.8%) 3 (5.5%) 16 (29.1%) 25 (45.5%) 10 (18.2%) 3.727 provide immediate results 1 (1.8%) 2 (3.6%) 5 (9.1%) 36 (65.5%) 11 (20%) 3.982 be feasible with toeic tests 1 (1.8%) 3 (5.5%) 21 (38.2%) 26 (47.3%) 4 (7.3%) 3.527 be equivalent to the test format 0 (0%) 1 (1.8%) 16 (29.1%) 33 (60%) 5 (9.1%) 3.764 first, the majority of students (63.7%) felt that taking online examinations reduces their anxiety as compared to paper-based tests. in a different perspective, according to shraim (2019), threequarters of participants disagreed that online exams reduce stress and anxiety. in this study, students may get used to the new approach of learning, which helps them be more confident in their examinations. the students made the following assertions: when i take the exams at school, i feel nervous as i have to sit still and listen to the teacher's instructions. now i can be at ease taking the test at home, in my room, or anywhere else i like. (s1) i feel reassured because any teachers or proctors do not look at me. (s2) second, unlike paper-based assessments, students were able to obtain their test results quickly since the testing system provided immediate results. this aligns with previous studies that online examinations are advantageous in giving immediate feedback, which benefits students in several aspects (heinrich et al., 2009; dreher et al., 2011; hodgson & pang, 2012). prior to the epidemic, teachers needed time to mark students' exam papers or had to wait for the results if they took the papers to a testing center where a machine or gadgets marked them. at present, students could directly accomplish the test online and know their scores on the spot. it’s really convenient as i could see my test score immediately. in case i fail and need to register for a new course, it would be much faster for me to plan for it. (s4) waiting for the test scores is somewhat an irritable experience. now i can know my result shortly. (s1) following that, 54.6 percent of students agreed that this type of online testing was appropriate for the toeic test. only four students out of 55 (7.3%) believed this was inappropriate for the exam. however, in his study, shraim (2019) concluded that participants perceived online exams as invalid, in that they were not appropriate for many subjects (77% of participants) and not well-suited for assessing the higher-order thinking skills (81% of participants). as his study was carried out before the pandemic, the use of online learning was not as popular at the present time. during the pandemic, this studying and assessment method was deemed the most practical, and most institutes and universities adopted it. i believe this is the only way that my university can apply to continue teaching and learning. this is suitable for all the subjects in this covid-19 outbreak, including toeic courses. (s2) https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang, t. d., phan, t. l., & le, h. p. vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 124 yes, this is absolutely okay for this time, especially since we are a young generation and nowadays we are using the internet and computers every day. so online testing is suitable for our learning and testing. (s3) last but not least, the equivalent test format was considered superior to the toeic online testing since students were familiar with the question types that they had learned. more than 69% of the students shared this point. meanwhile, only one student had different thinking. the students gave additional ideas. i feel confident as i have done various actual tests before. so i believe i can get a high score on this test, too. (s3) because i have done this type of test so far, i am always ready with online exams. i intend to register and take the toeic test at ets later on. (s5) 4.2.2. disadvantages of toeic online testing following the students' opinions on the advantages of toeic online learning, the disadvantages were enumerated and clarified. table 4.4. students’ perceptions about the disadvantages of toeic online testing variables 1 2 3 4 5 mean be hard to manipulate 0 (0%) 5 (9.1%) 22 (40%) 25 (45.5%) 3 (5.5%) 3.473 cheat in the exam 0 (0%) 2 (3.6%) 10 (18.2%) 28 (50.9%) 15 (27.3%) 4.018 struggle with a poor internet connection 0 (0%) 1 (1.8%) 12 (21.8%) 34 (61.8%) 8 (14.5%) 3.891 the first and foremost drawback of toeic online is that it is considerably more difficult to manipulate than paper-based testing, which prevents pupils from achieving high marks. more than half of the students agreed, while 40% were undecided, and only 9.1% disagreed. the students claimed that utilizing the computer hampered their testing since it required them to focus on the screen for too long. thus, adaptive testing was viewed as problematic, according to shraim (2019). it is terribly inconvenient, confusing, and annoying for me to drag and click the mouse forever and ever to answer only one question. it is such bad stuff. i had to look at the screen for so long, which is another problem for my eye. (s2) before, when the test was still paper-and-pencil, it was easier for me to read and answer the questions because it was on the same page, or sometimes two pages. now, the text may be on the page, but the questions are deep below, which i find it hard to drag upward to reread the text. (s5) cheating is the next issue that students are concerned about, with 78.2 percent of students agreeing that cheating is a significant matter. only 3.6 percent (2 students) believed there was no cheating at all, while 18.2 percent held a neutral opinion. in his study, shraim (2019) claimed that 79% of participants disagreed that online exams are fairer than paper-based ones. besides, acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 125 preventing cheating during online exams can be difficult, given the availability of technologies such as bluetooth, wireless networking, mobile phones, and wearable technology. this is not fair. some students can cheat during online exams as they may ask their friends or search the answers on the internet. (s3) perhaps it is somehow unreliable because students can chat with their close friends and share the answers. i hope they won’t share the answers as a group or class. (s4) the constraint of internet connection is the last big deal with most of the students, with over 76 percent citing it as one of their disadvantages. only one student thought that internet access was not an issue for him/her, and 21.8 percent of them remained neutral. it is evident that not all students live in hcmc, as they may return home during or before the government's social distancing decisions no.15 and 16. as a result, their internet connection is dependent on their location, which can cause problems at times. i am now at home, quite a remote area from the city. sometimes the internet connection is not stable, which is annoying and inconvenient for me when having online classes, especially sitting exams. i felt nervous because it could be disruptive for more than 2-3 minutes; as a result, i could not accomplish my exam in time, or else i could be out of the exam if the connection was so low. (s2) i registered a 3g internet connection, but the speed was unstable. it was really bad for my exam. (s4) even students in big cities may get into this trouble. internet connection really matters if you do not register a high-quality internet connection with fast speed. in my case, the test was sometimes disruptive; luckily, i had enough time to finish the exam. (s5) conclusion in this study, students' perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of toeic online learning and testing at the university under scrutiny were thoroughly looked into. the findings revealed that toeic online learning was appropriate for covid 19's current scenario since it provided students with a convenient learning environment, access to materials, and class recordings for reference. on the other hand, students noticed a few drawbacks in toeic online learning, which included a lack of appeal for students to study on a screen and a reduction in teacher-student connection. furthermore, most students cited insufficient infrastructure as a hindrance to successful learning, with the majority claiming that their technological devices hampered them. moreover, students' opinions on the implementation of toeic online testing were then highlighted based on the data gathered. students claimed that online examinations were acceptable for toeic testing and that they were familiar with the test format, which helped them feel more confident during the exams. another benefit of online testing noted by students was the ability to receive instant results. in a different manner, students asserted some troubles of online testing, including complicated manipulation, cheating, and unstable internet connection. this study was narrow to a small number of participants, which is a limitation of generalizability. the study represents a starting point for future toeic online course research in the event of an outbreak, with more students participating. besides, future studies may look at different techniques or strategies to raise students' motivation to learn and get them involved https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang, t. d., phan, t. l., & le, h. p. vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 126 in more activities and class interaction. furthermore, it is suggested that applications should be used to prevent or restrict cheating and plagiarism during exams so that students could find online testing trustworthy and satisfying. references appana, s. (2008). a review of benefits and limitations of online learning in the context of the student, the instructor and the tenured faculty. international journal on e-learning, 7(1), 5-22. waynesville, nc usa: association for the advancement of computing in education (aace). retrieved from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/22909. barrot, j.s., llenares, i.i. & del rosario, l.s. (2021). students’ online learning challenges during the pandemic and how they cope with them: the case of the philippines. educ inf technol (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-021-10589-x baticulon, r. e., alberto, n. r., baron, m. b., mabulay, r. e., rizada, l. g., sy, j. j., tiu, c. j., clarion, c. a. & reyes, j. c. (2021). barriers to online learning in the time of covid-19: a national survey of medical students in the philippines. medrxiv. retrieved from https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.16.20155747v2.full.pdf bartley, s. j., & golek, j. h. (2004). evaluating the cost-effectiveness of online and face-toface instruction. educational technology and society, 7(4), 167-175 bhatti, m. s., asif iqbal, shaista noreen, rafia mukhtar, & zahida javed. (2021). investigating the role of ict for teaching english at elementary level. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 87-93. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/35 clark, l. a., & watson, d. (1995). constructing validity: basic issues in objective scale development. psychological assessment, 7, 309-319 creswell, j.w., plano clark, v.l. (2011). designing and conducting mixed methods research. 2nd edition, sage publications, los angeles. donald, e. p., hae-jin, k., vincent, z. w. (2008). the redesigned toeic® (listening and reading) test: relations to test-taker perceptions of proficiency in english. retrieved from https://origin-www.ets.org/media/research/pdf/rr-08-56.pdf dreher, c., reiners, t., & dreher, h. (2011). investigating factors affecting the uptake of automated assessment technology. journal of information technology education,10, 161-181. hassan, h. & atan, h. (2012). student engagement in online learning: learners attitude toward e-mentoring. procedia social and behavioral sciences, 67. 464–475. 10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.11.351. retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257718366_student_engagement_in_online_ learning_learners_attitude_toward_e-mentoring heinrich, e., milne, j., & moore, m. (2009). an investigation into e-tool use for formative assignment assessment--status and recommendations. educational technology & society, 12(4), 176–192. hodgson, p., & pang, m. y. c. (2012). effective formative e-assessment of student learning: a study on a statistics course. assessment & evaluation in higher education, 37(2), 215– 225. https://www.learntechlib.org/p/22909 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.16.20155747v2.full.pdf https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/35 https://origin-www.ets.org/media/research/pdf/rr-08-56.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257718366_student_engagement_in_online_learning_learners_attitude_toward_e-mentoring https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257718366_student_engagement_in_online_learning_learners_attitude_toward_e-mentoring acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 127 ho, b. n (2015). shaping efl high school students' perceptions of learner autonomy: the roles of parental support. ho chi minh city: university of social sciences and humanities (national university of ho chi minh city) im g-h, cheng l. (2019). the test of english for international communication (toeic®). retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0265532219828252 karatza, m., tzikopoulos, a. & phillips, n. (2007). lifelong learning and online education: a new framework for the competence of tomorrow’s educators. in inoue, y. (ed.). online education for lifelong learning. uk: information science publishing. pp 292314. khan, m.a.; vivek; nabi, m.k.; khojah, m.; tahir, m. (2021). students’ perception towards e-learning during covid-19 pandemic in india: an empirical study. sustainability 2021, 13, 57. https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ su13010057 long, h. b. (2004). e-learning an introduction. in piskurich, g. m. (ed). getting the most from online learning. us: pfeiffer. mahyoob, m. (2020). challenges of e-learning during the covid-19 pandemic experienced by efl learners. arab world english journal, 11 (4) 351-362. meccawy, z. (2021). saudi efl students' perceptions of online english achievement exams in the era of covid-19. international journal of linguistics, literature & translation, 4(5), 118–125. https://doi.org/10.32996/ijllt.2021.4.5.11 muthuprasad, t., aiswarya, s., aditya, k.s., girish jha. k. (2021) students’ perception and preference for online education in india during covid -19 pandemic. retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s2590291120300905 nguyen, h. n. (2021). a case study of home-based teaching and learning practice at ton duc thang university. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 1-11. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/24 nguyen, t. h. n. (2021). developing bottom-up listening skills in a google classroom-based efl module. asiacall online journal, 12(3), 47-57. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/45 ribeiro, r. (2020). how university faculty embraced the remote learning shift. retrieved from https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2020/04/how-university-faculty-embracedremote-learning-shift sarrayrih, m. a. & ilyas, m. (2013). challenges of online exam, performances and problems for online university exam. retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/citations;jsessionid=8807239ce6dde756b62428c 5de9d9cbe?doi=10.1.1.698.304 shraim, k. (2019). online examination practices in higher education institutions: learners’ perspectives. turkish online journal of distance education. 185-196. 10.17718/tojde.640588. thurmond, v. (2003, march). examination of interaction variables as predictors of students' satisfaction and willingness to enroll in future web-based courses while controlling for student characteristics. in c. crawford, d.a. willis, r. carlsen, i. gibson, k. mcferrin, jerry price, et al. (eds.), proceedings of society for information technology and teacher https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s2590291120300905 https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/45 https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2020/04/how-university-faculty-embraced-remote-learning-shift https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2020/04/how-university-faculty-embraced-remote-learning-shift http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/citations;jsessionid=8807239ce6dde756b62428c5de9d9cbe?doi=10.1.1.698.304 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/citations;jsessionid=8807239ce6dde756b62428c5de9d9cbe?doi=10.1.1.698.304 https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang, t. d., phan, t. l., & le, h. p. vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 128 education international conference 2003 (pp. 528-531), albuquerque, nm. chesapeake, va: association for the advancement of computing in education unesco. school closures caused by coronavirus (covid-19): unesco; 2020 [27 april 2020]. available from: https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse. https://en.unesco.org/news/one-year-covid-19-education-disruption-where-do-we-stand waight, c. l., willging, p., & wentling, t. (2004). recurrent themes in e-learning: a narrative analysis of major e-learning report. the quarterly review of distance education, 5(3), 195-203. wut, t. ming, & xu, j. (2021). person-to-person interactions in online classroom settings under the impact of covid-19: a social presence theory perspective. asia pacific education review, (22) 371–383. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-02109673-1 biodata ms. hoang thi doan is an ma student at the university of social sciences and humanities. she has worked as an english teacher at secondary and high schools, as well as language centers in ho chi minh city for almost 7 years. her interests are linguistics and english teaching methodologies. ms. phan thuy linh is an ma student at the university of social sciences and humanities. she has been working as an english teacher since 2015. she currently works as a teacher at seameo retrac and center for foreign studies in nong lam university. she takes responsibility for teaching english for students in the kiddy program and for non-english major students. her research interests include english for young learners, ict in education. ms. le hong phuong is an ma student at the university of social sciences and humanities. she has also been working as an english teacher at nguyen thi minh khai secondary school. she has taught english to 7-grade and 8-grade students for 3 years. her interests are ict in education and blended learning. https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse https://en.unesco.org/news/one-year-covid-19-education-disruption-where-do-we-stand https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-021-09673-1 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-021-09673-1 citation asiacall online journal received: 11/06/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 11/07/2021 vol. 12, no. 4, 2021 accepted: 12/07/2021 pp. 46-65 online: 12/07/2021 citation | nguyen, c. h., nguyen, h. t., & le, t. q. (2021). boosting english majors’ ability in pronouncing stressed vowels via blue canoe, a mobile-based application: a focus on vietnamese efl learners. asiacall online journal, 12(4), 46-65. boosting english majors’ ability in pronouncing stressed vowels via blue canoe, a mobile-based application: a focus on vietnamese efl learners cuong huy nguyen 1*, ha thi nguyen1, thao quang le1 1faculty of foreign languages, van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam *correspondence: nguyen huy cuong, van lang university, vietnam. e-mail: cuong.nh@vlu.edu.vn abstract there is no doubt that teaching and learning english pronunciation is one of the major concerns facing efl/esl educators and experts. specifically, stressed vowel practice instruction has been considered a massive challenge among vietnamese teachers because these two languages possess certain distinctive features in phonetics. this new digital age indicates that mobilebased applications have actively promoted efl/esl learners’ sound production. thus, this paper pinpointed how digital apps affected learning vowels among english learners and discussed their attitudes towards the apps with the help of 32 first-year students majoring in english at van lang university, ho chi minh city. a pre-test and post-test were used to see if there was a significant distinction in the participants’ ability to acquire vowel sounds. in addition, a five-point likert scale questionnaire was employed to test how content they were when they used the app. the results show that with mean scores of 6.88 and 11.177 in the pretest and post-test, respectively, students in the experimental group improved than their counterparts in the other group (m=6.0 in the pre-test and 8.47 in the post-test). hence, an explanation for the better performance in the intervened group is that the participants practiced pronouncing vowels with the application blue canoe during the course. in addition, these participants also had a favorable attitude towards the mobile-based application in their phonetics class, with a mean score of 3.96 on the questionnaire. keywords: mobile game-based apps/ activities, english pronunciation/ vowel sounds, oral fluency. 1. introduction as english has been widely used as a means of international communication, the question of how to produce its sounds intelligibly has generated deep concerns among esl/efl learners and educators (nguyen & nguyen, 2007; vang, 2003). dhillon (2016) and jones (2018) stated that pronunciation is the principal element of successful oral communication. if they do not acquire good and clear pronunciation, even if they might use proper grammar and vocabulary, their speech still becomes unintelligible (celce-murcia, brinton, & goodwin, 2010). do (2021) and van et al. (2021) also states that pronuncitation is seen as one of the most crucial features in the area of learning english. mailto:cuong.nh@vlu.edu.vn acojissn 1936-9859 c. h. nguyen, h. t. nguyen, t. q. le vol. 12; no. 04; 2021 47 however, several studies have shown that pronunciation teaching in efl classrooms is often traditional, unplanned, and is mainly about on-spot error correction. for example, hismanoglu and hismanoglu's (2010) research findings indicate that most efl teachers prefer using reading aloud, dictionaries, and dialogues in their phonetics class. also, foote et al. (2016) also demonstrate that when teaching pronunciation, most efl teachers tend to apply some techniques that are mainly related to giving corrective feedback on their students' errors instead of incorporating teaching episodes into their lesson plans. similarly, as wahid and sulong (2013) noted, efl teachers at a university in malaysia focus too much on correcting their students’ pronunciation errors rather than giving explicit pronunciation instructions. consequently, the students are quickly bored with and discouraged from learning and practicing english pronunciation. one of the most apparent reasons why learning english pronunciation is a huge challenge for most students is related to vowel sounds. a study conducted by pham and mcleod (2016) demonstrates that learners of english encounter several vowel-related difficulties when they study english pronunciation because its vowel system seems to be more complex than that in their mother tongue. additionally, regardless of their ability to distinguish vowels and consonants in minimal pairs, students still find it challenging to pronounce vowel sounds in multi-syllabic words (al-rubaat & alshammari, 2019; heggie & wade-woolley, 2017). alongside the speedy development of technology, using computerized applications in teaching pronunciation is a must since they are such a powerful tool to better english learners’ pronunciation and boost their interest in learning the language (mccauley, nguyen, & mcdonald, 2016). similarly, according to godwin-jones (2014), digital games or mobile-based games have great potential in teaching and learning foreign languages thanks to cellphones a major technological advancement. candilas (2021), tran and nguyen (2021) confirms that with technology support, online synchronous learning, a digital teaching platform, is seen as the best use for english learning and can be an indispensable tool in education in the time of the pandemic. in vietnam, despite their capability of enhancing english learners' pronunciation, using mobile games in class has not gained much attention from efl/esl teachers. particularly, teachers are still more likely to use traditional activities such as transcription practice and minimal pair drills, which are not easy for many l2 adult learners to improve their pronunciation (hismanoglu & hismanoglu, 2010). besides, little research on integrating technology in english pronunciation instruction has been conducted (mccauley et al., 2016). according to nguyen (2021), technology is the most effective tool to help the students acquire vocabulary and other aspects of learning a foreign language. hence, the current study is carried out with two primary objectives: (1) to investigate if blue canoe can assist efl students at the faculty of foreign languages in van lang university in improving their vowel production of english multi-syllabic words and (2) to ascertain their attitudes towards such application. acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 48 for the purposes set out above, the study addresses the following research questions: 1. what are the effects of using blue canoe on learning stressed vowels among first-year english majors? 2. do students have positive attitudes towards using mobile apps on learning vowels? the research has significantly contributed to efl/esl teaching and learning in vietnam’s context. indeed, it has pointed out how digital games affect english majors' vowel sound production and their positive feedback on applying computerized applications in pronunciation class. thus, the findings have supported using handy technological devices to foster learning outcomes in english language teaching. these two inputs from the study have also enabled teachers of english to have a clear point of choosing appropriate games and activities that can enhance their students' vowel pronunciation and minimize their negative feelings in the age of technological advancement. 2. literature review what are vowel sounds? according to celce-murcia et al. (2010), there are 14 vowel sounds in american english, including simple phonemes with a glide movement (/iy/, /ey/, /ow/, /uw/) and without it (/ɪ/, /ε/, /æ/, /ɑ/, /ͻ/, /ʊ/ and /ʌ/) and three diphthongs (complex vowels) (/ay/, /aw/ and /ͻy/) (p. 114125). their classification depends on the height of the body of the tongue (high, mid, and low); how forward or backward the tongue is in the oral cavity (front, central, or back); the degree of muscular tension (tense or lax); and the position of the lips (rounded or unrounded) (lane, 2010, pp. 163-164). roach (2009) says that the main distinction between vowel sounds and consonant sounds is that vowels do not obstruct the airflow when it passes from the larynx to the lips (p.10). he also reports that phonetically, such sounds are always found at the center of a syllable. intelligibility and vowel quality in stressed syllables zielinski (2006) defines intelligibility as how well a speech is understood by listeners or how much a listener can recognize words, phrases. it should also focus on english pronunciation teaching and learning (lane, 2010, p. 2). that means as english has become a globally spoken language, efl teachers need to attempt to help their learners to achieve mutual intelligibility instead of forcing them to achieve native-like pronunciation (jenkins, 2002). if pronunciation teaching aims to obtain intelligibility, identifying which speech feature is the leading contributor to the overall intelligibility is a must. according to lesner, sandridge, and kricos (1987), incorrect vowel production has a negative effect on speakers’ intelligibility. in other words, in oral communication, a speech is likely to be misinterpreted if the speakers do not produce accurate vowel sounds. several studies then support this viewpoint. research by rogers and dalby (2005) shows a positive correlation between vowel production accuracy of mandarin speakers of english and their overall intelligibility. similarly, bent, bradlow, and smith (2007) investigated the relationship between the intelligibility of chinese speakers of acojissn 1936-9859 c. h. nguyen, h. t. nguyen, t. q. le vol. 12; no. 04; 2021 49 english and accurate segment production in different word positions. native english speakers are then asked to listen to the participants and write these sentences down. the findings demonstrate that vowel sounds contributed more information to overall auditory speech intelligibility than their counterpart. another aspect of intelligible pronunciation is stress placement. valcke and pavón (2015) noted that this element is crucial to interpreting messages in statements. they believe that native english speakers generally attach great importance to the quality of the vowel in a stressed syllable than other features that constitute stress when they listen to non-native english speakers. this could be explained that correct stressed syllables help them identify a word much more easily. in other words, misplaced stress leads to intelligibility loss and vowel quality change (richards, 2016) pronunciation teaching approaches one of the most popular approaches used in teaching l2 pronunciation and is still prior is the audio-lingual approach. the primary purpose of this approach is to help adult students to memorize grammatical sentence patterns by drilling (larsen-freeman, 2000). with the approach, teachers emphasize dialogues, minimal pair drills, and morphemes (celce-murcia, brinton, & goodwin, 1991). in fact, the more learners repeat the whole or part of a dialogue in l1, the more the learners can emphasize the importance of proper pronunciation, intonation, stress, etc. however, according to odisho (2007), teaching l2 pronunciation through memorization in the form of 'repeat-after-me activities appears more effective for children than for adults. in his book, odisho (2014) believes that since the human brain tends to control all senses to gather more information to make decisions, it does not rely on one sensory source. efl teachers generally fail to teach adult learners english pronunciation since pronunciation is also conveyed via the visual sensory modality and kinesthetic sensory modality. they apply the traditional pronunciation approach relying heavily on the auditory sensory modality (model, hear and pronounce) solely. consequently, a new pronunciation teaching approach, the multisensory, multicognitive approach (mma), is proposed. odisho (2007) notes that teaching l2 pronunciation with a multisensory approach means efl learners are required not only to hear and make sounds but also to see and feel them in the context of natural speech. similarly, in l2 classes, the metacognitive approach gives students more encouragement to do more than one simple task. for instance, they have to listen to the sounds carefully and store them in shortterm memory. after that, the l2 learners need to compare those sounds with ones already part of their psycholinguistic inventory using all cognitive processes. game-based learning according to qian and clark (2016), game-based learning refers to an environment in which game activities help students acquire better knowledge and skill acquisition. these games could be divided into two different kinds, including entertaining games and educational games. although they are both employed in the learning environment, their purposes are slightly acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 50 different. the first is mainly designed for fun, while the latter is used for educational purposes (connolly et al., 2012). however, choosing appropriate games in language learning is a consideration for many english teachers. shanahan, hermans, and haytko (2006) stated that effective-in-class games must have five fundamental characteristics. first, the games must be related to the learning outcomes. their rules also are easy to understand by players, but they must less important than the learning. such games then provide more motivation for the students to perform better. finally, these students can give feedback on the games to their teachers. corno and snow (1986) also believe that educators can achieve educational purposes successfully if they can satisfy the needs of students with different learning styles (visual, auditory, and kinesthetic styles). in that case, games are the optimum choice because they can offer teachers and educators countless opportunities to implement that task. benefits of games in language learning educational games are regarded as one of the most effective tools for teachers and students because they can support traditional teaching methods (lujan & dicarlo, 2006). for teachers, games can help them teach their students complex content (cardona et al., 2007) and allow them to have discussions with their peers about the target concepts (odenweller, hsu, & dicarlo, 1998). for students, games add more enjoyment to their learning environment (wang, 2010). zhu (2012) adds that for learners of foreign languages, games, especially language games, will become their preference if those games are used effectively in classrooms. therefore, the students can enjoy learning the target language with high motivation (reese & wells, 2007) while their anxiety is lowered. benefits of mobile devices in pronunciation learning the widespread use of mobile phones to develop language skills in education is not a new concept. in fact, integrating these devices has had several considerable merits for language learners (murphy, 2011). one of these advantages is to improve students’ foreign language pronunciation. wilson (2008) discovers that by utilizing interactive english pronunciation apps, efl students are likely to enhance their pronunciation skills because they offer numerous practical exercises and native speakers’ instant feedback to users (agusalim, assidiqi, & muhammad, 2014). similar findings found in research by xiao and luo (2017) indicate that students who learned phonetics with the liulishu app outperformed those who did not. the second merit of using mobile devices for learning is that they are more accessible and userfriendly than desktop computers (stockwell, 2007). that means students do not need to stay in any set location but still get access to learning materials without attending a face-to-face class. another plus point of this practice is that teachers can facilitate their students’ studies with fun mobile games in an interactive and fascinating environment by using portable devices such as smartphones or tablets. thus, not only do the students become autonomous (ertmer, 2005), but their learning motivation also increases (ebrahimzadeh & alavi, 2016). acojissn 1936-9859 c. h. nguyen, h. t. nguyen, t. q. le vol. 12; no. 04; 2021 51 benefits of mobile games in pronunciation according to gee (2007) and prensky (2006), playing mobile games has become extremely popular recently and offered promising benefits when used in language classrooms. apart from the benefits mentioned above of games in l2 learning, mobile games will assist students in improving their language acquisition (chiu, kao, & reynolds, 2012). suppose efl learners are engaged in mobile game-based activities. in that case, they are likely to gradually level up their language proficiency, such as writing development (allen, crossley, snow, & mcnamara, 2012) and better oral proficiency (lan, 2014). moreover, a study conducted by young and wang (2014) demonstrates a remarkable improvement in students' pronunciation performance after they use mobile games in their efl class. this conclusion is strengthened by the research findings of berry (2021). in his study, a video game called spaceteam esl was used as the main treatment for korean speakers of english with the ages of 18 and 22 in 3 experimental groups (eg). after a 15-week semester, he found out those students improved more significantly than those who utilized paper-based pronunciation exercises. related studies the use of games in language teaching and learning, especially in teaching pronunciation, has received considerable attention in recent years. nguyen (2015) gets the most out of bingo, noughts, and crosses and other games to enhance second-year non-english major students' pronunciation at ha noi university. her study findings show that students at different english levels can make huge progress in their pronunciation after receiving the treatment. the results also reveal that her students have a positive attitude towards the game usage in their pronunciation class. another study conducted by nguyen (2016) has the same results in her english class at khanh hoa university. in her study, minimal pairs are chosen as a key solution to her freshmen's pronunciation problem. after six-week treatment, not only do the students make enormous improvements, but they also take a favorable attitude to learning pronunciation. a similar result is found in suhaili’s and kurniawan’s research (2019) when they employ bingo games in their classroom setting to improve their students' pronunciation. after reviewing the studies, the researchers conclude that while pronunciation games can help students improve their segmental features such as vowel and consonant production and boost their motivation to learn the subject, such games focus too much on monosyllabic words. hence, the researchers wonder if any game might help them enhance their vowel sound production in multi-syllabic words. 3. methods pedagogical setting & participants the study was carried out with the help of 32 englishmajored freshmen at van lang university. they were randomly chosen and belonged to two different phonetics classes scheduled by the faculty of foreign languages. therefore, one class was the control group, acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 52 and the other was the experimental group in this study. design of the study the current paper was conducted using a mixed-method. particularly, a pre-test, a post-test, and a questionnaire were employed to investigate the effects of the apps on students’ vowel pronunciation and their attitudes towards the apps. tests to ensure the same level of difficulty, the pre-test and post-test resemble and consist of 14 multi-syllabic words, as listed in table 1. each of the words was manipulated to determine the participants’ ability to pronounce one specific vowel. these words in the tests were selected from books for teaching english to l2 adult learners such as ‘american accent training’ by cook (2017), ‘clear speech: pronunciation and listening comprehension in north american english’ by gilbert (2012), and ‘master mastering the american accent’ by mojsin (2009), and were stated to be the most commonly mispronounced words in norman’s paper (2000). additionally, these words were taught to the students during the course. the tests were administered for both groups in the class during school time. each participant was asked to read aloud the words in 1 to 2 minutes. all of the students’ performance in the test was recorded and marked manually by two experienced teachers who are experts in teaching and researching english phonetics features. table 1. list of words in the pre-test and post-test vowels words vowels words /i/ police /ɑ/ photographer /ɪ/ interesting /u/ canoeing /eɪ/ maintain /ʊ/ understood /ɛ/ vegetable /oʊ/ pronouns /æ/ titanic /aʊ/ allow /ər/ purchase /ɔɪ/ annoying /ʌ/ comfortable /aɪ/ childhood questionnaire the questionnaire applied only for the experimental group was designed based on parreno and eamoraphan (2017) and berry (2021). the reason for choosing these two sources lies in that their questions were made to figure out subjects’ perceptions of digital games in efl learning. to fit the purpose of the current study, the authors selected and modified these questions into acojissn 1936-9859 c. h. nguyen, h. t. nguyen, t. q. le vol. 12; no. 04; 2021 53 statements in the questionnaire consisting of two separated parts. in the first part, subjects’ personal information (e.g., course, class) was included. the information in this part was confidential and only served to ensure that students were in the experimental group. the second part presented six statements about students’ attitudes towards the mobile apps, and a five-point likert scale (1strongly disagree, 2disagree, 3no idea, 4agree, 5strongly agree) was used. additionally, the reliability of the questionnaire was .825, which was an acceptable rate. treatment a mobile application for pronunciation practice, namely blue canoe, served as the treatment for the current experiment. there are several reasons why this application was chosen for the research. first, it uses the proven 20-year-old brain-based methodology called color vowel system, which is based on finger’s model (1985) and has been used in several renowned international education organizations such as the peace corps, the u.s. department of state, harvard, and yale university. another reason is that the multisensory and metacognitive approach (odisho, 2007, 2014) is applied to blue canoe, which means learning vowels with the app is suitable for all different learning styles, including visual, auditory, and auditory kinesthetic styles. the free version of the mobile application was made to help activate our brain to learn sounds through images, music, and movement. more specifically, when l2 learners use the app, they are first trained to identify and memorize 14 english vowels by looking at the color vowel chart and listening to vowels which rhyme with different colors. for example, long i sound, and the phrase 'white tie' is in rhyme, while short i sound rhymes with the phrase 'silver pin.' after that, several quizzes with audios included in the app are used to teach the learners how important it is for the stressed syllable and stressed vowel quality to be in intelligible pronunciation. finally, the learners can experience a fascinating and fun game called color it out to show how intelligible their pronunciation is with native english speakers' feedback included in the game. data collection & analysis the tests and the questionnaire were delivered to the participants during school time. the procedure of the experiment lasted for five weeks (from week 3 to week 8, based on the school syllabus) and was summarised as follows: week 1: introducing the features of english pronunciation week 2: giving pre-test week 3, 4, 5, 7, 8: applying the treatment (week 6: mid-term test) week 9: giving post-test week 10: delivering the questionnaire via google forms acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 54 from week 3 to week 8 (except week 6 when students had to attend a midterm test), the intervened class learned and practiced vowel sounds with blue canoe during two-hour lessons chorally, individually, and in pairs. at the end of each lesson, the students are asked to play the game color it out in the application with their friends in about 15 minutes, either in pairs or in small groups, so as to consolidate their knowledge about the vowel sounds. however, students in the control groups were instructed through the audio-lingual method. that is to say, the participants only listened and repeated after the models provided by the teacher right from the beginning of the lesson, and then they practiced with minimal pair drills and dialogues. data collected were analyzed using spss 26.0. before administering the treatment for the experimental group, independent samples t-tests were used to figure out whether there were any differences in the pre-test and post-test results in both groups. then, after five weeks of applying the treatment for the experimental group, a paired sample t-test comparing the results of the tests was calculated for each of the groups. data from the questionnaire was also computed right after the test analysis. 4. results/findings and discussion the results from the pre-test and post-test in both groups indicated the significance of the treatment applied to the intervened class. a more detailed look at the figures for the test result analysis revealed that the students in the experimental group gained more improvement than the control group. following the authors’ earlier discussion, with the intention of examining to identify whether there were any marked discrepancies in participated students’ pronunciation, independent samples t-tests and reliability were operated. the statistics clearly signified the consistency of the pre-test in both classes. particularly, cronbach’s alpha of the pre-test was 0.702 for the control group and 0.78 for the intervened group, as shown in table 2, table 3, and table 4 below. table 2. reliability of pre-test in the control group cronbach’s alpha n of items .702 14 table 3. reliability of pre-test in intervened group cronbach’s alpha n of items .78 14 acojissn 1936-9859 c. h. nguyen, h. t. nguyen, t. q. le vol. 12; no. 04; 2021 55 students’ accurate stressed vowels before the intervention table 4. results of independent t-test between the pre-tests in the two groups variable m sd t df p vowel production control group 6.0 2.55 -.986 32 .331 experimental group 6.88 2.67 note. * the t and df were not adjusted because variances were equal. * independent samples t-test as can be seen from table 4, the mean score of the students in the control group was slightly lower than that in the experimental group, at 6.0 and 6.88, respectively. however, the result of the independent samples t-test with the p-value, p = .331 > .05, illustrated no significant difference in the ability to produce accurate stressed vowel sounds of the students in the two groups. this means that before the treatment was applied, the two groups’ vowel production was similar. therefore, the experiment fulfilled the criteria and was approved. research question 1: what are the effects of using mobile games on learning stressed vowels among first-year english majors at van lang university (vlu)? table 5. results of pre-test and post-test paired samples t-test in the control group (cg) variable m sd correlatio n mean difference t df p vowel production of cg pre-test 6.0 2.065 .510 -2.47 -4.388 16 .000 post-test 8.47 2.549 note. paired samples t-test acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 56 table 6. results of pre-test and post-test paired samples t-test in the experimental group (eg) variable m sd correlation mean difference t df p vowel production of eg pre-test 6.88 2.214 .713 -4.29 -9.337 16 .000 post-test 11.177 2.667 note. paired samples t-test tables 5 and 6 show the results of a paired samples t-test between the pre-test and the post-test in the control and experimental groups, respectively. regarding to the former, the mean score of the pre-test was 6.0 (m = 6.0, sd = 2.065) while that of the post-test was slightly higher, at 8.47 (m = 8.47, sd = 2.549). the mean difference between the tests was -2.47 and the results of the paired-samples t-test (t = -4.388) was .000 (p = .000 < .05). these statistics illustrate that the distinction in the tests of the control group was statistically significant. hence, it can be concluded that the participants gained improvement during the course without the treatment. for the control group, the mean difference between the mean score of the pre-test (m = 6.88) and that of the post-test (m = 11.177) was -4.29. in addition, the paired samples t-test had a pvalue of .000 (p = .000 < .05). thus, there was a statistically significant difference in the test scores. the findings are consistent with those in wilson’s study (2008), in which students made great progress in their english consonant and vowel pronunciation after they used mobile applications. the outstanding achievement in the student's score in the present study can be explained by the fact that the mobile application used includes practical activities and games and immediate feedback to users, as well as by the fact that it boosted student's learning ability with the combination of different senses such as hearing, feeling, and sight. with the application of the multisensory and multicognitive approach mentioned earlier, the pronunciation learning process of the experimental group took place in different stages, from listening to the vowels, storing them, comparing them with the ones in their psycholinguistic inventory to articulating the desired sounds. acojissn 1936-9859 c. h. nguyen, h. t. nguyen, t. q. le vol. 12; no. 04; 2021 57 table 7. results of independent t-test between the post-tests in the two groups variable m sd correlation t df p vowel production post-test (eg) 11.177 2.214 2.706 3.684 32 .001 post-test (cg) 8.47 2.065 note. independent samples t-test another independent samples t-test was made between the data collected from the post-test in both groups to make the point clearer. in table 7, statistics from t-test analysis (t = 3.684, p = .001 < .05) reveal a statistically significant divergence in the post-test scores between these two groups. also, the mean difference of the group using blue canoe appeared higher than that of the other group. these figures indicate that using mobile pronunciation applications had a positive effect on participants’ vowel pronunciation. the result of this study supports xiao and luo (2017), who found that when students made use of mobile apps, they outperformed those who studied in a traditional phonetics class where students are taught with the audio-lingual approach in order to memorize patterns by drilling. however, such an approach seems to be more effective with children than adult learners (odisho, 2007, 2014). therefore, students in the experimental group experience the new approach in which they can control many senses to get information and produce the target sounds. this explains why there is a remarkable difference in the mean score of the post-test in the two groups, which means the treatment group with the use of the mobile application performs better than the control group learning with the traditional approach. accordingly, students would improve their stressed vowel production more considerably if they learned pronunciation with a mobile application like blue canoe. research question 2: do students have positive attitudes towards using mobile games on learning vowels? a survey was delivered to intervened samples right after the post-test to examine students' viewpoints on mobile apps in learning phonetics. data from the questionnaire were collected and analyzed via spss program 26.0. the reliability stood at 0.825, which was highly accepted (table 8). statistics from this survey (table 9) indicate that most students had positive attitudes towards blue canoe, with a mean score of 3.956. remarkably, most of the students strongly agreed that they would continue to use it in class (m=4.467), followed by the idea that they could hear the vowel sounds more clearly (m=4.267). although they were generally on the side of that digital application use in class, not many students are for the points that the app could assist them in pronouncing words or getting feedback easily with the lowest mean scores of 3.6 and 3.667, respectively. regarding the two statements investigating whether they felt confident or were interested in manipulating the digital apps, the participants tended to reach agreement acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 58 on level (m= 3.8 and 3.93, correspondingly). overall, this finding is similar to the one by nguyen (2015) and by ghounane (2019), where it was found that students had a positive attitude to the use of mobile games or mobile applications. with the use of blue canoe, students felt more confident and would continue to use it in the future, which shows that the application has provided them with both satisfaction and interest. obviously, the application is easy to install on a mobile phone, which they can carry anywhere and do some practice at any time. the fact that the students wanted to keep using them with a mean score of 4.47, which is remarkably high, shows the possibility of continuous use for pronunciation improvement. one of the reasons for the interest in the application is that they could get helpful feedback from the application when they produced the sounds. instant feedback is one of the essential features of a mobile application game (agusalim et al., 2014); therefore, in this study context, the feedback students got immediately made them feel happy and keep track of their study progress. moreover, students found the sound of the app clear to hear, with the second-highest mean score of 4.27, which indicates that the sound system's quality in the app gets students involved in the activities they do with it and creates a sense of satisfaction. ultimately, they felt they pronounced the words more easily. table 8. reliability of the questionnaire cronbach’s alpha n of items .825 6 table 9. descriptive statistics on students’ attitudes towards the mobile apps n range minimum maximum mean feel confident 16 3 2 5 3.80 want to continue using the apps 16 2 3 5 4.47 can hear the sound more clearly 16 2 3 5 4.27 can pronoun words more easily 16 4 1 5 3.60 be interested in the game 16 3 2 5 3.93 can get useful feedback 16 4 1 5 3.67 valid n (listwise) 16 acojissn 1936-9859 c. h. nguyen, h. t. nguyen, t. q. le vol. 12; no. 04; 2021 59 5. conclusion in conclusion, the current research was conducted to investigate the effects of using mobile apps in enhancing english vowel pronunciation among efl majors at van lang university and their attitudes towards using the apps in phonetics class. the results showed that there was a considerable difference in the post-test results between the control group (m=8.47) and the experimental group (m=11.177). in addition, the independent samples t-tests (p= .331 and .001) and paired samples t-tests (p=0) in the pre-test and the post-test indicated that the subjects were treated fairly during the experiment. particularly, students in the intervened class could pronounce better at difficult sounds with more accurate stresses (e.g., titanic, purchase) than those in the other class. therefore, it was concluded that using a mobile app like blue canoe has enabled students to perform better in pronouncing english vowels. this is because it facilitates the combination of different senses in learning from students. for this reason, english teachers should apply the multisensory and multicognitive approach in their teaching pronunciation to reach a better possibility of success. more specifically, the implementation of a mobile application like blue canoe can be recommended in the classroom, especially in the pronunciation class. instead of using traditional games or activities that only adopt an audio-lingual approach, teachers should take the above-mentioned approach into account to get the best from students’ learning practice. for students, the use of this application is highly suggested for its easy accessibility and effectiveness. it is suitable for varied kinds of learners, for it activates different senses in a learner. besides, based on the result of the questionnaire (m=3.956), it was stated that the participants had positive attitudes towards using the mobile app in practicing vowel sounds. this finding confirms the potential for utilizing the app in a long-term period, which can even result in better performance in students’ vowel articulation. although the paper has shown some significance in the field, limitations could not be avoided. firstly, the time for the treatment only lasted for five weeks, and there were only 16 participants, so the results could not be generalized. secondly, the test was focused on american vowels; thus, the results were not applicable for other english language varieties' sounds. finally, only a questionnaire was administered in the research, which was not enough to investigate all of the students' attitudes in depth. in connection with suggestions for further research, the following issues should be taken into consideration. first, there should be a larger number of participants so that the results can be more generalized. furthermore, it is highly recommended that other features of english pronunciation should be included in future investigations. regarding tools for measuring learners’ attitudes towards the treatment, questionnaires, interviews, and observations should be used for gaining more students’ detailed opinions about manipulating mobile applications in esl/efl classrooms. acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 60 references agusalim, i. d., assidiqi, m. h., & muhammad, a. f. (2014). developing mobile application of interactive english pronunciation training to improve efl students’ pronunciation skill journal of education and practice, 5(33), 135-139. al-rubaat, a. m., & alshammari, h. a. (2019). analysis of phonetic and phonological constraints of saudi efl learners. english language teaching, 13(1), 63-72. doi:http://doi:10.5539/elt.v13n1p63 allen, l. k., crossley, s. a., snow, e. l., & mcnamara, d. (2012). l2 writing practice: game enjoyment as a key to engagement. language learning & technology, 18(2), 124-150. doi:https://doi.org/10125/44373 bent, t., bradlow, a. r., & smith, b. l. (2007). segmental errors in different word positions and their effects on intelligibility of non-native speech. in o.-s. bohn & m. j. munro (eds.), language experience in second language speech learning: in honor of james emil flege (1 ed., pp. 331–347). amsterdam: john benjamins publishing company. berry, d. m. (2021). level up your pronunciation: impact of a mobile game. mextesol journal, 41(1), 1-12. retrieved from ej1289011.pdf (ed.gov) candilas, k. (2021). developing english-speaking skills through socratic questioning in online synchronous learning. asiacall online journal, 12(3), 74-81. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/52 cardona, t., spiegel, c., alves, g., ducommun, j., andrea henriques-pons, & araújo-jorge, t. (2007). introducing dna concepts to swiss high school students based on a brazilian educational game. biochemistry and molecular biology education, 35(6), 416-421. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/bmb.95 celce-murcia, m., brinton, d. m., & goodwin, j. m. (1991). teaching pronunciation. in m. celce-murcia (ed.), teaching english as a second or foreign language (1 ed., pp. 136153). new york: newbury house. celce-murcia, m., brinton, d. m., & goodwin, j. m. (2010). english pronunciation: a course book and reference guide (2 ed.). cambridge uk: cambridge university press. chiu, y.-h., kao, c.-w., & reynolds, b. l. (2012). the relative effectiveness of digital game‐ based learning types in english as a foreign language setting: a meta‐analysis. british journal of educational technology, 43(4), 104-107. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2012.01295.x connolly, t. m., boyle, e. a., macarthur, e., hainey, t., & boyle, j. m. (2012). a systematic literature review of empirical evidence on computer games and serious games. computers & education, 59(2), 661-686. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2012.03.004 cook, a. (2017). american accent training (4 ed.). new york: barron's educational series. http://doi:10.5539/elt.v13n1p63 https://doi.org/10125/44373 https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1289011.pdf https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/52 https://doi.org/10.1002/bmb.95 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2012.01295.x https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2012.03.004 acojissn 1936-9859 c. h. nguyen, h. t. nguyen, t. q. le vol. 12; no. 04; 2021 61 corno, l., & snow, r. (1986). adapting teaching to individual differences among learners (3 ed.). new york: macmillan. dhillon, b. p. s. (2016). does mother tongue affect the english pronunciation? paper presented at the the international journal of language, education, humanities, and innovation, indonesia. do, l. m. (2021). the role pronunciation teaching in efl classrooms: beliefs and practices of teachers and students. international journal of tesol & education, 1(1), 47–53. retrieved from http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/7 ebrahimzadeh, m., & alavi, s. (2016). motivating efl students: e-learning enjoyment as a predictor of vocabulary learning through digital video games. cogent education, 3(1), 1-13. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186x.2016.1255400 ertmer, p. a. (2005). teacher pedagogical beliefs: the final frontier in our quest for technology integration. educational technology, research and development, 53(4), 25-39. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02504683 finger, j. (1985). teaching pronunciation with the vowel colour chart. test canada journal, 2(2), 43-50. doi:https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v2i2.461 foote, j. a., trofimovich, p., collins, l., & urzúa, f. s. (2016). pronunciation teaching practices in communicative second language classes. the language learning journal, 44(2), 181-196. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/09571736.2013.784345 gee, j. p. (2007). good video games + good learning: collected essays on video games, learning and literacy (1 ed.). bern, switzerland: peter lang inc. ghounane, n. (2019). the attitudes of second year efl students at dr moulay tahar university towards learning english pronunciation through mobile assisted language. arab world english journal, 5(110-123). doi:http://doi:10.24093/awej/call5.9 gilbert, j. b. (2012). clear speech: pronunciation and listening comprehension in north american english (4 ed.). cambridge uk: cambridge university press. godwin-jones, r. (2014). games in language learning: opportunities and challenges. language learning & technology, 18(2), 9-19. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10125/44363 heggie, l., & wade-woolley, l. (2017). reading longer words: insights into multi-syllabic word reading. perspectives of the asha special interest groups, 2(1), 86-94. doi:10.1044/persp2.sig1.86 hismanoglu, m., & hismanoglu, s. (2010). language teachers’ preferences of pronunciation teaching techniques: traditional or modern? procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 2(2), 983-989. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.03.138 jenkins, j. (2002). a sociolinguistically-based, empirically-researched pronunciation syllabus for english as an international language. applied linguistics, 23(1), 83-103. http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/7 https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186x.2016.1255400 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02504683 https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v2i2.461 https://doi.org/10.1080/09571736.2013.784345 http://doi:10.24093/awej/call5.9 http://dx.doi.org/10125/44363 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.03.138 acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 62 doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/23.1.83 jones, t. (2018). pronunciation with other areas of language. in o. kang, r. i. thomson, & j. m. murphy (eds.), the routledge handbook of contemporary english pronunciation (1 ed., pp. 370-384). london and new york: routledge. lan, k. y. (2014). does second life improve mandarin learning by overseas chinese students? language learning & technology, 18(2), 36-56. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10125/44365 lane, l. (2010). tips for teaching pronunciation: a practical approach (1 ed.). the united states: pearson education esl. larsen-freeman, d. (2000). techniques and principles in language teaching (2 ed.). oxford, england: oxford university press. lesner, s., sandridge, s., & kricos, p. (1987). training influences on visual consonant and sentence recognition. ear and hearing, 8(5), 283-287. doi:https://doi.org/10.1097/00003446-198710000-00005 lujan, h. l., & dicarlo, s. e. (2006). too much teaching, not enough learning: what is the solution? advances in physiology education, 30(1), 17-22. doi:https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00061.2005 mccauley, b., nguyen, n., & mcdonald, m. (2016). understanding the motivations of vietnamese millennial mobile gamers: a pilot study. paper presented at the international conference on emerging trends in business, economics and management, dubai, uae. mojsin, l. (2009). mastering the american accent (2 ed.). new york: barron's educational series. murphy, g. d. (2011). post-pc devices: a summary of early ipad technology adoption in tertiary environments. e-journal of business education & scholarship of teaching, 5(1), 18-32. nguyen, h., & nguyen, t. (2007). teaching english in primary schools in vietnam: an overview. current issues in language planning, 8(2), 162-173. doi:http://doi:10.2167/cilp106.0 nguyen, n. t. t. (2021). a review of the effects of media on foreign language vocabulary acquisition. international journal of tesol & education, 1(1), 30–37. retrieved from http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/5 nguyen, t. (2015). using games to improve pronunciation of the second-year non-english major students at hanoi university of business and technology. world of science, 3(2). nguyen, v. (2016). games application to improve pronunciation for khanh hoa university freshmen. paper presented at the international conference on english language https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/23.1.83 http://dx.doi.org/10125/44365 https://doi.org/10.1097/00003446-198710000-00005 https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00061.2005 http://doi:10.2167/cilp106.0 http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/5 acojissn 1936-9859 c. h. nguyen, h. t. nguyen, t. q. le vol. 12; no. 04; 2021 63 teaching 2016: exploring new paths to a better future of elt in a globalised world full programme, ho chi minh city. norman, s. (2000). my 100 most mispronounced words in english. english teaching professional, 14. odenweller, c. m., hsu, c. t., & dicarlo, s. e. (1998). educational card games for understanding gastrointestinal physiology. advances in physiology education, 275(6), 78-84. doi:https://doi.org/10.1152/advances.1998.275.6.s78 odisho, e. (2007). a multisensory, multicognitive approach to teaching pronunciation. revista de estudos linguisticos da universidade do porto, 2, 3-28. odisho, e. y. (2014). pronunciation is in the brain, not in the mouth. gorgias press. parreno, m. d. a., & eamoraphan, s. (2017). a study of kindergarten 2 students english phonics achievement and their perceptions towards the use of english phonics online games at st. mark s international school, thailand. scholar : human sciences, 9(1), 312-326. pham, b., & mcleod, s. (2016). consonants, vowels and tones across vietnamese dialects. . international journal of speech language pathology, 18(2), 122-134. doi:https://doi.org/10.3109/17549507.2015.1101162 prensky, m. (2006). don't bother me, mom, i'm learning!: how computer and video games are preparing your kids for 21st century success and how you can help! (1 ed.). minnesota, the usa: paragon house. qian, m., & clark, k. r. (2016). game-based learning and 21st century skills: a review of recent research. computers in human behavior, 63, 50-58. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.05.023 reese, c., & wells, t. (2007). teaching academic discussion skills with a card game. simulation & gaming, 38(4), 546-555. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/1046878107308063 richards, m. g. (2016). not all word stress errors are created equal: validating an english word stress error gravity hierarchy. (doctoral dissertation), retrieved from https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/16001 roach, p. (2009). english phonetics and phonology: a practical course (4 ed.). cambridge uk: cambridge university press. rogers, c. l., & dalby, j. (2005). forced-choice analysis of segmental production by chinese accented english speakers. journal of speech, language, and hearing research, 48(2), 306-322. doi:https://doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2005/021) shanahan, k. j., hermans, c. m., & haytko, d. l. (2006). overcoming apathy and classroom disconnect in marketing courses: employing karaoke jeopardy as a content retention tool. marketing education review, 16(1), 85-90 https://doi.org/10.1152/advances.1998.275.6.s78 https://doi.org/10.3109/17549507.2015.1101162 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.05.023 https://doi.org/10.1177/1046878107308063 https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/16001 https://doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2005/021 acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 64 doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/10528008.2006.11488944 stockwell, g. (2007). vocabulary on the move: investigating an intelligent mobile phonebased vocabulary tutor. computer assisted language learning, 14(2), 95-110. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10125/44216 suhaili, a., & kurniawan, a. (2019). the use of pronunciation bingo game to improve students’ pronunciation. journal of english language teaching and literature, 2(2), 170-189. doi:https://doi.org/10.47080/jeltl.v2i2.630 tran, vu mai yen, & nguyen, tran uyen nhi. (2021). the practice of online english teaching and learning with microsoft teams: from students’ view. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 51-57. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/41 valcke, j., & pavón, v. (2015). a comparative study on the use of pronunciation strategies for highlighting information in university lectures. in r. wilkinson & m. l. walsh (eds.), integrating content and language in higher education: from theory to practice (pp. 323-341). frankfurt-am-main: peter lang. van, l. k., dang, t. a., pham, d. b. t., vo, t. t. n., & pham, v. p. h. (2021). the effectiveness of using technology in learning english. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 24-40. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/26 vang, x. (2003). english language teaching in vietnam today: policy, practice and constraints. in h. w. k. r. y. l. wong (ed.), english language teaching in east asia today (1 ed., pp. 455-474). singapore: times media private limited. wahid, r., & sulong, s. (2013). the gap between research and practice in the teaching of english pronunciation: insights from teachers’ beliefs and practices. world applied sciences journal, 2(special issue of studies in language teaching and learning), 133142. doi:http://10.5829/idosi.wasj.2013.21.sltl.2147 wang, y. (2010). using communicative language games in teaching and learning english in taiwanese primary schools. journal of engineering technology and education, 7(1), 126-142. wilson, i. (2008). using praat and moodle for teaching segmental and suprasegmental pronunciation. paper presented at the proceedings of the worldcall 2008 conference: call bridges the world japan. xiao, j., & luo, y. (2017). application of mobile learning system in phonetics teaching. paper presented at the ic4e '17: 8th international conference on e-education, e-business, emanagement and e-learning malaysia. young, s. s. c., & wang, y. h. (2014). the game embedded call system to facilitate english vocabulary acquisition and pronunciation. educational technology & society, 17(3), 239-251. https://doi.org/10.1080/10528008.2006.11488944 http://dx.doi.org/10125/44216 https://doi.org/10.47080/jeltl.v2i2.630 https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/41 https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/26 http://10.0.22.197/idosi.wasj.2013.21.sltl.2147 acojissn 1936-9859 c. h. nguyen, h. t. nguyen, t. q. le vol. 12; no. 04; 2021 65 zhu, d. (2012). using games to improve students’ communicative ability. journal of language teaching and research, 3(4), 801-805. doi:http://doi:10.4304/jltr.3.4.801805 zielinski, b. (2006). the intelligibility cocktail: an interaction between speaker and listener ingredients. prospect: an australia journal of tesol, 21(1), 22-45. biodata huy cuong nguyen has been working as an english lecturer in the faculty of foreign languages, van lang university for 5 years. he teaches not only english skills but also english for specific purposes to english majors. carrying out research on applying new teaching techniques to enhance students’ pronunciation is his particular interest. ha thi nguyen is currently a lecturer of english in the faculty of foreign languages, van lang university. she mainly teaches english skills to mainstream students. she is particularly interested in doing research on how to integrate internet-based applications in english language teaching and on assessment in english teaching. thao quang le has been teaching english as a foreign language for 9 years. he is now a lecturer in the faculty of foreign languages, van lang university. he gives classes on four english skills and teaches courses in english linguistic components. he takes an interest in conducting research into l1 instructions in the classrooms and language assessment. http://doi:10.4304/jltr.3.4.801-805 http://doi:10.4304/jltr.3.4.801-805 “new learning” and call: a diy paradigm ania b. lian asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a14 “new learning” and call: a diy paradigm ania b. lian charles darwin university, australia ania.lian@cdu.edu.au submitted 30 january, 2014; accepted in final form 12 june, 2014 abstract this paper translates the implications of the “do-it-yourself” (diy) culture of the “new learning” paradigm which is emerging due to digital technology and the internet into the context of second language (l2)-pedagogy. it demonstrates the relevance of the diy metaphor to the modern learning context while drawing on theoretical and call developments which problematise concepts such as text, engagement, meaning-making, dialogue and pedagogy. hence, the principles on which the paper builds are distinct from the traditions which continue to dominate research in l2-pedagogy. the paper formulates a model of l2-pedagogy and pedagogic research which breaks with these traditions, and which proposes dialogue which leads to change as a methodology for both students’ learning and teachers’ research. in so doing, the paper identifies the opportunities and challenges that dialogue and its transformative power can offer. keywords: new learning, call, call technologies, call in asia, inclusive learning what is “new learning”? the exponential growth of technology has resulted in the creation of a world which, while not quite egalitarian as yet, has changed how people create, gather and assess what counts as knowledge. present advances in technology and, especially in communication technology, are comparable to the changes that followed as a result of the development of writing itself thousands of years ago, and guttenberg’s invention of the printing press around 1450. today, the widespread availability of digital technologies, and especially the internet, has resulted in people challenging many of the dominant social, cultural, intellectual, political and ethical paradigms. central to these world-changing events is the ability for ordinary people to communicate with one another freely and openly, thus enabling organisation of mass social movements and opportunities for individuals to reinvent themselves in virtual worlds. the extent to which various governments have sometimes sought to curtail the rhizomatic dialogue which these communication tools have unleashed, only attests to their power. the inexorable rise of the “proletarian autodidact” continues, pointing to (a) challenge as the force which ignites transformation and change; (b) rhizomatic dialogue as its tool; and (c) technology as its vehicle. it is clear that the conventional ways of doing things are being challenged. digital technology changed the expectations which shape how we go about our daily lives, including learning. the paradigm of “new learning” was not invented by anyone. it is not a theory of learning but a culture of learning which is emerging as a result of the dialogic opportunities which technology brought with it. the culture of “new learning” is changing the expectations which the users of digital technologies have of themselves, of others, and of the future. people are becoming increasingly self-reliant, able to look for and find the information they need in a timely manner, to solve their problems, and in the expectation of semi-instant outcomes. they are connected with others and can identify relevant collaboration networks when needed. they observe and explore how people do things, and even use virtual personalities to help them feel safe when experimenting on the internet. they seek out expansion through social connections and the unpredictability which they may bring with them. “new learning” and call: a diy paradigm ania b. lian asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a15 increasingly, around the globe, a modern “autodidact” has access to information in ways which support their autonomous and yet connected way of living. more than ever before we are living in groups and, unlike ever before, our connections are not limited by geographical boundaries. our interactions are shaped by our needs and possibilities, and our sense of self-value and personal resilience depends on the extent to which these needs and possibilities resonate with others and are perceived as relevant and worth engaging with. in other words, whether we count, or not, does matter, and neuroscience now provides evidence demonstrating that whether in a learning context or in other contexts, being seen as legitimate, and therefore worth engaging with, is pretty much a matter of life and death (immordino-yang, 2010; 2013, p. 45). however, as shown in this paper, second language (l2)-pedagogies and l2-study approaches still find it hard to integrate students’ voices. in 2014, technology continues to be seen as, more or less, an entertainment (a fun-thing), real knowledge is legitimised by second language acquisition (sla) studies, and students are objects of these externalising discourses, with their own personal histories and therefore voices being hijacked by what the experts know about them. supporting “new learning” in the context of l2-pedagogy, the promise of “new learning” that digital technology has brought with it will not translate into outcomes unless it is accompanied by new thinking about learning, i.e. a principled understanding of what is to change and why. how teachers construct the ‘job’ of technology in education depends on how they construct their own roles in learning environments, and the role of their students. this paper seeks to demonstrate that once the concept of new learning is engaged and problematised, the quality use of technology in l2 classrooms becomes more a matter of exercising imagination rather than a matter of money and fast connection speeds. frameworks supporting “new learning” pedagogies problematising the concept of “new learning” is not simple. drawing on traditional frameworks of tesol may not be sufficient if only because the frameworks were constructed in the absence of technology and without consideration for the difference that digital technologies make to the very way we think of language learning. for example, the interaction hypothesis (long, 1996; doughty & long, 2003) places students and teachers in a context where decisions regarding the forms of “input” that students require to re-organise their personal models of l2 are made by the teacher or, a teacher-like interlocutor. in the interaction hypothesis what the teacher knows about language, s/he uses to interpret students’ learning needs. in so doing, teachers address problems as they see them, not as students experience them (lian, 2008). the interaction hypothesis does not concern itself with this issue. it also does not problematise the concept of language beyond the conventional linguistic structures such as words and grammar. typically the interactions it advocates are embedded in the pedagogy of task-based teaching (tbt or tbl for task based learning). tbt approaches see tasks, not the students, as carriers of meaning. in principle, tbt approaches do not questions where the tasks come from, or whose knowledge of the world they legitimise and engage. for example, when kramsch asked her students to summarise a story, she was surprised at their reactions: “you asked us to summarize, so i just summarized, i really didn’t think about it” (kramsch, 2000, p. 149). they did not engage because kramsch did not engage them, their histories. instead, the task she designed engaged her knowledge of the world and the expectations she had of her students. she designed a pedagogic task and then she objected to the students approaching her activity as “an obligatory act of compliance to school routine” (p. 149). “new learning” and call: a diy paradigm ania b. lian asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a16 in an authentic communicative setting, the act of writing itself, the form of the text, its length, the medium, the choice of the interlocutors, and their roles are not objects of arbitrary decisions. kramsch herself recognises that “signs are the result of non-arbitrary selections” (p. 143). this means that the decisions regarding one’s form of communicative engagement depend on how the students see themselves in a particular context, the stakes they pursue and the tools they have to evaluate the relevance of their perceptions. this includes all kinds of schemes of perception and production which impact upon how students act and what goals they pursue. we are multisensory beings. this means that we use multisensory schemes of interpretation in order to process information in more than one way (gothard, 2014; maguire, 2014; minsky, 1981, wolf, 2012). it has been demonstrated that when this multisensory processing is prevented, our brain replaces the missing systems with what it already knows (herrmann, friederici, oertel, maess, hahne, & alter, 2003). in the context of l2-learning, this results in l1 interference. when unsupported, students are left to work with limited information and in a limited way. consequently, the interference patterns become entrenched and are hard to break. students’ meaning systems do not reside in linguistic taxonomies, but in students’ personal histories. to result in a transformation of any kind, learning must engage these histories. we could think of knowledge construction as a process of re-construction (re-organisation) which is potentially ongoing if students are given access to tools and conditions enabling them to evaluate the terms which inform their target language interactions in a dialogic, and therefore self-directed manner, utilising information from a multitude of multisensory systems and processing networks they have created over the course of their lives (immordino-yang, 2009; lian, 2014; lian & lian, 1997; buranapatana & zhang, 2008). a pedagogy of this kind supports an expansion of students’ histories. the most recent findings in neuroscience studies of amnesia (maguire, 2014) suggest the obvious: patients with amnesia cannot plan as planning relies on memory. along similar lines, when teachers disregard students’ pasts, their students have limited building blocks to rely on; ultimately they create “students with amnesia”. developing ways which engage students’ personal histories is imperative. achieving this will take more than engaging students in discussions, correcting the students, hoping they correct themselves, explaining, modelling and playing online puzzles. strategies suggesting brainstorming wordlists, using dictionaries and matching words with their definitions fall within the spectrum of the same problem: none of these proposals problematise (a) the concept of text as an interplay of social, cultural and symbolic forms of capital; (b) interaction as a discursive event; and (c) interlocutors as agents with experiences rooted in their personal discursive histories (lantolf & pavlenko 1995: 116-117). it follows l2 pedagogies need more sophisticated tools, and developing such tools requires inter-disciplinary research, itself critical of its assumptions, and able to engage students in a similar dialogic project. figure 1 illustrates this methodology. in the dialogic model, research supports students’ explorations without reducing it to its own tools of analysis. this is a very different methodology from those currently practised by sla studies. “new learning” and call: a diy paradigm ania b. lian asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a17 figure 1: comparing the new, dialogic model of sla studies (left) with the traditional methods (right). tbt model in order to offer a new model which breaks away from the traditional tbt steps of pre-task, apply, assess and re-do task-structure (ellis, 2006; nunan, 2006), it is necessary to juxtapose the frameworks on which the two models build, and which provide a working plan for teachers and researchers. cormack’s (2011, p. 9; 2011) research on genealogy of the “reading class” helps to differentiate between the two models. his work challenges teachers and researchers to theorise the relationship they construct between themselves, the text and the students. figures 2 and 3 illustrate models which centre all their attention on the text as the carrier of the meaning-making relationships. figure 2: the mediation of knowledge in early 18th century models of teaching. teacher functions as an arbiter in the 19th century reading class (cormack, 2011). figure 3: the 19th century reading class. (cormack, 2011). in figures 2 and 3, the teacher acts as the arbiter of what constitutes legitimate knowledge and what, therefore, is worth engaging. students are organised to re-produce this knowledge and any adulterations they may produce are corrected by the teacher (or peers) to coincide with their model of the right form. tbt “new learning” and call: a diy paradigm ania b. lian asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a18 approaches are aware of the drawbacks of this 19th century model (ellis, 2009, p. 87-88), but are unable to escape them due to the conceptual ties they share with them. this is because, as kramsch did, they focus on (a) task, not engagement; (b) performance, not effect; and (c) content, not power. (a) task the main objective of tbt is for students to produce texts. while human action is understood as goal-directed, tbt does not teach students to explore their goals. this instantly causes tbt to break the relationship between the goals which inform students’ understanding of what people do, why, when and how, and their learning context. these goals form the four-dimensional structure of the connections which the students construct over the course of their lives and which give them a sense of objectivity and continuity. tbt approaches do not see it as central to engage these histories. (b) performance having thus cut off students from their personal interpretative schemes, the tbt methodology must replace them with other schemes in order to make its language practices viable. to this end, it looks for ways that would allow the texts, the discursive practices and the social practices of the classroom “that are constructed by and through a task resemble those found in non-pedagogic discourse” (ellis, 2006, p. 29; breen, 1998). in other words, tbt needs to find a way of bridging its pedagogic tasks with the non-pedagogic world of practices. to accommodate for this problem, tbt restores the teacher to his or her traditional role of monitoring their students’ performance and needs (ellis, 2006, p. 32-33). in effect, students become objects of the discursive framework of the teacher who is now the arbiter of the ends and means of their learning. (c) content dis-engaged, with no histories of their own, students have no other choice but to revert to strategies which kramsch (2000) describes as “compliance to school routine” (p. 149). the pedagogic world of tbt presents interaction very much like someone describing the game of tennis as the giving and receiving of balls. the students converse, are encouraged to take linguistic risks, respond to the awareness-raising opportunities created by their teacher for them, share goals and meanings (ellis, 2006, p. 36). this peaceful image stands in stark contrast to the real game of tennis where the players do not engage in an exchange of meanings; they play to win. hence the value of each shot is never fixed (or found in a dictionary); it is always subject to play. their significance or power is the upshot of the perpetual modification of each shot by its return, “each shot, in this analogy, produces value in two ways: in what it enables or prevents; and to either player” (freadman, 1987, p. 44). one cannot read the value of the shots prior to their engagement by the other player. it is not the game that the players must learn, but the playing of the game. to translate this image into the l2-context, the idea is not to learn in order to play one day, but to play. the act of playing calls for re-examination of the repertoire of the strategies and tactics in relation to which students interpret their game. no one can read the impact of the shots they experience for them, on their behalf. hence it is their engagement that gives them the tools for reading the game and therefore their own capacity to play. dialogic model the critique above offers a framework for describing the dialogic model of language learning. briefly, figure 4 illustrates the proposed model for the dialogic learning it shows the students connected to the world (“other texts”), engaged in activities enabling them to explore those texts, and with the aim to create new texts in order to affect others. the model shows reality as discursive, students as participants in the discursive practices in which it is used, and their participation as expanding or contributing to the world “new learning” and call: a diy paradigm ania b. lian asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a19 of these practices. the emphasis on the participatory aspect of students’ engagements resists the tendencies of pedagogies which view students as deficient and in need of strategies which shield them from the nonpedagogic world of practices. figure 4: configuration of the relationships in the dialogic model of learning. the dialogic model escapes the trappings of the 19th century model by subverting its structure, and focusing on (a) engagement, not task/text; (b) effect, not performance; and (c) power, not content. (a) engagement the goals which people pursue and therefore see worth engaging depend on the understandings they bring with them into their contexts of interactions. hence understandings regarding what to do, why, when and how are embedded in a wide network of practices which, as signaled earlier, form a four-dimensional structure of the connections which the students construct over the course of their lives, and which give them a sense of objectivity and continuity. in this sense we could say that “there is nothing outside the text” (“il n’y a pas de hors-texte” – ‘there is no ‘outsidetext’’, derrida, 1969), as our goals are textual, interpretive, discursive. in fact, wolf (2011) talks about this process of “self”-construction as locating oneself along the axes of space and time. hence it is not language as such that l2-teachers should focus on, or “culture”. it is how language tools can help students achieve objectives which are not linguistic; one may call it learning to mean, as opposed to learning the meaning. pitching l2-pedagogy at the level of learning to mean instantly places the students in the position of experts. this is because they already have expertise in meaning-making in their own l1. the job of the teacher is to assist students in building on this expertise in order to expand it beyond the familiar contexts and tools. however, in order to use students’ expertise as the building blocks, the job of the teacher is not to tell students how language is used. rather, it is to engage them in an exploration of what people do, why, when and how, so that they can tap into the target language interactions by relating what they know to what they investigate. a pedagogy of this kind also caters for the transforming aspects of education. this is because a four dimensional exploration enables students to grow a richer vision of themselves in relation to others, regardless whether they then apply this new knowledge when using their l1 or l2. “new learning” and call: a diy paradigm ania b. lian asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a20 in practice, teachers can create databases enabling students to “peek” at the things people do when using a specific l2. for example, students can explore the concept of the map from different perspectives of time (when), culture, context and purpose (why), structure and representation (how). figure 5 illustrates examples of such maps. figure 5: a display of different navigational tools developed by people at different times to serve different purposes in different contexts. information can be presented in a number of ways, there is no one way to do so. it is important though that the exploratory facilities allow for comparing and contrasting of a multitude of aspects of what makes up different maps, or what the concept of a map involves. the art of good design is to allow students to link information in ways that give students control over their searches. this means that the database permits students to make unpredictable connections which respond to their personal questions, and which are not limited by the design, or someone else’s idea, of what a map is. in this way, the goals which direct their explorations are not limited by the design, and correspond to the interactivity requirements expected by the modern “autodidact”. the database resources and search facilities do not need to be limited to countries where an l2 is used as a national language. students could easily explore maps explained by sudanese speakers of the target language, or by the lapland people. this is because language adapts to culture, not the other way around. the exact mechanics of such search capacities are explained in the next section of this paper. for now it is important to illustrate how teachers can engage and expand students’ personal histories for students to build their l2 tools in an informed and critical way, i.e. in relation to symbols and systems of value which people call upon to construct their interactions. (b) effect as illustrated in the engagement phase, the dialogic model goes beyond the traditional questions regarding the link between language and culture, or what one should say and in what kinds of contexts. in a dialogic environment, students are not requested to perform tasks, because linguistic expressions alone do not have a performative function. instead, the aim is for students to tap into and explore “sources of authority” (bourdieu, 1991, p. 113) which are available to them and which thus enable them to produce culturally appropriate language. the model requires students to have access to tools which, ultimately, help them reflect and transform the concepts they activate for defining themselves, others, and for doing so in ways which evoke respect from them and from others. when engaged on their terms, and in relation to the schemes they use to make meaning, students are likely to show interest in following up their explorations, this culminating in a project which “new learning” and call: a diy paradigm ania b. lian asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a21 they see to be of relevance to them and, potentially to other users of the l2. to follow up with the concept of the map, students may create a game: spot the odd one, where players look for maps that do not belong to a specific (cultural or other) paradigm. or they can create an interactive map of their school or university. these are just examples. figure 6 illustrates an example of an interactive map. the map makes use of the different themes students may identify through their explorations, which are then arranged to spark interest and enhance the aesthetics. a map then is not only useful to others. it can be a product of students’ creative engagement, cultural learning and concept-development. they can also subvert how maps use language in order to make them more user-friendly, and reflecting the spirit of the campus. figure 6: an example of an interactive map (created by the author of this paper). (c) power students need support tools and activities which help them explore the cultural, social and symbolic relationships and values in relation to which they interpret and construct their l2 interactions for the best impact. as wolf (2011) shows through her research on perception and literacy, the act of meaning-making is not an act of matching. it is a process involving the brain (and the body) in a dialogue between the various associations which the brain calls upon to make sense. these associations help students evaluate the impact of what others do, why, when and how, in order to respond accordingly. figure 6 illustrates the pedagogic structure of the learning environments which support this form of learning. as shown below, once students identify the activities they want to pursue (their projects), classroom meetings continue to provide students with exploratory tools enabling them to break down information, make use of several different ways to represent it; use strategies which help students look at things differently, create different associations, in other words, “'think' about it” (minsky, 1981). making these associations meaningful will involve having a few of them, because “new learning” and call: a diy paradigm ania b. lian asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a22 “if we understood something just one way, we would not understand it at all” (minsky, 1981). in other words, students explore how language is used in non-pedagogic activities. the tools of the environment and its activities, call (lian, 2014) or not call-based (e.g. group discussions, teacher’s explanations, any reflective activities, including rehearsals, lian & mestre, 1985) are integrated to allow students to navigate meaningfully and with ease through these texts and to evaluate their own texts. this process is ongoing until the students complete the projects. while it is students’ questions that drive their learning, it is the teacher’s role to assess whether the conditions put in place allow students to do so. in other words, students must leave the class feeling they achieved their goals, while also truly learning. this is the point at which theory meets practice (figure 1). there is little gain in taking a narrow view on practice and making students work within the narrow space of that vision. the tools with which students can explore texts will not come from technology, or linguistics, or any other field. and even if they did, their meaning will not be apparent to us unless we engage ourselves in looking for ideas and clues. these clues are everywhere in our own work and in the insights we obtain from research into different disciplines which, as shown above in the case of the amnesia study, might say nothing about language learning but, for example, may say a lot about perception and what prevents learning. this is again the case of a diy pedagogy where, by searching youtube for the newest research lectures, and then looking for the papers of their presenters, we may expand our own knowledge and, as a result, the benefits that our students gain from our own engagement in the problematic of language teaching. in short, to assist “new learning”, we ourselves must become part of that paradigm of ‘new learning”. figure 6: the pedagogic structure of dialogic learning environments. what can call do? many of the tools designed to assist students in expanding and re-organising the meaning-making systems they bring with them into the l2-learning environment will be integrated as call applications and resources. this is so because digital technology offers unique flexibility in regard to information management, which is, ultimately, what all learning is. this flexibility, when well exploited and integrated, can support students in a unique and personalised way. the points below illustrate the capacities of digital technologies in relation to the features of the dialogic model of l2learning which this paper described. (a) access and storage the efficiency of digital storage devices continues to increase exponentially. there now appears to be no end as to how much data one can upload and store and retrieve online. new technologies continue to emerge. hence in today’s world, there is an abundance of (a) examples of practices of l2-use; (b) “new learning” and call: a diy paradigm ania b. lian asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a23 tools enabling students to engage in these practices; and (c) tools enabling students to involve others in their own l2-engagements. while in some countries access to this information is slow, and sometimes refused, there are still avenues available for teachers to collect and use information when needed. for example, teachers can download gigabytes of information on a regular basis when on campus in their universities. they can download videos and text when overseas. they can collaborate with teams overseas that can bring data to them. while their students may not be accessing live data, they still will have more information to work with than the students in australia in some regional schools, or students 10-15 years ago when the internet was slow and had no youtube. creativity is still called for. the data to be downloaded may contain anything, long and short segments including songs, their karaoke versions, advertisements as creative, cultural expressions, cute video footage with animals, people, kids, news shows, morning shows, jokes, interesting podcasts and websites, anything. applications like powerpoint allow for multimedia storage, presentations and project management, with all data being stored on the local disk of a pc. also, multimedia environments can be used as a support. yet students can use media other than the internet to present their projects. for example, they can video-tape students presenting a news show, can create newsletters, or pechakucha events in the target language, thus bringing the community of the target language speakers onto their campus. in a project which engaged students in creating a news show (thai news network), students used the interactive facilities of websites to publish, advertise and engage the wider community in their activities (buranapatana, 2000). today, facebook alone, or websites like google sites or any blog applications would have more interactive capacities than anything used back then. (b) manipulation of information digital information is stored in a way that allows each of its elements to be accessed more or less instantly and about as easily and as efficiently as any other, no matter how many elements may be in the set. random access together with sophisticated retrieval algorithms enables the flexible access characteristics of search engines, applications and management systems which give computers their clear advantage over libraries, tapes or any other forms of record whose accessibility is limited by their form. while global search engines like google help manage information at the global level, local solutions will need to be developed for problems which are experienced locally and for which local solutions are needed. the development of such systems requires creativity and possibly collaboration across sectors and maybe across different institutions or countries. these management systems can be as complicated as a database of language resources described by lian, a-p. (2014, 2011), or as simple as shown in figure 5 where all information is stored locally and students can explore the database together in class. this still gives student a huge advantage over classrooms with textbooks and no live resources, and therefore no exposure beyond what they already know. google sites have facilities for organising information which also can be used, if available. other information management tools may help students work with texts and sounds in a multitude of ways (lian, 2004). many of these tools are free and easily accessible. their value is often underestimated in the culture of traditional pedagogies which see language learning as focusing on learning words and grammar, not as information management. among these tools are text-to-speech applications. for example, ms office speak facilities allow students hear any text they type or select, in any direction. direction of listening is important for students to hear things differently than their expectations dictate. the online text-to-speech avatar (oddcast.com) provides even more facilities. students can play with sounds as they want to and begin to explore their aspects in unpredictable, yet productive, ways (lian, a.b., 2014). free online speech-to-text facilities, including google search are not perfect, but are a far cry from having nothing at all. they are fun and invite students to reflect on their productions. “new learning” and call: a diy paradigm ania b. lian asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a24 (c) connectivity computers can be linked together in single and multiple networks and this very function gives digital technology its greatest power: “the network is the computer” (sun microsystems). connectivity does not imply discussions only. it implies forms of “collaboration” and facilities which allow for crosslinking, thus making students’ explorations both, precise and rich in data. for example, dictionaries, whether as a book or online, while very useful, alone are isolated “applications”, disconnected, a 19th century solution to 19th century problems. but when online dictionaries are connected to other systems from which students access their information, this is different. when they are integrated as in figure 5 to allow students to manipulate information in a dynamic way, they become tools in a network which caters for differences and flexibility. the same can be said of online games. when used in isolation, their function is reduced to an isolated experience. but when integrated in a larger network of connections, they can be used to engage students in exploration of places through games which children play to cook, to garden, to read, to place objects and animals in the right place in the room, to build and re-furnish homes, hospitals, to meet people we know, people we don’t know, and more (lian, 2012). this integrated way turns free online games into an interactive virtual space where students act as if this space were real. again, imagination is the key. but imagination needs inspiration and this comes from the understandings which problematise notions which the field accepts as a given and which as a result frequently become its own breaks of progress. conclusion: where to from here? this paper began with the observation that education is finding itself confronted with the challenge which the rhizomatic dialogic tools of the internet make possible. the new “autodidact” is not looking for an expert, but for an answer. a new culture is developing where people gather together, create and compile resources to accommodate for all kinds of questions, simple and complex, from all walks of life. the new “autodidact” is increasingly autonomous, while also connected. the paper then proposed how this “new learning” culture can translate into l2-classroom. it also made a case as to why it should do so. the theoretical foundations of this paper have not been built overnight. they encompass decades of research studies in the areas of text, perception, critical theory, pedagogy, and call of researchers from all over the world. unfortunately, the concepts on which it builds have rarely been considered especially in the field of tesol due to the historical developments of the field. but in every field of education, technology paves the way for new developments and breaks with the past. we need to open up the courses we teach in l2pedagogy and research to make room for the conceptual expansion which is required. the discipline therefore needs to explore its theoretical discourses beyond what it already knows, and it needs to define itself around the questions it asks, not the answers. frequently, l2-teachers are unaware that sla studies were never intended to support teachers and teaching. hence the answers they produce cannot be taken as referring to the same questions which the teachers ask, let alone the learning students. the model proposed in this paper also identifies its own pedagogic question. this question is about the means by which teachers can allow students’ voices and perspectives to come through, the means by which teachers do not replace these voices with their own and, finally, a methodology enabling the field to learn from others, and therefore not stagnate. as said earlier, to support “new learning”, the teacher must become part of the “new learning” culture which values expansion, autonomy, flexibility and self-reliance. these are very different from traditional qualities of an l2-classroom which caters for students who depend on the teacher’s assessment of his or her needs, capacities, forms of engagement and forms of learning. “new learning” and call: a diy paradigm ania b. lian asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a25 references bourdieu, p. (1991). language and symbolic power. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. buranapatana, m (2004). thai news network: cultural learning. paper presented at australian association of research in education (aare) conference. australia: melbourne. buranapatana, m., & zhang, f. (2008). pedagogy meets technology in the somatically-enhanced approach. in f. zhang (ed.), handbook of research on computer-enhanced language acquisition and learning (pp. 240–258). cheyne, j. a. & d. tarulli (1999). dialogue, difference, and the “third voice” in the zone of proximal development. theory and psychology, (9), 5-28. cormack, p. (2011). reading pedagogy, ‘evidence’ and education policy: learning from history? the australian educational researcher, 38, 133-148. retrieved from: http://w3.unisa.edu.au/eds/documents/pedagogy.pdf cormack, p. (2011). a genealogy of teaching practices: researching the reading practice, presentation to the centre for research in education seminar series, university of south australia. retrieved from: http://w3.unisa.edu.au/eds/documents/researching.pps derrida, j. (1967). of grammatology. (trans. g. spivak), baltimore: john hopkins university press, section 158. retrieved from: http://www.mohamedrabeea.com/books/book1_3997.pdf . ellis, r. (2006). the methodology of task-based teaching, conference proceedings: task-based learning in the asian context, asian efl journal, 8(3), pp. 12-45. freadman, a. (1994). models of genre for language teaching. the 1994 sonia marks memorial lecture. university of sydney. freadman, a. (1994). anyone for tennis? in a. freadman & p. medway (eds.), genre and the new rhetoric, pp. 43-66, london: taylor & francis. gothard, k. (2014). the ancestors in our brains, the evolving brain: university of arizona lectures, the university of arizona. retrieved from: http://youtu.be/5bqp0-02xru?t=35m5s herrmann, c. s., friederici, a., oertel, u., maess, b., hahne, a. & k. alter (2003). the brain generates its own sentence melody: a gestalt phenomenon in speech perception. brain and language 85(3), 396-401. immordino-yang, m.h. (2013). studying the effects of culture by integrating neuroscientific with ethnographic approaches. psychological inquiry: an international journal for the advancement of psychological theory, 24(1), 42-46. retrieved from: http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~immordin/ immordino-yang, h. (2010). cultivating the creative mind. keynote address, our bodies, our minds, our "selves": neurobiological perspectives on creativity conference, utah valley university. usa, retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ubtlgs_j1y&feature=youtu.be&t=1h36m35s immordino-yang (2009). our bodies, our minds, our selves: social neuroscience and its application to education. in s. feifer & g.rattan (eds.), the neuropsychology of emotional disorders. middletown, md: school neuropsychology press. retrieved from: http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~immordin/ kramsch, c. (2000). social discursive constructions of self in l2 learning. in j. p. lantolf (ed.), sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 133-153). oxford university press. lantolf, j. p. & pavlenko, a. (1995). sociocultural theory and second language acquisition. annual review of applied linguistics, 15(1), 108-124. lian, a.b. (2014). avatar. pedagogic tutorial, retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne53xfg1fwg . lian, a.b. (2012). ict, literacy and the lion king. pedagogic tutorial. retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piu5bcurwlg lian, ab. (2008). making our learning environments interactive: a critique of the concept of interaction in second language acquisition studies. in m. mantero (ed.), isls readings in language studies: http://w3.unisa.edu.au/eds/documents/pedagogy.pdf http://w3.unisa.edu.au/eds/documents/pedagogy.pdf http://w3.unisa.edu.au/eds/documents/researching.pps http://w3.unisa.edu.au/eds/documents/researching.pps http://www.mohamedrabeea.com/books/book1_3997.pdf http://www.mohamedrabeea.com/books/book1_3997.pdf http://youtu.be/5bqp0-02xru?t=35m5s http://youtu.be/5bqp0-02xru?t=35m5s http://youtu.be/5bqp0-02xru?t=35m5s http://youtu.be/5bqp0-02xru?t=35m5s http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~immordin/ http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~immordin/ http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~immordin/ http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~immordin/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ubtlgs_j1y&feature=youtu.be&t=1h36m35s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ubtlgs_j1y&feature=youtu.be&t=1h36m35s http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~immordin/ http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~immordin/ http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~immordin/ http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~immordin/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne53xfg1fwg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne53xfg1fwg “new learning” and call: a diy paradigm ania b. lian asiacall online journal vol. 9, 2014 | http://asiacall.info/acoj | issn 1936-9859 a26 language across disciplinary boundaries. (pp. 333-350). st. louis, mo, usa: international society for language studies inc. lian, a-p. (2014). on-demand generation of individualised language learning lessons, journal of science, ho chi minh open university. 1(9), pp. 25-38, retrieved from: http://ljunction.com/linksdb/filemgmt/visit.php?lid=18 . lian, a-p. (2011). reflections on language-learning in the 21st century: the rhizome at work, rangsit journal of arts and sciences 1(1), pp. 5-16, url: http://www.rsu.ac.th/rjas/issues.php?j=1 lian, a-p. (2004). technology-enhanced language learning environments: a rhizomatic approach, in son, j-b. (ed.): computer-assisted language learning: concepts, contexts and practices, new york, iuniverse, pp. 1-20. retrieved from: http://www.andrewlian.com/andrewlian/prowww/apacall_2004/apacall_lian_ap_tell_rhizomatic.pdf lian, a.-p. & lian, a. (1997). the secret of the shao-lin monk: contribution to an intellectual framework for language-learning. on-call, 11 (2), 2-19. retrieved from: http://www.andrewlian.com/andrewlian/prowww/shaolin/psupres2.htm lian, a-p. & c. mestre (1985). goal-directed communicative interaction and macrosimulation. revue de phonétique appliquée (73-75), pp. 185-210. retrieved from http://andrewlian.com/andrewlian/prowww/macrosim.htm . maguire, e. (2014). the neuroscience of memory, friday evening discourses in 2014, the royal institution. retrieved from: http://youtu.be/gdzmnwtlakg?t=40m27s minsky, m. (1981). music, mind, and meaning. computer music journal 5 (3), pp. 8-44. retrieved from http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/musicmindmeaning.html . nunan, d. (2006). task-based language teaching in the asia context: defining ‘task’, conference proceedings: task-based learning in the asian context, asian efl journal, 8(3), pp. 12-18. wolf, m. (2012). the science of the reading brain: implications for instruction. retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_ephyms16q wolf, m. (2011). pleasures and perils of the evolving reading brain, the reader organisation's 'reading for wellbeing conference' in new brighton, wirral. retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwzhn1psc0 . pictures: figure 5 taylor, karen, pitjanjatjari aborigine, snakes at waterhole dreaming in traditional aboriginal dot technique, url: http://www.tribalworks.com/k007_karen_taylor_pitjanjatjari_aboriginal_dot_painting.htm figure 6 symbols and their meaning in aboriginal art website, url: http://www.thanguwa.com/symbols.htm all other images have been sourced from microsoft office images library and are used with permission from microsoft corporation and their partners istock copyright © 2012 http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/en/us/intellectualproperty/permissions/default.aspx#elc examples of applications: text-to-speech, url: http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_example.php speech-to-text, url: http://talktyper.com/ free online english language games, url: https://sites.google.com/site/alumnieducationhub/esl-tricks http://ljunction.com/linksdb/filemgmt/visit.php?lid=18 http://ljunction.com/linksdb/filemgmt/visit.php?lid=18 http://www.andrewlian.com/andrewlian/prowww/shaolin/psupres2.htm http://www.andrewlian.com/andrewlian/prowww/shaolin/psupres2.htm http://andrewlian.com/andrewlian/prowww/macrosim.htm http://andrewlian.com/andrewlian/prowww/macrosim.htm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdzmnwtlakg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdzmnwtlakg http://youtu.be/gdzmnwtlakg?t=40m27s http://youtu.be/gdzmnwtlakg?t=40m27s http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/musicmindmeaning.html http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/musicmindmeaning.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_ephyms16q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_ephyms16q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwzhn1ps-c0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwzhn1ps-c0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwzhn1ps-c0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwzhn1ps-c0 http://www.tribalworks.com/k007_karen_taylor_pitjanjatjari_aboriginal_dot_painting.htm http://www.tribalworks.com/k007_karen_taylor_pitjanjatjari_aboriginal_dot_painting.htm http://www.tribalworks.com/k007_karen_taylor_pitjanjatjari_aboriginal_dot_painting.htm http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/en/us/intellectualproperty/permissions/default.aspx#elc http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/en/us/intellectualproperty/permissions/default.aspx#elc http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_example.php http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_example.php http://talktyper.com/ http://talktyper.com/ http://talktyper.com/ http://talktyper.com/ https://sites.google.com/site/alumnieducationhub/esl-tricks https://sites.google.com/site/alumnieducationhub/esl-tricks https://sites.google.com/site/alumnieducationhub/esl-tricks https://sites.google.com/site/alumnieducationhub/esl-tricks asiacall online journal received: 17/05/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 02/07/2021 vol. 12, no. 4, 2021 accepted: 02/07/2021 pp. 18-29 online: 03/07/2021 18 the challenges of e-learning through microsoft teams for efl students at van lang university in covid-19 tam ly nhat duong1* and nhi huyen uyen nguyen1 1faculty of foreign language, van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam. *corresponding author. email:uyennhi09012000@gmail.com abstract e-learning, which is gradually becoming popular all over the world, is broadly used in higher education. tamm (2019) found that e-learning means the learners use products of technology to acquire knowledge. rouse (2020) defined microsoft teams as software in the office 360 software suite. its notable functions include file sharing, messaging, video calling, and video conferences. in previous research papers, there have been topics related to online learning in covid-19. still, there may be no topic related to a specific software like microsoft teams, so the study will focus only on analyzing the difficulties of efl students at van lang university. at the same time, they take an online course via microsoft teams in covid-19. both quantitative and qualitative methods do the research for 144 efl students in van lang university to find the answer to the problems. one of the most interesting things about the research is the study being done after the outbreak of corona disease; therefore, all the survey participants had to study online. to sum up, this paper is suggested that identifying these challenges may help english teachers and instructors in well-designing teaching methods. that is the reason why they will have a right look at the roles of e-learning, so the result of the research is something worth looking forward to. key words: e-learning, microsoft teams, chanllenges, undergraduates, efl students, covid-19. introduction in the 21st century, with the growth of technological expansion, e-learning, which incorporates technology into teaching, has profoundly affected the education system. distance education or elearning can offer some solutions to overcome the complications of traditional methods, which increases the effectiveness and efficiency of education. about 69.1 percent of chief academic leaders believed that online learning is critical to the long-term strategy (blair, 2012). learning through the internet or e-learning is predicted to play a significant role in the near future of vietnamese education. "young vietnamese nowadays are fully acquainted with the internet and smart devices, and parents are more open to new ideas compared to a decade ago, when the education services and investment jsc (hocmai.vn) was established" (do, 2018, para.2). babson survey research group (2020) study shows that not less than 30% of american high school students join at least an e-learning class. (pra.3). that statistic proves the influence of e-learning in our modern life. dumbauld (2020) said that e-learning has a lower cost. you will save more money rather than paying for school facilities (pra. 4). https://asiacall.info/acoj acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 19 although e-learning can help students’ learning process more efficiently, there are various challenges to overcome while using it. in terms of teaching english, teachers need to acquire technical knowledge and deeply understand the difficulties that students have to face when using e-learning to learn english. nearly half of the participants who have an e-learning course at tehran university of medical sciences had problems accessing the technology (shahmoradi, changizi, mehraeen, jannat, behrooz, and hosseini, 2018). in viet nam, the problem is that students and teachers have difficulty in using e-learning resulting in limited learning opportunities for students (do, 2018). due to corona virus, most of universities and schools in vietnam ran the e-learning program to keep the education moving (pham & vo, 2021). according to tran (2021), microsoft teams is a new tool for university lecturers who had been forced to use it during the critical period of covid-19. at van lang university (vlu), e-learning has been applied in teaching english to efl students during the covid-19 pandemic via microsoft teams. however, most efl students in van lang university struggled with their learning due to a lack of basic computer skills and network problems. lack of human interaction is another example of the disadvantage of e-learning. armstrong (2013) claimed that e-learning could not offer face-to-face interaction for the students like when they are at school. for example, they learn how to make new friends, be patient, compete to be better, and avoid disappointment (pra.4). trent found that whenever students have questions needed to be answered, the instructors cannot be available all time; moreover, emails could be missed for some reason, so it is hard for them to have an in-depth understanding of their lessons (pra. 3). according to a survey of santa clara university in 2019, broderick found that more than 50% of the e-learning learners said that they overvalued the advantages of e-learning (pra. 2). on the contrary, mcwilliams (2019) pointed that the rate of students who do irrelevant activities while joining online courses is higher (pra.4). bastrikin (2020) reported in online education statistics that in 2017, 25% of the total 5.5 million undergraduates join at least one course online, and more than 58% choose to study thoroughly online (pra.1). kumar (2020) claimed that it had been dramatically increased in recent years because of e-learning's low cost, accessibility, and convenience (pra.1). online learning is the future method of education, especially in covid 19 pandemic. learning is an integral part of human life, and the development of the internet has dramatically changed the way people study. news (2015) found that the appearance of information technology and the internet has helped people easier to approve knowledge, a study in better conditions, etc. (para. 2). news (2015) also claimed that nowadays, e-learning affects not only the students but also the employees. more and more companies use e-learning for training their staff. that means e-learning has become essential for both education and business (pra. 9). for these reasons, we can see the significance of e-learning in our modern life. thus, the primary purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges in studying english via microsoft teams that efl students at van lang university have to cope with while learning via microsoft teams software. from that point, english instructors can find solutions to advance their teaching methods and improve the learning and teaching process. acojissn 1936-9859 l.n.t. duong & n. h. u. nguyen vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 20 significant of the study there is no doubt that e-learning has gradually adapted to the syllabus of teaching. it becomes ubiquitous in the education system, especially in teaching english. despite the vast benefits brought out by e-learning, it is a struggle for the student at the same time. the education leaders need to have a deep understanding of the defects of online learning. due to this reason, our research will point out some common challenges that efl students, practically, efl students in van lang university have to deal with when taking online courses via microsoft teams software. each student has different problems when studying online, and teachers will identify the learning difficulties. as a result, the principal, teachers, or instructors can find out the solutions and improve the quality of english teaching through microsoft teams. study scope we decided to choose this topic to find out the difficulties of using the internet in learning. this paper collects the problems students usually cope with and build a survey in ten weeks, including 144 efl students in van lang university who use e-learning. “the challenges of e-learning for efl students at van lang university” is aimed to help students better their distance learning process while a pandemic is taking place. besides, there is some useful information for teachers to examine their teaching styles. literature review e-learning e-learning (electronic learning) has become a breakthrough in education and widely used during the covid 19 pandemics in recent years. it is a term with many different perspectives and understandings. e-learning is to use of web and internet technologies in learning (horton, 2006). another definition of e-learning is that it delivers a learning, training, or education program by electronic means (li, lau, and dharmendran, 2009). additionally, e-learning is defined as a technological conveyed means to support learning (clark & mayer, 2016). in conclusion, the economic times stated that e-learning could be termed as an electronic network-enabled transfer of knowledge and skills, and the delivery of education reaches a large number of recipients at the same or different times. earlier, it was not accepted wholeheartedly as it was assumed that this system lacked the human element required in learning. challenges of e-learning e-learning is bringing students a lot of benefits; nevertheless, this kind of technique has several disadvantages. the students who take online courses may face challenges that they would have never experienced during traditional teaching and learning environment (tsai, 2009). zounek & sudický (2013) said that students might lack sufficient knowledge and skills to use these technologies efficiently to enhance their study experiences. for instance, once a computer framework or network system is down, students immediately get frustrated since they may not be able to follow the lessons. moreover, many learners have struggled to motivate themselves to keep going in a distance learning class. "face-to-face communication with professors, peer-to-peer activities, and strict schedules all work in unison to keep the students from falling off track during acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 21 their studies," as mentioned by tamm (2019). in short, these things above are some of the many challenges that e-learning has to deal with. microsoft teams hubbard & bailey (2018) stated that microsoft teams could be considered as "one supper application that integrates many different apps into one program." according to tsai (2018), microsoft teams offer usefulness that email cannot, including visit rooms and video conferencing. microsoft teams is a chat and collaboration platform designed to provide an easier way for small groups of people to communicate and collaborate (heath, 2019). another definition of microsoft teams is a system that offers chat, meetings, notes, and attachments ("microsoft teams," 2020). by this time, microsoft teams has proved it's useful to the user among the world. previous research studies numerous research studies have been conducted in terms of the microsoft team effect in education. in 2020, research titled "exploring efl students' perception of online learning via microsoft teams: university level in indonesia" was carried out by rojabi and ahmad, r. with twentyeight sixth-semester students at open university (universitas terbuka-upbjj jember). data were collected by using questionnaires through google forms to gain information about the efl students' perception of online learning via microsoft teams. the questionnaires data obtained were analyzed descriptively. they found out that students considered e-learning via microsoft teams as a new and motivating method due to this interaction and learning environment. as a result, it can be easier to access the learning materials. a current study conducted by rababah (2020) with six efl students was chosen using a focus group interview. by using the qualitative method, they expressed their attitudes towards online learning through microsoft teams. there are some benefits and drawbacks are mentioned. convenience, time efficiency, and shared learning materials are three good points. and two negative points were noted as well, technical problems and some specific exercises. alabay (2018) conducted another descriptive survey applied in quantitative method with 21 french prep-class students. the data was gathered through students' exam papers for purposeful sampling. at the end of the study, the results showed that the online learning process at a public university and online exams using microsoft teams software have been more effective and successful than traditional ones. in india, two researchers gohiya and gohiya (2020) conducted a survey for those who participated in online courses through microsoft teams' online platform by filling in the google form. the feedback form consists of mixed questions from the likert scale, yes/no responses to descriptive questions—state medical university designed, validated, collected, and analyzed the data online using microsoft excel. appropriate statistics were applied. they received 2,791 feedbacks from four years, and the results were optimistic. almost all of the students (98%) experienced the learning process on time and felt teachers' friendly and helpful attitude during class. 88% of students were satisfied when discussing lessons online. besides, nearly 80% of students understood the lesson clearly. the teacher's class preparation was excellent in 99% of responses. from 2016 to 2017, research titled "the challenges of e-learning system: higher educational institutions perspective" was carried out by shahmoradi, changizi, mehraeen, bashiri, jannat, and acojissn 1936-9859 l.n.t. duong & n. h. u. nguyen vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 22 hosseini. this study concentrated on investigating the challenges of the e-learning system at tehran university of medical sciences. this paper was a descriptive and cross-sectional one that consisted of 300 students who have an e-learning course at tehran university of medical sciences selected randomly by asking them some questions. spss software was used to analyze the data. according to the study, about half of the participants (40%) had difficulty using the technology, and merely 26.4% of them were familiar with the e-learning system. luaran, samsuri, nadzri, and rom (2014) conducted a research paper to evaluate learners' opinions about the effectiveness of e-learning, know the advantages and disadvantages of elearning, and measure the degree to which learners are exposed to e-learning. specifically, they used the survey research method and surveyed 44 middle school students. the research shows that learners have positive attitudes towards e-learning. besides, they also complain about the negative things about e-learning. the research also proves that even though e-learning develops, the role of an instructor is always the most important. ellis, ginns, and piggott (2009) conducted a study to point out the main aspects of e-learning that will affect students' learning process. they used the survey method in the research. 200 3rd year economics students were participating in answering the questionnaires. they divided the respondents into two groups and had a result that: students with a low evaluation of the directly impacting aspects of e-learning had lower learning outcomes than students who appreciated those aspects, so they concluded that students had different perspectives and approaches to online learning, and their perspectives and approaches decided their learning outcomes. in march 2020, a study – "the challenges and prospects of using e-learning among efl students in bisha university," was conducted by mohammed mohammed nasser hassan ja'ashan. this study concentrated on exploring the challenges that students face in learning english as a foreign language when using the e-learning system at the university of bisha. besides, it investigates whether using e-learning is beneficial to efl students in their learning english to the degree anticipated. there were 36 teaching staff and 261 efl students at the university of bisha english department included in this paper. the researcher developed questionnaires that encompass three domains for both teaching staff and students separately to collect required data for analysis. the findings reveal that the major challenges of e-learning at the university of bisha were such as academic, administrative, and technical challenges regarding e-learning, etc. it also shows that students aware of the conveniences of using e-learning. another research with the title "challenges faced by distance learners to learn the english language at the school of distance education, university sains malaysia," was conducted by sai, lin & belaja (2013). the participants were asked to do the questionnaires, which include three sections about the challenges of learning english via distance learning during their first intensive course lecture. totally 512 students were involved and gave questionnaires. the purpose of this study was to examine the distant students' perspectives about the difficulties that they have to confront in learning english. the result has shown that the most challenging is lack of face-to-face interaction, which leads to limited second language acquisition. in 2016, after three years from their previous research titled "challenges faced by distance learners to learn the english language at the school of distance education, university sains malaysia," sai, lin & belaja continued to release a study named "which aspects of the english language do distance learners find difficult?" in the attempt to explore what aspects of english language that online students found difficult to study through distance learning. this study reported research acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 23 findings on distance learners at the school of distance education (sde), university sains malaysia (usm). 512 students out of 1028 students who took on the jue300 english ii course participated in this survey. in general, the results show that the participants reported confronting most challenges in the aspects of speaking (45%), vocabulary (45.35%), and grammar (41.1%) while learning english via distance learning at sde and usm. besides, the research also stated that their responsibility and hours spent studying english could impact their perceptions and performance. in the case of the sde distance learners, just five audio-recorded lectures were putting in the e-learning gateway, which students can make their own decision to access or not access. research gap in general, these researchers above all point out the advantages of e-learning via microsoft teams outweigh the disadvantages. however, when this method is first applied at vlu university, the students have some difficulties when taking lessons online. some limitations need to be improved to have a better distance learning experience from internet connection to peer interaction or teacher-student interaction and other barriers mentioned in our research. our study is to find out the challenges of e-learning for efl students in vlu university, which clarifies some common difficulties when applied e-learning via microsoft teams in higher education in vn. from our study, van lang university and efl teachers' leaders can identify the challenges of e-learning and the difficulties of efl students. then, it is easy to bring out solutions to help efl students overcome these challenges. research question the following questions will be attempted to answer to meet the aim of this research: 1. what are the technical problems of e-learning via microsoft teams that efl students at van lang university have to deal with? 2. what are the difficulties of efl students at van lang university when joining an elearning course via microsoft teams? methodology data for this study were taken from a survey of 144 third-year efl students at van lang university. the research is conducted in the first semester of the 2020 academic year, meaning that right after the semester which these students have to take an online course because of the corona epidemic. previously, van lang university applied online learning, but it was not popular, and very few students joined the online courses. but because of the sudden epidemic, the students were forced to take online courses to keep up with learning progress, and microsoft teams was used. a passive participation in such courses left students with a lot of experience, and better than anyone else, they cleared the challenges of e-learning through microsoft teams. that is the reason why they are the most suitable for the survey. the questionnaires of the survey belong to the following issues: challenges related to ms teams software, challenges related to the necessary and sufficient conditions for online learning, and other related issues. the questionnaires are given in the form of yes / no questions, multiple-choice questions, and assessment questions. besides, some acojissn 1936-9859 l.n.t. duong & n. h. u. nguyen vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 24 interview questions were randomly selected from among those invited to do the survey. the interview questions related to learners' opinions about the problems they themselves face when they study online through ms teams and the negative aspects of e-learning. the research paper mainly used the quantitative method, 144 respondents would answer simple close-ended questions by choosing one of the available answers. the research was designed to help statistically evaluate the difficulties the van lang university's efl undergraduates face while learning online through ms teams during the covid-19 epidemic. five interviewees answer openended questions with the qualitative method to get their specific thoughts on the given issues. results and discussion the results of the study would be presented in this section. both quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed to respond to the research questions. quantitative analysis table 1: the yes/no questions related to the challenges the efl students faced when they study online. questionnaires yes no other opinions have you participated in an online course via microsoft teams? 97.9% 2.1% do you have the equipment (laptop, personal computer, smartphone, etc.) to study online? 95.8% 4.2% have you ever get trouble with your internet connection when you study online? 89.6% 10.4% do you have any troubles due to lacking computer skills when joining an e-learning course? 85.4% 14.6% have you had to deal with laptop errors, system errors, microsoft teams errors when you study online? 91.7% 8.3% do you think the internet connection in rural areas is not good enough for students to study online? 45.8% 6.2% 47.9% ( not too good, but it is able to study online) is it difficult to contact the teacher and classmate when joining an e-learning course (during the lesson, via email, via social network, etc.)? 68.8% 31.3% do you think that e-learning is easy for you to work in a group? 42.6% 57.4% do you have strong self-motivation when taking part in an e-learning course? 37.5% 62.5% are you disturbed by facebook, instagram, twitter, youtube, etc., during online class? 43.8% 0% 56.3% (just sometimes) is microsoft team difficult to use? 18.8% 20.8% 60.4% (it's not difficult to use, but there are some problems which appear infrequently) is it difficult for you to review the lecture through microsoft teams? 39.6% 60.4% acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 25 as can be seen, table 1 shows the results of a survey of 144 third-year efl students at van lang university. as shown in table 1, in the group of questions related to devices as well as other agents related to ms teams software and learning devices, most of the students (97.9%) said that they had studied using the online form (e-learning), and most of them (95.8%) say they have the necessary equipment for e-learning, so learning tools are not a big problem for efl students at van lang university. 89.6% of the survey respondents admitted that they all had problems with an internet connection while studying online. in addition to the internet connection, many people (91.7%) also encounter problems related to laptop errors, system errors, microsoft teams errors, etc. when studying through e-learning, many students (45.8%) find that the internet connection in rural areas is not good enough to study online, but others (47.9%) think that the connection is not very good, but it is still possible for e-learning. with the question of whether ms teams is difficult to use, the majority of the answers (60.4%) are: it is not difficult to use, but sometimes there will be some problems. most of those surveyed (60.4%) found it easy to review the lessons on ms teams. through the survey above, we can see that the challenges when learning online are mostly related to the internet connection and the errors of the laptop or the ms teams software. the remaining group of questions is of great relevance to the learners themselves. most people (85.4%) agreed that a lack of computer skills is also trouble when learning online. 68.8% of them said that it was difficult to contact lecturers and classmates when studying online. many people (57.4%) also agreed that learning through e-learning on ms teams would be difficult to work in groups. 62.5% of the respondents said that they also have no self-motivation on learning when taking e-learning courses. even 100% of respondents said that they were distracted by other social networking applications such as facebook, youtube, instagram when studying online. it can be seen that the challenges of learning online during the covid-19 pandemic are not only coming from external factors but also from the learners themselves. qualitative analysis interview questions below are the opinions of 48 interviewees: 1. what are the common problems with e-learning through ms teams? most of the answers given by many people are related to external factors such as unstable internet connection affecting the quality of lectures, computer or software failure, power failure, etc. 2. tell us the reasons why you don’t like e-learning? most of the answers to the question are also related to machine problems or internet connection. many people also believed that it will be easy to lose the distractions when learning online, be easily influenced by the things around, and have no motivation to learn. 3. what kind of cheating do you think can be done through e-learning and online testing? the most answered ideas are: learners can ask someone else to do the tests for them or google the answer. 4. what problems do you often encounter when contacting the instructor while studying online? acojissn 1936-9859 l.n.t. duong & n. h. u. nguyen vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 26 the answer most commonly answered is that the instructors respond to emails, text messages very slowly or even not. through the collected answers, it can be determined that most of the survey participants said that the biggest problems of e-learning are related to factors such as internet connection, learning equipment, etc. besides, the issues related to fraud when learning online are also widely commented on. how to communicate effectively with teachers and classmates while studying online is also a problem. since its inception, e-learning has been a hot topic for researchers, so many research papers are on this issue. each research paper will concretize issues related to e-learning. compared with the research assessed above, the research focuses on problems related to learners' challenges when learning through e-learning on ms teams software. the advantages of e-learning and ms teams software are very clear and undeniable, and there have been many topics about their advantages, but there are still few studies on the limitations of e-learning is through ms teams, so this is probably the special feature of this research paper. conclusion through the research paper, we can clearly see the students' challenges when they study online through ms teams. through these statistics, it can be confirmed that the problems of e-learning through ms teams are major challenges that partly prevent the development of e-learning. for elearning to develop well, especially through one of the most popular software, ms teams, it is necessary to recognize its shortcomings. the study has shown that the challenges that learners face stem from two groups of problems: external essentials and problems that come from the learners' own consciousness. to support the development of e-learning beyond finding ways to overcome factors such as internet connection, machine error, software error, it is crucial to improve the learning attitude of learners. the findings of this study supported van et al. (2021) who claimed that utilizing technology in the english language learning classroom would provide a strong potential to enhance english skills for the students. bui et al. (2021) confirmed that using ms team for e-learning is such an evolution in education; however, learning in a group online should be an issue for reconsideration. nguyen (2021) and pham (2021) also asserted that employing technology in the english classrooms would promote better learning outcomes among the students. perhaps it is said that e-learning is the future of education is not wrong. however, to make it come true, it takes a lot of time and investment to solve all the problems that still exist with future research papers. perhaps finding solutions so that e-learning can reach more places and more subjects is also an expected topic. references alabay, s. (2018). classroom experiences with microsoft teams® for foreign language teaching 29. retrieved from https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/ijhar/issue/55202/758263 armstrong, s. (2013, april 5). elearning industry. retrieved october 9, 2020, from elearningindustry.com: https://elearningindustry.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-ofonline-learning bastrikin, a. (2020, april 12). educationdata.org. retrieved october 9, abab2020, from educationdata.org: https://educationdata.org/online-education-statistics blair, b. s. (2013, january 8). babson research study: more than 6.7 million students learning online. babson college. retrieved from acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 27 https://www.babson.edu/about/news-events/babson-announcements/2012-survey-ofonline-learning-results/ broderick, t. (n.d.). oedb. retrieved october 9, 2020, from oedb.org: https://oedb.org/ilibrarian/10-advantages-to-taking-online-classes/ bui, t. x. t., ha, y. n., nguyen, t. b. u., nguyen, v. u. t., & ngo, t. c. t. (2021). a study on collaborative online learning among efl students in van lang university (vlu). asiacall online journal, 12(3), 9-21. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/32 clark, r. c., & mayer, r. e. (2016). e-learning and the science of instruction: proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning (4thed.). hoboken: john wiley & sons. do, m. (2018, april 22). fount of knowledge online. vietnam economic times. retrieved from http://vneconomictimes.com/article/business/fount-of-knowledge-online dumbauld, b. (2020, september 16). straighterline. retrieved october 9, 2020, from straighterline.com: https://www.straighterline.com/blog/34-top-secret-benefits-of-studyingonline/ e -learning during covid 19 pandemic. (2020, may 21). research square. https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-29575/v1 ellis, r. a., ginnsb, p., & piggottc, l. (2009). e-learning in higher education: some key aspects and their relationship to approaches to study. higher education research & development, 28(3), 303-318. retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/07294360902839909?needaccess=true heath, n. (2019). microsoft teams: a cheat sheet. techrepublic. retrieved from https://www.techrepublic.com/article/microsoft-teams-the-smart-persons-guide/ horton, w. (2006). e-learning by design. san francisco: pfeiffer hubbard, m., & bailey, m. j. (2018). mastering microsoft teams: end user guide to practical usage, collaboration, and governance. apress. ja’ashan, m. m. n. h. (2020, march). the challenges and prospects of using e-learning among efl students in bisha university. retrieve from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340089609_the_challenges_and_prospects_of_ using_e-learning_among_efl_students_in_bisha_university kumar, p. (2020, july 18). elearning industry. retrieved october 9, 2020, from elearningindustry.com: https://elearningindustry.com/why-online-learning-is-future-ofeducation li, f.w., lau, r.w., & dharmendran, p. (2009, august). a three-tier profiling framework for adaptive e-learning. international conference on web-based learning. retrieved from https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-03426-8_30 luaran, j. e., samsuri, n. n., nadzri, f. a., & baharen, k. (2014). a study on the student’s perspective on the effectiveness of using. procedia social and behavioral sciences, 123, 139-144. retrieved from https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/277811/1-s2.0s1877042814x00170/1-s2.0-s1877042814014451/main.pdf?x-amz-securitytoken=iqojb3jpz2lux2vjeekacxvzlwvhc3qtmsjhmeucigrfydqlquzeqj09lirb https://www.babson.edu/about/news-events/babson-announcements/2012-survey-of-online-learning-results/ https://www.babson.edu/about/news-events/babson-announcements/2012-survey-of-online-learning-results/ https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/32 http://vneconomictimes.com/article/business/fount-of-knowledge-online https://www.straighterline.com/blog/34-top-secret-benefits-of-studying-online/ https://www.straighterline.com/blog/34-top-secret-benefits-of-studying-online/ https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-29575/v1 https://www.techrepublic.com/article/microsoft-teams-the-smart-persons-guide/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340089609_the_challenges_and_prospects_of_using_e-learning_among_efl_students_in_bisha_university https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340089609_the_challenges_and_prospects_of_using_e-learning_among_efl_students_in_bisha_university https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-03426-8_30 acojissn 1936-9859 l.n.t. duong & n. h. u. nguyen vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 28 s15uyrekxh7%2fyiiqu8%2bbsapuaieawavfdnl088ategvkjc76itk%2bngmtbr qoelukuy microsoft teams. (2020, octorber 16). in wikipedia. retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/microsoft_teams mcwilliams, j. (2019, april 19). pacific standards. retrieved october 9, 2020, from theweek.com: https://theweek.com/articles/830631/downside-online-learning news, f. s. (2015, december 1). medium. retrieved october 9, 2020, from higheredrevolution.com: https://higheredrevolution.com/importance-and-effectiveness-ofe-learning-9513046ed46c nguyen, n. t. t. (2021). a review of the effects of media on foreign language vocabulary acquisition. international journal of tesol & education, 1(1), 30–37. retrieved from http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/5 pham, v. p. h., & vo, n. d. t. (2021). call in asia during covid-19 and models of elearning. proceedings of the 17th international conference of the asia association of computer-assisted language learning (asiacall 2021). vol. 533, pp. 1-10. amsterdam: atlantis press. isbn:978-94-6239-343-1; issn: 2352-5398. doi: https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210226.001 pham, d. t. t. (2021). the effects of audiovisual media on students’ listening skills. international journal of tesol & education, 1(1), 13–21. retrieved from http://ijte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/3 rojabi, a. r. (2019, november 30). exploring efl students’ perception of online learning via microsoft teams: university level in indonesia, english language teaching educational journal, 2020. eric. retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1268365 rababah, l. (2020, september 17). jadara university students’ attitudes towards the use of microsoft teams in learning english as a foreign language. scholink. retrieved from http://www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/sll/article/view/3260 rouse, m. (2020, august). techtarget. retrieved november 27, 2020, from searchunifiedcommunications.techtarget.com: https://searchunifiedcommunications.techtarget.com/definition/microsoft-teams shahmoradi, l., changizi, v ., mehraeen, e., bashiri, a., jannat, b., & hosseini, m. (2018, september 14). the challenges of e-learning system: higher educational institutions perspective. retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc6149121/?fbclid=iwar0etcqntarne1f athljvfqvvhvcjwqradlztk-l5qen5nvlixqqbxg-qzs#__ffn_sectitle sai, g. t. b., lin, a. l. w., & belaja, k. (2013). challenges faced by distance learners to learn the english language at the school of distance education, university sains malaysia. malaysian journal of distance education, 15(1), 43-53. sai, g. t. b., lin, a. l. w., & belaja, k. (2016). which aspects of the english language do distance learners find difficult? turkish online journal of distance education (tojde), 17(3). tamm, s. (2019, december 2019). e-student.org. retrieved october 22, 2020, from estudent.org: https://e-student.org/what-is-e-learning/ tamm, s. (2019, december 21). disadvantages of e-learning. retrieved from https://estudent.org/disadvantages-of-e-learning/#lack-of-communicational-skill-development-inonline-students https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/microsoft_teams http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/5 https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210226.001 http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/3 http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/3 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc6149121/?fbclid=iwar0etcqntarne1fathljvfqvvhvcjwqradlztk-l5qen5nvlixqqbxg-qzs#__ffn_sectitle https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc6149121/?fbclid=iwar0etcqntarne1fathljvfqvvhvcjwqradlztk-l5qen5nvlixqqbxg-qzs#__ffn_sectitle https://e-student.org/disadvantages-of-e-learning/#lack-of-communicational-skill-development-in-online-students https://e-student.org/disadvantages-of-e-learning/#lack-of-communicational-skill-development-in-online-students https://e-student.org/disadvantages-of-e-learning/#lack-of-communicational-skill-development-in-online-students acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 29 trent, a. (2020, october 9). seattlepi. retrieved from education.seattlepi.com: https://education.seattlepi.com/disadvantage-online-learning-communities-1331.html the economic times. (2020). definition of 'e-learning'.education. retrieved from https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/definition/e-learning tran, t. t. m. (2021). microsoft teams in the context of freshmen elf learning. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 12-23. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/22 tsai, m. j. (2009). the model of strategic e-learning: understanding and evaluating student elearning from metacognitive perspectives. educational technology & society, 12(1), 3448. tsai, p. (2018). business chat apps in 2018: top players and adoption plans. spiceworks. retrieved from https://community.spiceworks.com/blog/3157-business-chat-apps-in-2018top-players-and-adoption-plans van, l. k., dang, t. a., pham, d. b. t., vo, t. t. n., & pham, v. p. h. (2021). the effectiveness of using technology in learning english. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 24-40. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/26 zounek, j. sudickys, p. (2013, june). heads in the cloud: pros and cons of online learning. retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311807840_heads_in_the_cloud_pros_and_con s_of_online_learning https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/definition/e-learning https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/22 https://community.spiceworks.com/blog/3157-business-chat-apps-in-2018-top-players-and-adoption-plans https://community.spiceworks.com/blog/3157-business-chat-apps-in-2018-top-players-and-adoption-plans https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/26 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311807840_heads_in_the_cloud_pros_and_cons_of_online_learning https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311807840_heads_in_the_cloud_pros_and_cons_of_online_learning asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nutprapha k. dennis integration of a blended e-learning application for teaching english at a local university in thailand nutprapha k. dennis nootprapa@hotmail.com ubon ratchathani rajabhat university, thailand. abstract educational technology has affected english teaching and learning in thai higher education. the multi-functionality of a learning management system (lms) is integrated in traditional english language classrooms to create a blended e-learning application to enhance students’ learning. to facilitate the importance of teacher preparation for educational technology used, it is important to study the facts influencing teachers in integrating lms into their english classrooms and to explore the opinion from students who learn english by using lms. both qualitative and quantitative approaches were employed in this study. the results showed that 15 of 40 teachers from the english department at ubon ratchathani rajabhat university, thailand used the lms to supplement their english language teaching. most of them used the uploading and sharing documents feature in order to assign students' homework and encouraged students to download learning materials outside the class to practice their english learning skills. it was also found that the lms facilitated student-centered and anytime-anywhere learning. moreover, it made course administration easier and helped reduce the cost and time of delivering instruction. in addition, 200 students were asked questions on using lms, the results showed they had positive opinions toward learning english via an lms. however, there were some disadvantages of using lms in english language teaching such as the network and technical problems which were also discussed in the study. keywords: learning management system, lms, e-learning, blended e-learning, educational technology, english language teaching and learning introduction using technology to teach language skills is not a new concept (sharma & barrett, 2007). however, change and acceptance has been slow to catch on in english language classrooms in thailand. in other parts of the world technology has been integrated into language teaching methodology for decades (dudeney & hockly, 2007) but has met with resistance in some thai schools. even though it is not yet widespread, many thai teachers are beginning to accept technology as a tool to a better teaching and learning experience (yutdhana, 2005). the english department at ubon ratchathani rajabhat university (ubru) has attempted to construct an e-learning system since 2005. unfortunately, the e-learning project was not successfully implemented because of various factors (ubru: annual report, 2008). for example; instructors had limited knowledge on how to use the internet for education and they lacked the understanding of how to operate e-learning systems. an open-source learning management system (lms) was introduced to english instructors at ubru english department, as part of the e-learning project. most of the instructors appeared to be impressed by the capability of the software. the software used to create this online course is called “moodle”. moodle is a free online learning management system (lms) which is particularly good for language teaching. it contains many useful and friendly tools to create and operate courses (cole, 2005). there was a previous study conducted on the benefits of moodle in english classes. the result shows that teachers who use moodle agreed that an online course helped students to learn at their personal convenience and proficiency level (suppasetseree & dennis, 2010). blended learning appears to be the best solution to the challenges of tailoring learning and development to the needs of individuals. it presents an opportunity to integrate the innovative and technological advances offered by online learning with the interaction and participation offered in the best of traditional learning. it can be supported and enhanced by using the intelligence and face-to-face contact mailto:nootprapa@hotmail.com asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nutprapha k. dennis of personal trainers (thorn, 2003). however, to operate a blended learning classroom without an organized approach can end with the failure to deliver the related content between the teaching process and online components of the course. on the other hand with a well-organized blended learning course both teacher and student will earn an enormous benefit by achieving instructional purposes. purpose of the study the purpose of the study was to assess teachers and students’ satisfaction toward blended e-learning application for english classrooms. literature review a. blended learning technology and computers have taken important roles in our personal and professional lives. they have also been playing powerful roles in the classroom. in recent years, most teachers have adopted new language learning technology. they have also mentioned about a richness of materials on the internet that help to enhance students’ language learning experiences (sharma & barrett, 2007). according to claypole (2003), blended learning refers to an integration of a face-to-face classroom section with an appropriate use of technology. the term "technology" covers recent technologies, such as the internet, cd-roms and interactive whiteboards. it also includes the use of computers to communicate, such as chat, e-mail, blog and wikis. the term "blended learning" has been used in the business world for a long time. it refers to a situation where an employee can continue working full time and simultaneously take a training course which uses a web-based platform (sharma, 2007). claypole also mentioned that there were many business companies attracted by the benefits of blended learning because it is a way of saving costs. employees do not need to take time out of work to attend a training, they can work on their course at their own convenience. business companies around the world have changed their in-house training to e-learning systems. they also use complex tools such as learning-management systems (lms) in order to organize the course content. sharma & barrett mentioned that using technology in language teaching can motivate students to learn more, students gain benefits from interactivity exercises and they can redo the exercises as many times as they like until they are satisfied by the results. the scholars also explained that the use of technology outside the language classroom can make learners more autonomous. as learners become used to evaluating and selecting materials, they are able to plan out their own use of web-based materials in their own time. this helps them to become independent learners. moreover, the use of technology can be time saving. creating course materials online for students to access can save the teacher the time and expense of photocopying. a teacher who prepares and saves a lesson in an interactive whiteboard can recycle the lesson with the next group (frendo, 2005). the author argued that a number of important factors exist which will influence the use of technology in language courses. these include attitude, level, the volume and type of teacher training organized, teacher's and students' access to these resources, and cost. the concept of blended learning has become more and more important in second language classrooms (macdonald, 2008; thorne, 2003). sharma and barrett indicated that the key element in blended learning is an appropriate balance of face-to-face teaching and technology use. b. definition, current trends and future directions of blended learning instruction blended learning refers to a language course which combines a face-to-face (f2f) classroom component with an appropriate use of technology. the term "technology" covers a wide range of recent technologies, such as the internet, cd-roms and interactive whiteboards. it also includes the use of computers as a means of communication, such as chat and email, and a number of environments which enable teachers to enrich their courses, such as vles (virtual learning environments), blog and wikis (sharma & barrett, asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nutprapha k. dennis 2007). the scholars also mentioned that the term "blended learning" can be used for a very broad angle of teaching and learning situations. it is commonly applied to a class where all learners meet with the teacher in a face-to-face situation, but include self-study methods such as a cd-rom or access to webbased materials. it is becoming more frequent that technology is always available in the classroom and used when it is appropriate. according to bonk (2002), there are six reasons why english teachers pick blended learning instruction for their courses: 1) pedagogical richness, 2) access to knowledge, 3) social interaction, 4) personal agency, 5) cost effectiveness, and 6) ease of revision. there are many issues related to support and training in blended environments including; 1) increased demand on instructor time, 2) providing learners with technological skills to succeed in both face-to-face and computer-mediated environments and 3) changing organizational culture to accept blended approaches. there is also a requirement to provide professional development for instructors that will be teaching online and face-to-face (hartman, 1999). bonk & graham (2006) made the statement that future learning systems will be differentiated not on whether they blend but rather on how they blend. this question of how to blend face-to-face and computer-mediated instruction effectively is the most important issue that we can consider as we move into the future. the designers of blended learning systems should be looking for the best practice for how to combine instructional strategies in face-to-face and computer-mediated environments that take advantage of the strengths of each environment and avoid their weaknesses. c. reasons to use blended learning system in the english language classroom blended learning is necessary because face-to-face learning and online learning each have their shortcomings. the deficiencies of face-to-face learning include the need for teachers and students to meet at the same time. this mode of learning has lower flexibility and leads to inconsistent learning progress of students. online learning also carries the defect that students might be lost in their cyberspace (mansour & mupinga, 2007). teeley (2007) agreed that blended course design provides flexibility for institutions to engage in face-toface classroom and online learning by providing students with relevant meaningful content while maintaining student-teacher relationships. the strength of a blended course is to increase student performance and retention, giving them more time flexibility, the availability of multiple modes of learning, a deeper sense of community and greater interaction (brunner, 2007). the author suggested that the online environment can provide online projects, online work in groups, small group discussion in synchronous sessions, and virtual field trips and videos. however, most teachers get frustrated in designing online courses because they feel their role is being replaced. the teachers’ role has been changed to facilitator of learning rather than knowledge transferring in blended learning. the literature reflects that each mode of learning have their own advantages and disadvantages. a blended learning approach by using both modes of learning together could take advantage over others and reduce the effect of the disadvantages. research methodology this study is a survey research with both quantitative and qualitative data analysis. the purpose of the study was to assess teachers’ and students’ satisfaction toward a blended e-learning application. a questionnaire was administered to the subjects as well as a semi-structured interview after using the application to learn english. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nutprapha k. dennis the subjects of the study fifteen full-time english language teachers from the english department at ubon ratchathani rajabhat university and 200 undergraduate students were subjects of the study. they were interviewed about the topics relevant to the research study. research design the study was constructed by the researcher in the first semester of the academic year 2012. a blended elearning application for teaching english invented by the researcher was chosen for use in the study. after the application was used by subjects, they were administered a questionnaire and semi-structured interview. research instruments a. blended e-learning application for english classroom the application includes multiple learning and teaching resources for students to download and for teachers to update resources and update the contents. there are two main components in the application: offline & online learning and teaching resources. they consist of a textbook and e-book, classroom lecture online and offline in ppt and pdf formats, audio with listening scripts offline and online, the blended e-learning application user manual offline and online, online exercises. the blended e-learning application platform according to suppasetseree & dennis (2010), the advantages of using moodle in english classrooms are: moodle facilitates student-centered learning, facilitates anytime-anywhere learning, makes course administration easier and helps to reduce the cost and time of delivering instruction. the result of their study revealed that moodle is a free online course management system which is suitable for language teaching and learning. it is a user-friendly tool to create e-learning or a course online for english teachers and it is easy for students to download learning resources. in addition, it was easy for teachers to assign students’ homework and convenient for students to turn in the assignment online. the study also showed that there were several features in the moodle system that helped support and deliver instruction more easily than in a traditional classroom setting. teachers who used moodle agreed that an online course helped students to learn at their personal convenience and proficiency level. students can download learning material or practice the exercises given outside the class to review their study anytime and anywhere they want and receive feedback to show their skills immediately. the conclusion of the study revealed that all the teachers who used moodle in their teaching were satisfied with the results after using it. students also enjoyed using it to help increase their learning levels. moodle features used in the application are listed below. online quizzes: online quizzes allowed learners to take a quiz in different forms such as fill-in-theblank, true/false quizzes and multiple choices. creating and managing course content: related lessons and exercises were uploaded through this feature. online activity such as listening was assigned so that students could visit anytime they wanted to and practice anywhere and anytime. using forums, chat and dialogue: students were assigned to chat or discuss through this channel and topics for discussions were mostly related to their previous lessons. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nutprapha k. dennis assignments & exercises: according to assignments and exercises, embedded glossaries were seen as important for students in their english language learning. if students have sufficient vocabulary, they will be able to understand the learning content. document submission: document submission was seen as necessary for students to submit their work online. this option made it easy for students to submit their assignments. it was also beneficial for teachers to check students’ homework on this channel. class schedule, calendar, bulletin board: schedule was used to notify students of the set activities so that students could plan and prepare themselves before the study time. student grades and scales: students’ grades and scales were used in the area of assessment. students’ grades could be kept in the system as in the application used this function as self-assessment. b. lesson plan in traditional classrooms, most activities rely on the teacher lecturing, asking and answering questions, the use of workbooks and other documents such as quizzes printed out on paper for each individual student. blended e-learning is integrating online learning technology to replace classroom activities which formerly required 100% of the instructors time or workbooks or other printed materials. the blending within the classroom allows the teacher to better manage his or her time and to focus efforts on the students who are having difficulties. if the lesson of the day involves listening and speaking, the class can be moved to a computer lab. this enables students to listen to the audio at their own paces. the teacher can monitor all students and give one-on-one time to students who are having difficulties and allow the other students to progress at their own learning speed. the traditional method would be to use a cd player to play the audio for the entire group and replay as many times as is required for the group to understand. post lesson exercises can be immediately following the lecture. the teacher gets real time feedback and can identify portions of the lesson that need clarification or more understanding. any difficulties students are experiencing can be corrected. this saves time because the teacher does not have to spend time in the next session helping students who could not complete their homework assignments. the inclusion of technology in the classroom does not replace all traditional methods but supports, complements, and enhances the teaching and learning process. c. questionnaire the questionnaire was designed to gather information from the subjects of this study. it was composed of two parts. the first part was about personal information of the subjects. the second part was about the subjects’ satisfaction toward the blended e-learning application. the questionnaire contained twenty-two items. after students read each item, they placed a check mark in the box. a five point rating scale was used for rating students’ satisfaction. they are showed as follows: 5 = strongly agree, 4 = agree, 3= neutral, 2= disagree, 1= strongly disagree d. semi-structured interview the interview involves a researcher orally asking questions for individuals to answer (wilkinson & birmingham, 2003). in other words, interviews traditionally have been conducted face-to-face and oneon-one, with the researcher speaking directly with one interviewee at a time (thomas, 2003). therefore, a semi-structured interview was used in this study. the interview was designed to collect students’ satisfaction after using the blended e-learning application. the purpose of the interview was to collect indepth information. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nutprapha k. dennis data collection and analysis the data obtained from different methods were analyzed and interpreted in two main ways, quantitative and qualitative data analysis. both of the data were analyzed as follows. the statistics used for determining the reliability of the questionnaires were obtained using the spss for the coefficient alpha of the cronbach formula. the questionnaires were analyzed by mean (x) and standard deviation (s.d.). the semi-structured interview was used as qualitative data. content analysis was used to interpret the data obtained from the semi-structured interviews. results of the study the results of the study can be concluded as followed. 1. learning english via the application can save time and cost in traveling to the learning place, and the application is contemporary, learning english via the application is convenient for choosing each lesson to learn, and learning via the application is convenient to review the lesson outside the classroom. 2. learning english via the application has no limit of place you can learn anywhere, and learning english via the application has no limit of time you can learn anytime. 3. learning english via the application helps create an independent learning atmosphere. 4. learning via the application is convenient to download and turn in an assignment. 5. the application is suitable for student-centered learning. 6. learning english via the application is suitable for social conditions and the current economic situation. 7. the application has compatibility of contents and exercises, and the application is suitable for learning english. 8. learning english via the application can help getting academic information from teacher and university quickly, and learning via the application is convenient for students to communicate with teachers and classmates outside the classroom. 9. the application has clear contents on the website. 10. learning english via the application, students can distribute knowledge to classmates more quickly and effectively. 11. learning english via the application helps learner-learner interaction. 12. learning english via the application helps enhance learner-teacher interaction. discussion the results from the questionnaire and interview revealed that students were very satisfied with the blended e-learning. students agreed that they could access the course and the internet several times a week both at school and at home because they owned laptops, personal computers or other communication devices that could access the internet anywhere anytime. this allowed the students to practice the lesson more often and helped them to choose learning on a self-paced basis at their convenience and according to their learning styles. hodell (1997) supported this when he suggested that different learning styles are addressed and facilitated if learning occurs through varied activities. more results from questionnaire showed that the application helped create an independent learning atmosphere which made students feel comfortable and possess a positive motivation to study english. concordantly, uthaikun (2008) explained that students’ opinions on learning english through courseware were good. it was because students could communicate actively in english after learning with the courseware. they also enjoyed using the courseware to do exercises and activities independently. students were also very satisfied with the ease of using the blended e-learning application for learning english because it can be used anytime anywhere and save time and cost for them to traveling to the university when they were not otherwise required to be there. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nutprapha k. dennis according to the interview results, the students had sufficient knowledge and skills to operate a computer and basic learning multimedia which were required for the course. this helped students to focus only on the lessons and not have to worry about the technical system to operate the online course outside the classroom. the working knowledge of computer operations allowed them to learn independently with less teachers’ assistance. students were satisfied with the blended e-learning because they could communicate with their teachers and classmates through the application. this made students feel comfortable to ask questions that they forgot to ask or did not want to ask in the classroom. moreover, they could practice and review exercises and activities by self-learning through the system. furthermore, most students enjoyed learning english through the blended e-learning application such as listening and reading. this was because the application was constructed for students to learn integrated english skills. the multimedia learning tools should be potentially available for students to promote integrated language skills. the teachers should combine methods to integrate skills of language learning; listening, speaking, writing and reading, and to integrate technology into language teaching (teeley, 2007). this indicated that multimedia learning tools such as the blended e-learning application was effective learning tools to promote students to integrate learning skills. conclusion to conclude, the blended e-learning application was a good english learning tool to enhance and promote students to learn english. it promoted students to learn english more actively and independently because those students could interact in the lessons with both audio and graphics. students also received immediate feedback that helped them enjoy autonomous learning more. however, the exercises and activities should be maintained and updated by the teachers for better learning in a future course with a new group of learners. references bonk, c. j. (2002). reflections on blended distributed learning: the armor captains career course. online training in an online world. bloomington, in: courseshare.com. retrieved march 3, 2009, from: http://publicationshare.com. bonk, c. j., & graham, c. r. (2006). the handbook of blended learning: global perspectives, local designs. san francisco, ca. pfeiffer press. bonn, s. (2007). transitioning from traditional to hybrid and online teaching. e-journal, 3(4), 265278. brunner, d., l. (2007). using “hybrid” effectively on christian higher education. christian scholar’s review, vol. 36, 2, p.115. clark, r.c. (2008). e-learning and the science of instruction: proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning. pfeiffer, ltd. usa. claypole, m. (2003). blended learning: new resources for teaching business english. iatefl brighton conference selections. canterbury: iatefl. cole, j. (2005). using moodle: teaching with the popular open source course management system. o’reilly community press. dudeney, g., hockly, n. (2007). how to teach english with technology. pearson education ltd. frendo, e. (2005). how to teach business english. harlow: longman. hartman, j. l. & moskal, p. (1999). a dependent or independent variable? faculty satisfaction in alns paper presented at the sloan summer aln workshops. urbana, il: learning effectiveness and faculty satisfaction. hodell, c. (1997). basics of instructional systems development. alexandria: astd. macdonald, j. (2008). blended learning and online tutoring: planning learner support and activity design (second edition). burlington, vt: gower. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nutprapha k. dennis mansour, b., e. & mupinga, d. m. (2007). students’ positive and negative experiences in hybrid and online classes. college student journal, vol. 41,1; 242. okolo, t. & naidoo, t. (2005). hybrid classrooms & traditional classrooms. retrieved october 1, 2008, from http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/writling/professional/techwrite/2-2/naidoo-okolo/index.html sharma, p., & barrett, b. (2007). blended learning: using technology in and beyond the language classroom. macmillan publishers. sparks, d. (2004). using technology to improve teaching and staff development: an interview with kathleen fulton. journal of staff development, 19, 1, 18-21. suppasetseree, s. (2005). the development of an internet-based instructional system for teaching remedial english first-year university students. ph.d thesis, suranaree university of technology, thailand. suppasetseree, s. & dennis, n. k. (2010). the use of moodle for teaching and learning english at tertiary level in thailand. the international journal of humanities. illinois: common ground publishing llc, usa. teeley, k. h. (2007). designing hybrid web-based courses for accelerated nursing students. educational innovations, vol. 46, 9. thomas, r. m. (2003). blending qualitative & quantitative research approach to language learning. englewood cliffs, hj: prentice hall. thorne, k. (2003). blended learning: how to integrate online and traditional learning. london: logan page publishers. ubru, ubon ratchathani rajabhat university (2007) annual report, 2008. http://www.ubru.ac.th uthaikun, c. (2008). the development of english for communication courseware for thai efl university students. ph.d.thesis, suranaree university of technology, thailand. yutdhana, s. (2005). the development of a teacher-training for model in using the internet for teaching english as a foreign language. ph.d thesis, suranaree university of technology, thailand. http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/writling/professional/techwrite/2-2/naidoo-okolo/index.html http://www.ubru.ac.th/ citation asiacall online journal received: 11/10/20221 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 02/11/2021 vol. 13, no. 1, 2022 accepted: 05/11/2021 pp. 22-39 online: 13/11/2021 citation | hoang, t. t. d., & tran, q. h. (2022). changes in students' experiences and perceptions towards e-learning at hoa sen university during covid-19 pandemic. asiacall online journal, 13(1), 22-39. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.002. changes in students' experiences and perceptions towards e-learning at hoa sen university during covid-19 pandemic hoang to thu dung1, tran quang hai1* 1faculty of international languages and cultures, hoa sen university, vietnam. *correspondence: tran quang hai, hoa sen university, vietnam. e-mail: hai.tranquang@hoasen.edu.vn eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.002 abstract the covid-19 epidemic has had a profound influence on every area of society, particularly on education. for the duration of the epidemic, almost all institutions and universities have switched traditional learning to e-learning as a way of preserving academic continuity. as a result, students' perspectives and experiences with online learning are becoming more relevant, necessitating additional research. the survey was conducted in two phases: in march 2019 (before the covid-19 pandemic) and in july 2020 (during the pandemic). the results were used to evaluate changes in students' views and experiences of e-learning at hoa sen university (after the first covid-19 pandemic). a total of 158 and 214 people were recruited to participate in the first and second phases of the study, respectively. to gather and evaluate data obtained via online questionnaires, several quantitative and qualitative techniques were utilized. the research findings revealed that students had more positive attitudes about studying through online education. in view of the escalating covid-19 epidemic, educators' suggestions were offered to enhance the efficacy of online instruction. keywords: perceptions, experiences, efl students, e-learning 1. introduction many countries have declared the closure of all educational institutions as a result of the outbreak of the new coronavirus illness, which has spread across the world. therefore, operations have been suspended in order to prevent students from getting infected with the virus, which is possible in such a highly socialized setting as the university. according to unesco (2020), 186 countries have already implemented nationwide closures by the end of april 2020, impacting about 73.8 percent of all learners. vietnam's government announced that schools would be closed on march 27, 2020, due to the danger of a pandemic with outbreaks occurring across the nation and throughout the globe. however, to cater to learners' requirements, a non-traditional education model that is fast and efficient has been created (vietnamese government, 2020). universities have moved swiftly to develop online learning http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.002 mailto:hai.tranquang@hoasen.edu.vn http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.002 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 23 programs that use a variety of platforms in order to ensure that students have a consistent learning experience. during the first few months of 2020, covid has directly impacted vietnam's fast and strong transition away from conventional schooling and toward virtual classrooms. this change, however, seems to be a natural progression, especially in light of the technological advances that students have at their disposal. due to the obvious fast development of e-learning, teachers and students are becoming more used to new teaching and learning methods that were previously uncommon in vietnam. suppose virtual teaching is to be established as the new standard in teaching-learning methodology. in that case, it is critical to comprehend learners' views on the approach and to examine learners' tendencies toward it, such as their level of inclusion and suggestions, among other things. the purpose of this study is to assess learners' experiences as well as their attitudes about e-learning at hoa sen university during the outbreak of the pandemic. 2. literature review 2.1 online learning's advantages and applications internet-based learning, often known as electronic learning or e-learning, is a form of distance learning or online education that has long been a component of educational institutions across the globe (bartley & golek, 2004). it has been the most popular field of training in recent years to fulfill learners' requirements because of the covid-19 epidemic. as seen by singh and thurman (2019), e-learning is described as the experience of learners in either synchronous or asynchronous situations using a range of devices (e.g., mobile phones, laptops, and so on) that can connect to the internet. in these settings, students may study and interact with their instructors and other members of their class from any location and at any time of day or night. due to the obvious nature of the synchronous learning environment, students may participate in live lectures, engage in real-time conversations, and get instant feedback. instead of live lectures or actual classrooms, learning material is delivered via a multitude of learning systems and forums in an asynchronous learning environment rather than through a single education model. as a result, there is no immediate way to get feedback (littlefield, 2018). since most of the research compares these two formats to traditional face-to-face learning, hoic-bozic, mornar, and boticki (2009) consider hybrid learning, also known as blended learning, and completely online learning to be the most important popular types of electronic learning. on the other hand, blended learning combines conventional face-to-face classes, virtual classrooms, and collaborative learning via the use of other technology. in addition to its efficacy in education, e-learning may be used as a career development tool. it is cost-effective compared to higher education expenses, and it can offer world-class education for anybody with an internet connection (gratton & stanley, 2009). online learning may also be seen as a tool for using technology to make the teaching-learning process more studentcentered, innovative, and adaptable (singh & thurman, 2019). https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang t. t. dung, tran q. hai vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 24 the learning outcomes of online learners are comparable to or better than those of traditional learners, and students are very satisfied with their online learning experiences (navarro & shoemaker, 2000). according to rovai and jordan (2004), who examined the relationship between students' sentiments of community in the traditional classroom and those in the blended format, students in the combined model had a stronger sense of community than those in the conventional style. after controlling for sample selection bias, researchers found that exam results for students taking the online course were four points higher than those doing it in the traditional format. in this experiment, participants were randomly allocated to either a conventional classroom setting (the control) or a hybrid online learning format that convened once a week and required students to do most of their work online (treatment). the study's findings showed that both groups learned in a comparable way, and that a hybrid course might save money while also boosting productivity over time. there will be more learning gains and cost savings if new online learning tools and software are regularly created and evaluated (harmon & lambrinos, 2006). 2.2 issues arising in the context of online teaching and learning despite the fact that there are a number of tools available for online academic success, they may sometimes create significant difficulties. for example, failures to download files, installation difficulties, login problems, audio/visual problems, and so on are all instances of hurdles and impediments associated with modern technology. students may find online teaching to be boring and uninspiring at certain points during the course. students seldom find the opportunity to engage in online learning since it requires a great deal of time and flexibility. ha and ngo (2021) showed that the stability of the internet connection has a significant impact on the students' listening processes. in addition, online learning suffers from a substantial lack of individual attention. it may be difficult to offer two-way communication to students since they expect it. the learning process might not reach its full potential unless and until students put what they have learnt into practice. online material may sometimes be purely theoretical, making it difficult for learners to put their knowledge into practice and absorb it effectively. course material that is not even up to par with industry standards is also a major source of worry. a lack of a sense of community, technical difficulties, and difficulty understanding educational objectives are among the major obstacles students face while studying online (song et al., 2004). in addition, they were found to be unprepared to combine their work, family, and social lives with their study lives in an online learning environment. furthermore, students are often underprepared for a wide range of e-learning and academic-type abilities in general. when it comes to utilizing learning management systems, students have a low level of preparedness for doing so (parkes et al., 2014). 2.3 studies on experiences and perceptions on e-learning before the pandemic for warner et al. (1998), three factors determine students' readiness for online learning: (1) their interest in learning rather than direct instructional activities; (2) their confidence in using acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 25 telecommunications for learning, including competence and confidence in the internet and digitally used contact; (3) their ability to interact in learning independently. instructors' interactions with them significantly influence students' views of online learning. critical thinking and information processing are facilitated by a stable course design and the opportunity to engage with teachers. as per the greater part of research participants, one of the most helpful elements of online learning experiences was course design (song et al.,2004) students' views of course quality are influenced by the quality of the instructional framework while taking courses over the internet (yang & durrington, 2010). according to huss and eastep (2013), 59 percent of students said tutorials helped them comprehend the technology or topic matter covered in their classes. a few drawbacks of online education were also raised throughout the debate. the absence of a feeling of community and/or emotional isolation, difficulty interacting with other learners, technical problems, and the need of a long-term commitment to learning are all barriers to online learning, according to hara and kling (1999), petrides (2002) and vonderwell (2003). online courses, when well-structured, may be equally as effective as those taught in a traditional classroom (nguyen, 2015). 2.4 research on e-learning experiences and perceptions during the epidemic in response to the rapid development of covid-19, education has been pushed toward a more technological and commercial emphasis. strategies for mitigating the impact of the change on the normal learning process should be implemented in conjunction with it (gurukkal, 2020). with the transition to online learning in higher education, views of higher education need to be reassessed, particularly ideas about institutions and what students should expect from them. it is possible to teach theoretical courses, for example, online. on the other hand, practical courses should be taught face-to-face to guarantee the best possible teaching methods in terms of monitoring and mentoring of students throughout the course. therefore, technological advancements may enable larger classes to be more flexible and customized to the needs of individual students (siripongdee et al., 2020). hebebci et al. (2020) conducted research in turkey to determine what instructors and students felt about the distance education applications of the disease. it was discovered in the research that distance learners struggle to complete group tasks because of a lack of on-campus socialization, as indicated by 42.9 percent of those who took part in the study. a thorough discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of distance learning was conducted by sadeghi (2019), who argued that it provides the advantages of being able to study from anywhere at any time, saving a significant amount of money, eliminating travel, allowing students to choose their own path of study, and saving time. on the downside, there are a number of issues to consider, including a significant risk for distraction due to sophisticated technology, a loss of social connections, and the difficulty of staying in contact with instructors. whether during or after a crisis, online learning is important to the learning process. furthermore, in order for schools and colleges to be successful, the technological infrastructure must be properly maintained in some way (nikdel & fardin, 2020). dhawan (2020) analyzed the benefits, drawbacks, opportunities, and risks that online learning offers. the author showed https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang t. t. dung, tran q. hai vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 26 how the global financial crisis highlights the importance of digital competence in dealing with the crisis and facilitating learning opportunities for students. consequently, schools should educate students on how to utilize computers. another research conducted in malaysia looked at the satisfaction of male and female students who used e-learning portals to complete their studies. there is a significant correlation between user satisfaction and e-learning as a natural consequence. affecting both participants' satisfaction levels is the quality of the e-service and the amount of information provided (shahzad et al., 2020). some of the advantages of online learning are flexibility, ease of access, and a connection between students and instructors. in light of the significance and advantages of online learning, it has been brought to the notice of the public that it is plagued by issues such as data privacy. due to the fact that students access online portals via computers and mobile phones, their personal information is at risk. it is essential that university staff and students be trained on cybersecurity and data privacy issues (luxatia, 2020). in addition, ngo (2021) stated that instructors play a crucial role in the online learning environment. it is conceivable that students' interest in learning will increase if instructors become more adept at using the benefits of the internet to produce more engaging online classes for their students. according to what can be observed in the preceding research, students' perceptions of elearning as well as their experiences or difficulties throughout the course of studying e-learning throughout the pandemic were extensively investigated. on the other hand, these studies often poll learners' views at a certain moment in time; only a small number of research have gone through two or more stages to examine how learners change as they get more acquainted with the learning process. in addition, studies were carried out in the context of various countries' cultures. a two-phase study to investigate the views and experiences of hoa sen university students in the context of the current pandemic outbreak is thus necessary. 2.5 research questions based on the assessment of the literature and the gap in the research, the survey was designed to answer the following research question in order to meet the study's objectives: what are the changes in students' experiences and perceptions of e-learning at hoa sen university during the covid-19 pandemic? 3. methods 3.1 pedagogical setting & participants the data was collected from two separate phases in which the first one was in march 2019 and the second one was implemented in may 2020. in the first phase, the student's understanding of e-learning was still very limited, but in the second phase the students had chances of experiencing e-learning during the pandemic time. in the study, a comparative analysis of the result from the two phases of the study is conducted to examine the effect of covid-19 on the students’ awareness and experience in e-learning. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 27 in the first phase, 230 students were targeted for the study but only 158 students from hoa sen university in ho chi minh city participated in the study. most of the participants were nonenglish major from different levels with different majors. among 158 participants, 65.5% of the students are female, and 34.5% are male. english file, written by christina latham koenig and clive oxenden, is the textbook for the classes, accompanied by a workbook, cds and itools cd-rom. for a whole course, the students have 105 periods, and in a week, the students have 4 sessions of three periods studying in classes with vietnamese teachers and 2 sessions with foreign teachers it was estimated that 214 students from the hoa sen university in ho chi minh city would take part in the research during its second phase. all the participants were not english majors, and they came from a variety of various degree backgrounds and experiences. males outnumbered females, 50.9 percent and 49.1 percent, respectively, among the 214 participants in the study. the materials and the studying periods are the same as in the first phase. for the duration of the epidemic, hoa sen university students were required to study online by accessing the mlearning page on the university's website, where they could get course materials as well as complete homework assignments and quizzes. using the mlearning page's statistical data, instructors assign homework, grade assignments, and evaluate students' progress in class. in order to provide lectures and engage with students directly online, instructors utilize big blue button or google meet to deliver lectures and connect with students. 3.2 design of the study the survey study was utilized as the major research design to uncover students' opinions on elearning. according to check and schutt (2011) and creswell (2014), in a survey study, the participants' views and opinions are investigated through their replies to a set of questions. they also believe that this is the most common use of survey research. as a result, a survey study was the most appropriate design for this research. in this study, the applied research method is used to figure out the students' perceptions on elearning and the problems that the students are facing when studying e-learning by employing accepted theories and principles. the research is of practical use to the current situation when many schools are still in the state of teaching and learning online during the pandemic. applied research is used to deal with a specific case in hoa sen university without the objective of generalizing. in addition, the study is carried out with a mixed research method that involves the method of quantitative and qualitative or paradigm characteristics. the data of the study is a mixture of words, images, and variables. the qualitative data in part 1 and part 2 is nondescriptive, but it can be presented in tables and graphs because it is numerical, and the evidence can be evaluated. the qualitative data in part 3 is non-numerical and cannot be graphed, but it can be descriptive, exploratory to help investigate the reasons why the participants chose the options in part 2 with quantitative data, and it also helps to get a clear understanding of the feeling, the explanations, and the suggestions from participants. https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang t. t. dung, tran q. hai vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 28 3.3 data collection & analysis the questionnaire was the primary tool used in this investigation. questionnaires are widely used to examine attitudes, views, and other factors, according to creswell (2014) and ponto (2015). furthermore, this instrument is useful since it may help the researcher gather a large amount of data in a short amount of time and in both online and offline formats. before collecting data for the project, a pilot study of the questionnaires was conducted with selected hoa sen university students to validate the measurement and make any required modifications. following that, the participants were given a google form with surveys to fill out as part of the data gathering procedure. the objective of the study and some of the more challenging e-learning words in the survey was explained to the participants at the beginning of the google form. the surveys were written in vietnamese using basic structure sentences and were organized into topics for a better comprehension of the non-major english participants. the questionnaire was intended to gather information on the participants' views of e-learning as well as their experience with e-learning at their university both before and after they began studying online. the questionnaire consisted of 28 questions divided into three sections. part one included three questions intended to gather information about the students' backgrounds, and part two contained two items designed to assess the students' perceptions of e-learning. during this section, there were a total of 10 multiple choice questions with four choices for each answer choice. the third section contains 12 questions, each of which has a likert scale with values ranging from 1 to 5 (strongly disagree, disagree, no opinion, agree, strongly agree). this allows students to specify their level of satisfaction with their e-learning at their universities, as well as their level of agreement with each item. in order to get more information on students' experiences with e-learning and their ideas, the three last questions were intended to be open-ended in order to obtain more specifics about their experiences. 4. results/findings and discussion 4.1 results in students’ perceptions of e-learning figure 1. students’ perceptions on e-learning acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 29 1. how necessary is e-learning to you personally? . 2. how effective is e-learning to you personally? 3. how interesting are online courses? 4. how often are you online for self-study? 5. how often do you make your own e-learning plan? very necessary moderately necessary neutral, not sure not necessary at all very useful moderately useful neutral, not sure not useful at all very interesting quite interesting neutral, not sure not interesting the first phase the second phase usually sometimes not often never https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang t. t. dung, tran q. hai vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 30 6. how often do you get motivated to study online? 7. should we change all courses at university into online courses? 8. what learning style do you like when you study online? 9. how often do you feel stressed when you study online at your university? the second phase usually sometimes not often never yes yes, but a few courses neutral, not sure no the first phase the second phase usually sometimes not often never no interaction listen and chat listen, chat and use mic listen, chat, use mic and webcam acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 31 10. is it necessary to have any training from the university for e-learning skills? as can be seen from figure 1, the statistics on students' views of e-learning after being affected by the epidemic showed that the majority of students acknowledged the importance of elearning. more precisely, 76.6 percent agreed that online learning is inessential, while just 1.9 percent disagreed. in comparison to before the epidemic, 63.8 percent agreed, and 3.4 percent disagreed. according to the statistics, there was a rise in views of the importance of e-learning after the pandemic's impact. however, the results are diametrically opposed in terms of perceived efficacy and interest in elearning. 64.5 percent and 63.6 percent agreed on the effectiveness and interest of e-learning, respectively, while just 7 percent and 14.5 percent disagreed. according to the previous statistics, the efficacy and interest in e-learning were greater, with 79.3 percent and 75.8 percent agreeing, respectively, while just 1.7 percent and 5.2 percent disagreeing. although many students agreed that e-learning was necessary, many of them also agreed that it was ineffective. it may be because they are unfamiliar with online learning, are experiencing technical or academic difficulties, or are easily distracted by their surroundings. consequently, they have an impact on the quality of online teaching and learning, as well as the effectiveness of e-learning. furthermore, as compared to prior statistics, fewer participants felt engaged while studying online. we can predict from the situation that they did not have the chance to study their favorite subjects, or they felt pressured with the grades to pass the courses, or they did not have real interactions in person due to physical distance limitations, or the online teaching methods of the teachers could not pique their interest in e-learning. as a result, we should attempt to find out why we should assist and encourage students in the first place. due to their favorable attitudes about the importance of e-learning, a significant percentage of students said that they usually or sometimes had self-study, a study plan, or motivation in elearning. 74.7 percent, 78.5 percent, and 76.1 percent indicated they frequently or sometimes did it, whereas just 7.5 percent, 8.9 percent, and 6.6 percent stated they never did it. there was often sometimes not often never very necessary quite necessary neutral, not sure no https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang t. t. dung, tran q. hai vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 32 a significant difference in the results when compared to the previous data, with just 43.1 percent, 53.5 percent, and 58.6 percent disclosing their repeated behaviors in having self-study, study plan, and motivation, whereas 20.7 percent, 20.7 percent, and 12.1 percent stated they never did it. according to the data, most students have positive views about their studies and a high degree of autonomy in their university's online learning. it is evident that students take online learning at their institutions more seriously than other online courses. in terms of learning methods, 83.2 percent preferred to study online by listening to instructors, chatting in the public box, and using their microphones to respond or ask questions. only 14 percent consented to turn on the camera during class. according to the data, not many students, namely 2.8 percent, preferred to learn online without contact. most students preferred to engage with their instructors and classmates by entering comments in the public chat box or speaking into the microphones. however, not many individuals felt comfortable interacting with others through webcams. it might be because the students want more autonomy in their studies, are introverts or had a high degree of self-taught and self-study ability. therefore, when designing online courses, we should keep this in mind. while asked about e-learning stress, 56.1 percent said they frequently or sometimes felt anxious when taking university online courses. 22.9 percent said they did not often feel worried, and 21 percent said they never felt frightened or stressed. according to the statistics, many students are anxious while studying online via the university platform. perhaps, it is because they have a lot of homework, do not even comprehend the courses, or have internet connection issues, among other things. as a result, in order to discover effective solutions to the issue, we should first determine what is generating the learners' stress. concerning university assistance for online learning abilities, 44.4 percent acknowledged that they required aid from the university to study better with e-learning, 33.2 percent disagreed, and 22.4 percent were indifferent. although hoa sen university offered technological training for e-learning, students still needed more. as a result, the institution should consider offering students certain academic training and a guidebook in online learning abilities. furthermore, the findings revealed the students' preference for e-learning in the future. more precisely, just 20.1 percent agreed to mix conventional learning with e-learning for all courses after the pandemic, and 40.2 percent agreed to combine but only with certain courses, while 28 percent disagreed, and 11.7 percent were indifferent. as a result, we should evaluate whether we want completely online courses or blended courses, as well as how much of each is made up of online courses and face-to-face courses, and which topics may be created in blended courses, and which can only be produced in conventional learning courses. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 33 4.2 results in students’ experiences on e-learning at their universities table 1. students’ experiences and suggestions on e-learning strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree 1. your university provides enough online courses 3.7% 1.4% 14% 30.4% 50.5% 2. you usually spend time on e-learning of hsu 4.2% 6.5% 20.1% 30.4% 38.8% 3. you are satisfied with online teaching method of hsu 3.7% 9.3% 28.5% 36.4% 22% 4.you are satisfied with the quality of elearning programs of hsu 3.7% 9.3% 30.4% 38.8% 17.8% 5. you have many opportunities to interact with teachers when studying online 9.8% 12.1% 27.1% 29.4% 21.5% 6. you have many opportunities to interact with your classmates when studying online. 20.6% 20.6% 28.5% 16.8% 13.6% 7. you have difficulties with technical problems when studying online at hsu. 17.8% 16.8% 28.5% 22% 15% 8. you have difficulties with e-learning skills when studying online at hsu 11.7% 18.2% 37.9% 18.2% 14% 9. hsu provides good internet access to online courses 6.1% 12.6% 42.5% 26.6% 12.1% 10. e-learning helps you improve your study 10.7% 15% 39.3% 22.9% 12.1% 11. you are satisfied with the assessment from online courses. 5.1% 9.3% 36% 29.4% 20.1% 12. you are satisfied with eic online courses 8.9% 5.6% 33.2% 31.3% 21% according to table 1, the study's data analysis solely revealed the students' experiences with elearning at hoa sen university after they had encountered e-learning during the covid https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang t. t. dung, tran q. hai vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 34 epidemic. 80.9 percent of students stated hoa sen university provided a comprehensive variety of online courses. during the epidemic, all courses had to be taught online, as previously stated. online learning has improved; thus, students are spending more time on e-learning, with 69.2 percent reporting that they frequently study online. when queried about the quality of online courses and online teaching techniques, almost 60 percent said they were satisfied with the online teaching quality and instructors' teaching methods. specifically, 56.6 percent agreed with the quality of online programs and 58.4 percent agreed with the online teaching techniques. this indicates that the school's and teachers' efforts have been recognized. regarding classroom contact, 50.9 percent believed they had numerous chances to engage with instructors, but only 30.4 percent said they could communicate with classmates. this is reasonable given the limitations of interaction in online learning. even though the big blue button system includes a breakout room, which is strong support for gathering, the diversity of activities is still restricted. despite the university, it department, and instructors' attempts to assist students, just 37% reported technical problems while studying online. the issues that students encounter may be quite objective, such as their internet connection, learning equipment, and so on, which are beyond our control. in addition, 32.2 percent reported having difficulties with e-learning abilities when studying online at hsu. although the institution supplied students with training and a guidebook prior to studying e-learning, it is still insufficient. it may be said that e-learning was not a difficulty for many pupils. as a result, the institution should focus more on student training to assist them in becoming more acquainted with technology and e-learning abilities. one of the most serious issues in e-learning is the availability of high-quality internet connections. hsu offered excellent internet connections for online courses, according to 38.7 percent of students. 42.5 percent were neutral, with just 18.7 percent disagreeing. it is well acknowledged that during the first epidemic caused by covid 19, the majority of schools and organizations in vietnam were very perplexed during the operating period of remote working. despite hsu's early planning for e-learning before the pandemic, there were still inevitable issues. however, the server infrastructure has been significantly improved, allowing students to experience e-learning better at hsu. in terms of study progress, 35% stated their online learning improved, 39.3% were indifferent, and 25.7% disagreed. this may be seen as a good outcome since the implementation of synchronized online teaching occurs in a short period of time, while learning is a lengthy process. furthermore, e-learning issues are being addressed daily. hopefully, as internet availability and instructional tools increase, kids' academic progress will be viewed positively by them. students were also polled on how satisfied they were with the assessment and evaluation of online courses. 49.5 percent agreed, 36% were indifferent, and 13.3 percent disapproved. although not many students complained about the assessment of online courses, improvements acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 35 in assessment should be explored to please students better. there was also a question to gauge students' happiness with the eic online program, which is a general english curriculum for non-english majors at hoa sen university. more than 52% of students were pleased, 33.2 percent were indifferent, and 14.5 percent disapproved, which was a tremendous encouragement to all instructors at hoa sen university's elt department throughout the period of online teaching. while being asked about the difficulties students often encounter when engaging in e-learning at their institution, almost every participant in the study said that it is very difficult to participate since they cannot communicate with instructors or classmates for clear comprehension. certain of them highlighted facilities that directly impact the e-learning process, such as wi-fi connection, some deactivated features on their pcs or laptops, e-learning system problems, and so on. aside from facility difficulties, most study participants felt that having minimal contact with instructors or classmates hindered them from gaining a clear understanding. furthermore, the participants said that it was difficult to develop working group abilities and gain enthusiasm with e-learning, and it was simple to get sidetracked by the surroundings. the data from the inquiry regarding their discontent with their university's e-learning revealed that technical problems such as internet connection, login error, microphone or camera error, and inefficient group activities were the major thoughts raised by the respondents. with the gathered data on e-learning recommendations, students offered many contributions such as adding support capabilities to mobile phones, updating the server for a better connection, and using mixed learning instead of completely online. furthermore, students want to have greater contact with lecturers as well as more opportunities to work with helpful instructional materials given by instructors. the students also suggested having subtitles for lectures, video recordings after class, and e-learning skills training. they also recommended that the institution avoid online courses with practical topics, as well as decrease the emphasis on grades and the amount of time spent studying online. 4.3 discussion this study's main goal was to look at how students felt about e-learning in general. most respondents chose online courses to stay up with the curriculum because of the covid-19 epidemic's closure, while just 1.9% thought e-learning was essential and inefficient. to go further into this subject, it was necessary to survey respondents about their experiences with online courses. students' views on the usefulness of e-learning shifted following the epidemic, according to our research. foresights into the future of elearning may be found in early research such as those done by gratton and stanley (2009); singh and thurman (2019). participants' rankings of important factors matched earlier findings. nearly all online learning students had positive views about their education and a high level of self-reliance. navarro and shoemaker (2000), as well as singh and thurman (2019), also corroborated this result. most students agreed that student-teacher contact was important. in support of this statement, thompson (2014) published a study in 2014. online programs' success is heavily influenced by students' and teachers' abilities to use computers and the internet. it was in accordance with the findings https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang t. t. dung, tran q. hai vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 36 of song et al. (2004), who found that convenience and flexibility were the main advantages of online courses. respondents said working in collaborative groups was more convenient than having everyone's schedules changed as in a traditional classroom setting, according to petrides (2002). as per poole (2000), students often used their personal computers to obtain course materials since it was the most convenient option for them. online courses should be tailored to meet the needs of the individual student as a result. one of the most important factors in the success of online courses has been interactivity. students' social presence correlated significantly with their overall happiness with the medium, according to shahzad et al. (2020). it is critical to keep online class participants interested by including them in a variety of timely and relevant activities. petrides (2002), vonderwell (2003), and hara and kling (1999) explored the significance of contact frequency in creating online classrooms (2003). participants were also asked for suggestions on how to make online learning more successful. to compete with conventional classrooms on a level with content, connection, recorded videos, and adequate follow-up, online learning environments were compared to those in use. the debate was repeatedly rehashed by the majority of those there. online training thus allows institutions and/or teachers electronic contact, improving comfort and extending educational opportunities for students (warner et al., 1998; hofmann, 2002). colleges may soon switch to a hybrid delivery model in which courses are taught both onand off-campus, in small groups with social distance. in designing and arranging online courses, the findings of this research may be very helpful. as a result of time constraints, the study was limited to students in the elt department. furthermore, in order to keep things short and efficient, we focused only on the views of students and omitted teachers from the research. 5. conclusion in response to attempts to restrict the spread of the new coronavirus, the educational system's contours are changing, with online education becoming the primary method of teaching. universities and institutions are resorting to online platforms to stay up with the curriculum. it might be too early to anticipate how students and teachers will cope with online learning when they find its limitations and reorient to deal with them, but teachers' and students' views and readiness are important variables to consider, which we've tried to record. according to the results of this study, the majority of students had a positive attitude about online education in the aftermath of corona. online learning was found to be beneficial since it provided learners with flexibility and convenience. students preferred material that was well-structured from university mlearning courses. they also emphasized the need for interactive sessions of each course, complete with quizzes and tasks, in order to optimize the learning experience. however, because of technological limitations, delayed response, and the instructor's inability to properly manage it skills, most students perceived online courses to be more uninteresting than conventional classrooms. to make an online course more effective and productive for learners, all of these factors should be considered while designing it. once the covid-19 pandemic has passed, it is probable that educational systems will continue to use online platforms as study acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 37 aids, although in a hybrid manner alongside traditional courses. as a consequence, the findings of this study will be useful in rethinking and reconstructing higher education with online components. references bartley, s. j., & golek, j. h. (2004). evaluating the cost-effectiveness of online and face-toface instruction. educational journal and technology. bowen, w. g., & ithaka, s. (2012). interactive learning online at public universities: evidence from randomized trials. check, j., & schutt, r. k. (2012). research methods in education. thousand oaks, ca: sage. creswell, j. w. (2014). research design: qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches (4th ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage. dhawan, s. (2020). online learning: a panacea in the time of covid-19 crisis. j. educ. technol. syst. 49, 5–22. doi: 10.1177/0047239520934018 gratton-lavoie, c., & stanley, d. (2009). teaching and learning principles of microeconomics online: an empirical assessment. the journal of economic education, 40(1), 3–25. gurukkal, r. (2020). will covid 19 turn higher education into another mode? high. educ. future 7, 89–96. doi: 10.1177/2347631120931606 ha, g.l.,& ngo,t. c. t.(2021). challenges in learning listening comprehension via microsoft teams among english majors at van lang university. international journal of tesol & education, 1(3), pp. 142-175. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11250/ijte.01.03.009 hara, n., & kling, r. (1999). students’ frustrations with a web-based distance education course. first monday, 4(12). harmon, o. r., & lambrinos, j. (2006). online format vs. live mode of instruction: do human capital differences or differences in returns to human capital explain the differences in outcomes?. working papers 2006-07, university of connecticut, department of economics. hofmann, d. w. (2002). internet-based distance learning in higher education. tech and future horizons. merlot journal of online learning and teaching, 11(2), 309–319. hoic-bozic, n., mornar, v., & boticki, i. (2009). a blended learning approach to course design and implementation. eee transactions on education, 52, 19-30. huss, j., & eastep, s. (2013). the perceptions of students toward online learning at a midwestern university: what are students telling us and what are we doing about it?. inquiry in education, 4, 1-21. littlefield j. (2018). the difference between synchronous and asynchronous distance learning. https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang t. t. dung, tran q. hai vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 38 directions, 62(1), 28–32. luxatia (2020). the importance of digital learning spaces during covid-19 and beyond. luxatia international. navarro, p., & shoemaker, j. (2000). performance and perceptions of distance learners in cyberspace. american journal of distance education, 14(2), 15–35. ngo, d. h. (2021). perceptions of efl tertiary students towards the correlation between elearning and learning engagement during the covid-19 pandemic. international journal of tesol & education, 1(3), pp. 235-259. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11250/ijte.01.03.013 nguyen, t. (2015). the effectiveness of online learning: beyond no significant difference nikdel, a., &fardin, m. a. (2020). covid-19 and educational challenges: a review of the benefits of online education. ann. milit. health sci. res. 18:e105778. doi: 10.5812/amh.105778 parkes, m., stein, s., reading, c. (2014). student preparedness for university e-learning environments. the internet and higher education, 25, 10. petrides, l.a. (2002). web-based technologies for distributed (or distance) learning: creating learning-centered educational experiences in the higher education classroom. international journal of instructional media, 29(1), 69 – 77. poole, d. m. (2000). student participation in a discussion-oriented online course: a case study. journal of research on computing in education, 33(2), 162–177. rovai, a. p., & jordan, h. (2004). blended learning and sense of community: a comparative analysis with traditional and fully online graduate courses. the international review of research in open and distance learning, 5(2). sadeghi, m. a. (2019). shift from classroom to distance learning: advantages and limitations. int. j. res. engl. educ. shahzad, a., hassan, r., abdullah, n.i., hussain, a., fareed, m. (2020). covid-19 impact on e-commerce usage: an empirical evidence from malaysian healthcare industry. humanities & social sciences reviews 8(3), 599–609. https://doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2020.8364. singh, v., thurman, a. (2019). how many ways can we define online learning? a systematic literature review of definitions of online learning (1988-2018). american journal of distance education, 33(4), 289–306. siripongdee, k., pimdee, p., and tuntiwongwanich, s. (2020). a blended learning model with iot-based technology: effectively used when the covid-19 pandemic?. j. educ. gift. young sci. 8, 905–917. doi: 10.17478/jegys.698869 hebebci, m. t., bertiz, y., & alan, s. (2020). investigation of views of students and teachers https://doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2020.8364 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 39 on distance education practices during the coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic. international journal of technology in education and science (ijtes), 4(4), 267-282. song, l., singleton, e., hill, j., & koh, m. (2004). improving online learning: student perceptions of useful and challenging characteristics. the internet and higher education, 7(1), 59-70. unesco. (2020). covid-19 educational disruption and response. https://en.unesco.org/ themes/education emergencies/coronavirus-school-closures vietnamese government. (2020). regarding the drastic implementation of the peak wave of covid-19 epidemic prevention and control. https://moh.gov.vn/web/dich-benh/cac-vanban-chi-dao-cuadang-nha-nuoc/-/asset_publisher/zrev3d15xcjb/content/chi-thi-so-15ct-ttg-cua-thutuong-chinh-phu-ve-quyet-liet-thuc-hien-ot-cao-iem-phong-chong-dichcovid-19 vonderwell, s. (2003). an examination of asynchronous communication experiences and perspectives of students in an online course: a case study. internet and higher education, 6, 77 – 90. warner, d., christie, g., & choy, s. (1998). readiness of vet clients for flexible delivery including online learning. brisbane: australian national training authority. yang, y. & durrington, v. (2010). investigation of students’ perceptions of online course quality. international journal on e-learning, 9(3), 341-361. waynesville, nc usa: association for the advancement of computing in education (aace). biodata hoang to thu dung is currently an english lecturer at hoa sen university. she has over 15 years in teaching at universities. she earned her ma in tesol at victoria university in 2011. she also got ba in finance and banking in university of economics ho chi minh city. her academic areas of interest include tesol methodology, business english, e-learning and psychology. tran quang hai is currently a lecturer of english at hoa sen university, vietnam. his accumulated experience from working at various educational institutions has equipped him with ample confidence and skills in language teaching. his interests are virtual communities and teaching learning practices. https://moh.gov.vn/web/dich-benh/cac-van-ban-chi-dao-cuadang-nha-nuoc/-/asset_publisher/zrev3d15xcjb/content/chi-thi-so-15-ct-ttg-cua-thutuong-chinh-phu-ve-quyet-liet-thuc-hien-ot-cao-iem-phong-chong-dich-covid-19 https://moh.gov.vn/web/dich-benh/cac-van-ban-chi-dao-cuadang-nha-nuoc/-/asset_publisher/zrev3d15xcjb/content/chi-thi-so-15-ct-ttg-cua-thutuong-chinh-phu-ve-quyet-liet-thuc-hien-ot-cao-iem-phong-chong-dich-covid-19 https://moh.gov.vn/web/dich-benh/cac-van-ban-chi-dao-cuadang-nha-nuoc/-/asset_publisher/zrev3d15xcjb/content/chi-thi-so-15-ct-ttg-cua-thutuong-chinh-phu-ve-quyet-liet-thuc-hien-ot-cao-iem-phong-chong-dich-covid-19 https://moh.gov.vn/web/dich-benh/cac-van-ban-chi-dao-cuadang-nha-nuoc/-/asset_publisher/zrev3d15xcjb/content/chi-thi-so-15-ct-ttg-cua-thutuong-chinh-phu-ve-quyet-liet-thuc-hien-ot-cao-iem-phong-chong-dich-covid-19 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, kiran s. budhrani and jose l. d. esperitu online vocational education: a philippine experience kiran s. budhrani de la salle university, philippines kiranbudhrani@gmail.com dr. jose lloyd d. espiritu de la salle university, philippines espiritu.lloyd@gmail.com abstract this paper presents the online education model and initial results of the technical education and skills development authority (tesda) online program in the philippines. the program was launched in march 2012, with an attempt for wider reach and to reduce the expenditures incurred by the trainees. to date, tesda offers four online courses with over 40,000 registered users (3,000 from at least 10 countries outside the philippines). tesda's redesigned online education model has two main features: 1) short-term courses are broken down into job-centered micro-courses and 2) center-based skills training now follows a "learn-practice-certify-employ" hybrid approach. current and future developments on the project will also be presented. keywords: blended learning, tech-voc, vocational training, e-learning, adult learning i. the philippine trifocalized education and training system the philippines has a population of more than 93 million people. in fact, it is the 7th most populated asian country and the 12th most populated country in the world. among the 93 million, 25 million are enrolled in some form of education or training across the three sub-sectors in the philippine education system: basic education, mid-level education and higher education. there are 21 million students enrolled in basic education (14 million in elementary and 7 million in secondary level), and 4 million spread across mid-level (1.6 million) and higher education (2.6 million). basic education is managed by department of education (deped). it focuses on the delivery of foundational competencies to prepare persons for higher learning. currently, it covers 6 years of elementary education and 4 years of secondary education. philippine formal basic education subsystem is one of the shortest in the asia pacific with just 10 years of basic schooling compared with 11 to 12 years in other countries. major reforms in this sector is ongoing, particularly the k to 12 program, to increasing the number of years of basic education from 10 to 12 and making kindergarten mandatory. middle level education is managed by the technical education and skills development authority (tesda). it focuses on post-secondary technical-vocational education and training for middle-level learners commonly known as tvet. these learners refer to the following: (1) those who have acquired practical skills and knowledge through formal and non-formal education and training equivalent to at least a secondary education; or (2) skilled workers who have become highly competent in their trade or craft as attested by industry. all middle-level learners go through a certification process as promulgated in the philippine tvet quality framework (ptqf) to evince competency. (tesda ntesdp, 2011) higher education is managed by the commission on higher education (ched). it is responsible in the formulation and implementation of policies, plans and programs for the development and efficient operation of the higher education system in the country. it focuses on baccalaureate degrees, graduate and postgraduate programs and offerings toward developing professionals and high-level manpower. mailto:kiranbudhrani@gmail.com mailto:espiritu.lloyd@gmail.com online vocational education: a philippine experience. asiacall 2012. ho chi minh city, vietnam. nov 16-18, 2012. ii. delivery modes of tvet mid-level education mid-level education or tvet is delivered across the country through a network of public and private institutions through the following modes (tesda ntesdp, 2011): 1. community-based – training delivery is conducted at the local/ community level, mostly in partnership with the local government units (lgus) and the non-government organizations (ngos); any individual of any level or age can join these programs. 2. enterprise-based – training programs are implemented within companies/ firms; individuals are required to be high school graduates to join these programs. 3. center-based – refer to the delivery of training programs by the technical education and skills development authority (tesda) regional, provincial and specialized training centers as well as private training centers; individuals are required to be high school graduates to join these programs. for school year 2010-2011, there were an estimated 1.6 million enrolled in mid-level education where the majority consisting of 882,000 students were enrolled in a tesda training center (figure 1). iii. tesda embraces e-training as a new mode of learning tesda training centers are popular because it is recognized as the authority of tvet in the philippines. being responsible for the overall management and direction of the tvet system, it handles the following major tasks in the country (peano, 2008): 1. direction setting through tvet policies and plans and information; standard setting and systems development in the form of tvet programme registration and accreditation, competency, assessment and certification; and 2. support through scholarships, capacity building, technical assistance and tvet delivery. joining institutions worldwide that are maximizing and harnessing the power of the internet and the use of ict, tesda has identified in its national technical education and skills development plan (ntesdp) of 2011-2016 that it must integrate ict in vocational education: the tesda technology institutions (ttis) and other selected private tvis shall be utilized for the modeling and piloting of training in new and higher technologies. the integration of ict in tvet offers unprecedented opportunities for tvet system to expand its capacity and to enhance and facilitate interaction across geographic distance to achieve greater learning objectives. the development of new broadband communication services and convergence of telecommunication with computers have created numerous possibilities to use a variety of new technology tools for teaching and learning system. figure 1. tvet enrolment by delivery mode asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, kiran s. budhrani and jose l. d. esperitu in 2011, tesda engaged the tvet system in a bold step towards broadening access to tvet by embracing e-training and to enable a blended learning tvet program. it conceptualized the tesda online program as a initiative to reach thousands of filipinos globally through ict. with this, tesda aims to provide more training through technology-driven and technologymanaged learning environments and to improve the teaching and learning process. iv. issues on shifting from classroom training to online with the objective of reaching more trainees, tesda, just like many learning institutions, tapped the power of icts and decided to move training online. to date, tesda offers over 200 courses on 15 sectors (table 1) at its training centers. admission into these courses requires those interested to fill out an application form and undergo pre-assessment. once admitted, trainees attend training at the center to acquire the competencies defined by tesda. typically they follow short-term courses, spanning anywhere from 6 to 24 months. once courses are completed, trainees must pass a performance / trade test and a written exam. after successfully passing the assessments, trainees receive national certificates or ncs. the current admissions-training-certification process was analyzed and key observations surfaced if these courses were to go online: 1. on the course duration short courses that were typically learned in 6-24 months cannot be delivered the same manner if it was online. an online learner will not stay online for 4-8 hours, for 6-24 months. 2. on the training mode with the nature of courses being under tvet program, courses are highly skills oriented. it is expected that trainees will need to practice skills using facilities and specialized equipment available at training centers. 3. on the assessment certification cannot be done online. a performance / trade test is required to prove competency of skills to earn national certificates (nc). v. strategies to design the tesda online program the effort to move tesdas tvet programs online required rethinking of their course delivery, methodology, and redesigning their training model. the following strategies were defined to guide the planning, development, and implementation of the tesda online courses: 1. redesign the educational model to fit online mode figure 2. tesda online program hybrid learning model table 1. tvet sectors online vocational education: a philippine experience. asiacall 2012. ho chi minh city, vietnam. nov 16-18, 2012. research has shown that more successful and effective e-learning programs are those that aim to strengthen content knowledge and not develop new skills. assessing the limitations of e-learning technologies and the nature of tvet courses, it is acknowledge that not all content in the current tesda courses can be placed online. the strategy was to segment the training activities of the student. center-based training will have to apply a hybrid learning environment following a "learnpractice-certify-employ" model where a student admitted into a course learns concepts, theories, and procedures online but practice (in laboratories) and certification will remain at tesda centers. trainees will be able to access content to learn anywhere, anytime as long as they have a computer and internet connection. 2. re-engineer courses to fit jobs taking a very pragmatic approach, the current courses of tesda were reviewed to identify the specific jobs certified graduates of tesda land into. it was clear that today, a tesda course typically prepares one for several jobs – for instance – a graduate of the hotel and restaurant course may land anywhere in waitering, housekeeping, bartending, or valet servicing. the courses are long because the trainee is expected to take all courses to prepare for all jobs. to fit the online delivery mode, courses that are typically 6-24 months long will have to be have to be redesigned and broken down to fit a 2 to 4 week micro-course focused on one job. thus, the trainee trains for the job than for the certificate. with this ladderized design for tvet, many students can work immediately in one job, then purse other online courses while while working. 3. select courses “in-demand” tesda offers over 200 courses at its training centers, but just a few had to be prioritized and selected as pilot courses for the online program. the main criteria for selection was that the course had to be “in demand”. specifically, either the course must have a high number of graduates or the course is currently a popular industry requirement. evaluating tesda’s 2005-2011 tvet statistics (table 2), four courses were identified to work on: consumer electronics servicing, computer hardware servicing, housekeeping, and food & beverage services. electronics was specially selected based on popularity, while the other three were selected based on the high number of graduates. vi. the first philippine massive open online courseware (mooc) for tvet the massive open online courseware or moocs are a more recent form of online course development that emerged from formats that relied on posted resources, lms, and vles. according to moocs are the educational buzzword of 2012 (daniel, 2012). a mooc is a course that is free, open, distributed and supports life-long networked learning. it has course materials, participants, a start and end date; but it is not a school. the mooc is built for a tvet course gr ad uat es consumer electronics servicing 6,9 58 computer hardware servicing 32, 30 2 housekeeping 37, 04 0 food & beverage services 32, 84 1 table 2. tvet course graduate count asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, kiran s. budhrani and jose l. d. esperitu world where information is everywhere, and a click away – a world where internet connection gives access to a large amount of information. the mooc has divided into two types which are known as the cmoocs (connectivist mooc) and the xmoocs (traditional mooc). they are so distinct in pedagogy that it is confusing to designate them by the same term (hill, 2012). the first course carrying the name mooc was offered in 2008. the pedagogical style of the early courses, now called cmoocs, was based on a philosophy of connectivism and networking. by design, cmoocs enables students to acquire new information not only from course material, but from participating with social media (i.e. blogs, twitter) and collaborating with social networks (i.e. posting comments, q&a forums). xmooc cmooc open open free free canned content fragmented content (over the web) centralized discussion forums distributed forums (learner created blogs / microblogs) knowledge transmission and duplication (through videos, courseware) knowledge creation and generation (through social media, web links) behaviorist (mastery, duplication) connectivist (social, collaborative, networked) table 3 comparison of xmooc and cmooc the cmooc is quite distinct from the new wave of xmoocs evolving in 2012 which follow a more behaviorist learning approach. since early 2012, top u.s. universities such as stanford universitiy, mit, harvard and uc berkeley have been offering free, chunked courses through open sites like udacity, edx, and coursera. in september 2012, google offered its first xmooc on its own open-source platform called course builder. by design, xmooc lessons are lectures, chunked into roughly 15-minute video segments launched every week. by comparison (table 3), the cmooc design focuses on knowledge creation and generation among networked learners while the xmooc design focuses on a more traditional learning approach through video presentations, short quizzes and testing. the mooc is one way of learning in a networked world (cornier, 2010) with the power to reach many and provide access to education. tesda has patterned its implementation on xmoocs to provide free, open, online tvet education to anyone, anywhere in the world. the tesda online program is the first philippine massive open online courseware (mooc) for tvet. the mooc runs on moodle at http://www.e-tesda.gov.ph/. students must select a course and register themselves to have access to course content (figure 3). http://www.e-tesda.gov.ph/ online vocational education: a philippine experience. asiacall 2012. ho chi minh city, vietnam. nov 16-18, 2012. figure 3. tesdas mooc through moodle anyone from any part of world can access tesda courses online for free. the contents are accessible for people to read, watch videos and even take quizzes. everyone works in their own space, following their own pace as there is no defined schedule. there is a defined learning path, as indicated by the course outline, but there is no right or wrong way to go through the course. students can choose what they want to do and how they want to participate. if a student wants to jump across topic to see what is ahead, they can. and if a student wants to revisit a video to practice a skill, they can repeat it any number of times. there is no facilitator present to check whether the student read a specific material or took the quiz. although, it is acknowledged that role of facilitator in learning is important, the tesda mooc was designed without any external facilitator in the learning process. rather, the facilitator is infused in the course through the narrated instructional video demonstrations where the facilitator is deemed as the expert who teaches the best techniques for the skill. vii. results from implementation (may – october 2012) the tesda online program was launched may, 2012 with the four pilot courses. data on site access, registration and enrollment were tracked though google analytics. 1. site access from the time of launch to september 28, 2012, there were 161,355 site visits with the top four from the philippines (137,000), saudi arabia (7,200), usa (3,100), and uae (2,500). furthermore, there were 113,007 unique visitors and 1,467,928 page views. 2. registration from the time of launch to november 5, 2012, there were 46,172 registered users, where 3673 were overseas registrants. 3. enrollment table 4 shows the number of students who went through regular enrolled at the tesda center in 2011 and the additional number of students who enrolled online in 2012. in six months, the tesda online program increase enrollment by an average of 11%, reaching 20% more students in computer hardware servicing, 10% more students in room attendant servicing, 7% more students in guest room attendant servicing and 4% more students in cellphone repair. table 4. tesda online program enrollment data (may nov, 2012) asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, kiran s. budhrani and jose l. d. esperitu the increase in enrollment or reach in just six months shows that the tesda online program has much potential towards broadening access to tvet through e-training. it is successful in establishing a new mode of delivery for vocational education as the enrollment numbers continue to increase daily. tesda has identified that top beneficiaries of tvet includes primarily the high school graduates, secondary school leavers (osys), the unemployed, employed but needing upskilling / reskilling, and displaced workers who lost their jobs because of closure of establishments, retrenchment or laying-off. other potential tvet clients include college undergraduates and graduates who want to acquire competencies in different occupational fields and returning overseas filipino workers who decide to discontinue working abroad. vocational training courses improve the employment prospects of these individuals. tesda’s mooc enables a technology-driven and technology-managed learning environment for adult training, accessible not only in the philippines, but to anyone interested in learning tvet for a second chance towards employment. vii. recommendations as for future steps, tesda has identified additional courses to launch online including caregiver, culinary arts and bartending. more work has to be done redesigning courses and creating content for effective online learning. tesda also intends to extend its work from moocs to other information systems such as content management systems, lms, and virtual courseware. references daniel, j. (2012). making sense of moocs: musings in a maze of myth, paradox and possibility. http://blog4222.blogspot.ca/2012/09/making-sense-of-moocs-musings-in-maze.html hill, p. (2012). four barriers that moocs must overcome to build a sustainable model. downloaded from http://mfeldstein.com/four-barriers-that-moocs-must-overcome-to-becomesustainable-model/ peano, s. et.al. (2008). investment in technical vocational education and training (tvet) in the philippines. downloaded from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001804/180405e.pdf (accessed november, 2012) syjuco, a.b. n.d. the philippine technical vocational education and training (tvet) system. downloaded from http://www.tesda.gov.ph/uploads/file/phil%20tvet%20system%20-%20syjuco.pdf (accessed january, 2013) http://blog4222.blogspot.ca/2012/09/making-sense-of-moocs-musings-in-maze.html http://mfeldstein.com/four-barriers-that-moocs-must-overcome-to-become-sustainable-model/ http://mfeldstein.com/four-barriers-that-moocs-must-overcome-to-become-sustainable-model/ http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001804/180405e.pdf http://www.tesda.gov.ph/uploads/file/phil%20tvet%20system%20-%20syjuco.pdf online vocational education: a philippine experience. asiacall 2012. ho chi minh city, vietnam. nov 16-18, 2012. tesda ndesdp. (2011). national technical education and skills development plan of 2011-2016. downloaded from http://www.tesda.gov.ph/uploads/file/lmir2011/july2012/ntesdp%20final%20asofsept12. pdf (accessed january, 2013) tvetipedia. (2010). information on tvet in the philippines. http://www.unevoc.unesco.org/tvetipedia.0.html?&tx_drwiki_pi1%5bkeyword%5d=philippines unesco. (2012). philippine education for all 2015. downloaded from http://planipolis.iiep.unesco.org/upload/philippines/philippines_efa_mda.pdf (accessed november, 2012) http://www.tesda.gov.ph/uploads/file/lmir2011/july2012/ntesdp%20final%20asofsept12.pdf http://www.tesda.gov.ph/uploads/file/lmir2011/july2012/ntesdp%20final%20asofsept12.pdf http://www.unevoc.unesco.org/tvetipedia.0.html?&tx_drwiki_pi1%5bkeyword%5d=philippines http://planipolis.iiep.unesco.org/upload/philippines/philippines_efa_mda.pdf citation asiacall online journal received: 19/10/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 05/12/2021 vol. 13, no.1, 2022 accepted: 12/12/2021 pp. 150-165 online: 17/12/2021 citation | nguyen, t. t., nguyen, d. t., nguyen, d. l. q. k., mai, h. h., le, t. t. x., & dao, n. a. d. (2020). quizlet as a tool for enhancing autonomous learning of english vocabulary. asiacall online journal, 13(1), 150-165. doi: https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj221319 quizlet as a tool for enhancing autonomous learning of english vocabulary nguyen thanh thuy1*, nguyen dinh tri1, nguyen dang le quoc khanh1, mai huy hoang1, le thi thanh xuan1, dao nguyen anh duc1 1 banking university ho chi minh city, faculty of foreign languages, ho chi minh city, vietnam *correspondence: nguyen thanh thuy, banking university ho chi minh city, vietnam. e-mail: nguyenthanhthuy120501@gmail.com doi: https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj221319 abstract l2 vocabulary learning seems to be one of the biggest challenges for many language major students as lexical knowledge involves productive understanding of its many components, including the form, meaning, and application of the terms (nation, 2001). it is, therefore, necessary to find appropriate language education tactics and instruments for the successful and efficient acquisition of this aspect of the l2. among advancements in the field of educational technology, quizlet was invented with the hope that learners could effectively acquire l2 vocabulary in the absence of the teacher. in this study, the researchers want to figure out if quizlet is helpful in assisting students in learning english vocabulary. they would also like to identify the difficulties that learners may encounter when using the application for their self-study. a quantitative survey was conducted on 100 english major freshmen and sophomores at a university in ho chi minh city, vietnam. results reveal that quizlet plays an active role in facilitating self-study of english vocabulary. a remarkable finding is that an application seems to provide an entertaining learning environment, which in turn enhances learning motivation. besides, a couple of limitations of the app, namely distracting ads and limited mobile learning functionality, have also been identified. keywords: quizlet, autonomous learning, english vocabulary 1. introduction 1.1 background of the study nowadays, students are referred to as "digital natives" since they are comfortable with technology, computers, and the internet, as well as video games (prensky, 2001). that has resulted in the necessity of applying information technology (it) to teach and learn. in addition, technology has played an essential role in english teaching and learning for many countries in the world (eady & lockyer, 2013). it has been used to help teachers adjust to activities in class. also, learners enhance the language learning process and improve their skills in a short time by utilizing technology and its services. the learning of vocabulary is a critical element in enhancing knowledge and reading https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj221319 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj221319 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 151 comprehension of a second language (l2). yet, this is perhaps the biggest challenge for many linguistic students because vocabulary knowledge involves a productive understanding of its many components, including the form, meaning, and application of the term (nation, 2001). thanks to the help of quizlet, students may efficiently self-study vocabulary, resulting in significant vocabulary improvements (thi & satomi, 2021). recently, to keep up with the trends and encourage students to approach it, vietnamese teachers have also recommended that students use quizlet to acquire english vocabulary as a better way to learn english. according to rohmatillah research (2014), students faced a lot of difficulties when they learned vocabulary. it is hard to approach quickly in a short time because they have never discovered the drive and excitement to face the challenge of acquiring new english knowledge. finding the most appropriate language education tactics and instruments for effective learning vocabulary is necessary. van et al. (2021) identified that technology could help students learn english productively. besides, knowledge also could learn from technology more easily if they took advantage of its usability. for these reasons, this paper would give students the advantages of utilizing quizlet in developing vocabulary acquisition, especially buh language freshmen and sophomores. it is necessary to give them insights into adopting the quizlet trending learning method. 1.2 research objectives in this study, specific aspects of using quizlet in vocabulary acquisition will be explored. next, the study would figure out if the quizlet application is helpful in assisting students in learning l2. furthermore, we want to identify the difficulties which students can have when they use quizlet. 1.3 significance of the study from the helpfulness and difficulties of using quizlet in acquiring vocabulary and some data collected, we will assess the level of effectiveness when students apply quizlet to learning. to sum up, all of the results in this research might help students, who major in the english language at banking university, make the best of the benefits from quizlet in boosting students’ l2 learning motivation and autonomy. 1.4 research question to fulfill the purpose of the study, the survey sought to answer the following research questions: how do the learners use quizlet for vocabulary? how effectively does quizlet help learners with vocabulary? what are the difficulties when learners use quizlet? https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, t. t. et al. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 152 2. literature review 2.1 general overview of quizlet according to wright (2016), quizlet is a digital flashcards platform that allows users to construct their flashcards and study them through various learning modes. it is one of the most popular flashcards programs, with over fifty million monthly users as well as over four hundred users--generated study sets (matthew, 2019). currently, with different types of learning modes, quizlet gives the student interest in trying out various modes and provides them with 'richer ways' to study (ravipati, 2017). table 1. features of quizlet features description mobile app learn there are three types of tasks: flashcard, multiple-choice item, and typing the required answer. users can personalize this activity by selecting one of the three options. available flashcards users can create their flashcards. it could optionally be added selfexplanation, audio,... digital flashcards can be flipped by mouse clicks or tabs on screens to show definitions or visuals that illustrate the term. available spell after listening to the audio prompts, learners are required to type the words correctly. if the word is spelled incorrectly, the correct answer will be read letter by letter while appearing on the scene. not available write users are given some space to write the definition or meaning of a word learned in ‘flashcards’ functions. available test four types of tests are included: true/false, multiple-choice, matching, and typing the answer. learners can customize this activity. available match learners will join in a game that needs to match keywords to their definitions (or accompanying visuals) as rapidly as possible. when learners complete each question, the app will show the score and rank among other learners. available gravity another game in which the terms emerge on approaching asteroids. before the falling asteroid hits the planet, students must type the corresponding definition of the term. not available live this is a feature that needs four or more people. students will need to connect to http://quizlet.com/live and input the code provided by the teachers. participating in the teacher's activity, students will have to team up to compete with the other group. not available http://quizlet.com/live acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 153 2.2 the effectiveness of quizlet in the acquisition of vocabulary to begin with, motivation may be defined as combining both the desire for language acquisition and the desire to learn the language (gardner, 1985, cited by alizadeh, 2016). many previous studies proved that quizlet could create a motivation to arouse interest in learning from within students' consciousness. according to rezaei et al. (2014), the mode of quizlet activity method was an ideal medium for making students enjoy learning the words. it was indicated that students were motivated to acquire vocabulary when they applied it. some of the interview's findings (anjaniputra & salsabila, 2018) have proved that quizlet provided a new, enjoyable way of vocabulary learning for students due to various features of the application. those aspects provided a fun experience for students to sense a new method of learning. in skattenborg’s research (2020), teachers thought quizlet was effective when they utilized it appropriately. it was good for repetition, motivating pupils, and varying the lessons. students also believed quizlet was motivating and added variety to their learning process. besides motivation, another benefit of quizlet is to promote active learning. active learning consists of short course-related individual or small-group activities that all students in a class were called upon to do, alternating with instructor-led intervals (felder & brent, 2009). thus, to learn vocabulary, only using a motivation to boost up oneself perhaps is not enough. according to many studies, more learners are interested in autonomous learning. these researches indicated that the quizlet application gave learners the freedom to learn on their computers and cellphones (vargas, 2011; barr, 2016; kálecký, 2016); students took advantage of benefit from the "spell section" to enhance their word spelling (vargas, 2011; kálecký, 2016) and students may focus their progress and discover where parts of their vocabulary were lacking (kálecký, 2016). furthermore, korlu & mede (2018) stated that quizlet effectively helped the students' performance and made them more self-governing in learning vocabulary since the design of quizlet was appropriate for autonomous learners. setiawan & wiedarti (2020) also demonstrated that students felt more enthusiastic, did not get bored, and showed a high level of interest when they could self-study vocabulary using the quizlet application. next, quizlet is effective in allowing the students to improve their achievement. among various study modes available in quizlet, franciosi (2017) stated that game-based learning on quizlet could significantly promote english vocabulary acquisition. the research outcome showed that many students held more optimistic views about using quizlet game-based learning platform to build up their toeic vocabulary and exhibited considerably greater confidence in their toeic satisfactory test marks. on the other hand, lees and mcnee (2015) also indicated that students who utilized the quizlet application were more motivated than those who did not. the overall score earned by the user of the application was much greater than that of the non-user. according to chien (2015), students found online vocabulary websites, particularly quizlet, stimulating and useful for vocabulary acquisition. participants in his study also thought that utilizing quizlet boosted their language knowledge. according to korkealehto and siklander (2018), who based their findings on students' diary entries and questionnaire replies, students thought quizlet improved their writing and oral language skills. similarly, nguyen and vo's https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, t. t. et al. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 154 (2021) research participants also improved their language abilities by utilizing english learning applications like quizlet. quizlet may greatly improve academic vocabulary acquisition. students could find the learning experience to be more pleasant and beneficial, which motivated them to spend time studying on their own with quizlet (gilbert, 2016). in addition, sanosi (2018) discovered that by using the quizlet application via a smartphone, students might learn new words themself. in doing the assignments provided in quizlet, both of the study's examinations showed that most students prefer to work independently and confidently with assignments given in the application on their own. 2.3 the challenges in using quizlet although quizlet was a highly rated vocabulary learning platform, at the same time, there were limitations in the user experience. some of its features were only available on the website rather than in mobile apps (dizon, 2016). like wikipedia, quizlet permitted everyone to make and share a study set, so there was no assurance the data was exact. one grammatical mistake in another person's cards could lead them to consider some wrong data, miss inquiries on a test, and get a poor quality they did not anticipate getting (bri, 2019). furthermore, some students appeared distracted while learning vocabulary and were occupied with different applications like instagram and facebook (setiawan & wiedarti, 2020). besides, if students used quizlet's free version, ads would be displayed on each website page (bri, 2019). a few advertisements were barely noticeable; however, they could be oppressive. thus, if students need the best taking-in experience from quizlet, they should pay for extra administrations. in short, this section helped to find out the interplay between quizlet and autonomous student learning and some aspects that have not been clarified in previous research. the researchers explored that quizlet created an attractive environment for students in the acquisition of vocabulary. it provided many functions for students to get hold of vocabulary and boost them to improve their motivation. moreover, students were more interested in using game-based learning than the non-game approach. furthermore, although they were distracted by other platforms, there was no denying the fact that quizlet played a vital role in enhancing learners' autonomy. however, almost all of the studies only focused on one specific group of students, and non-comparison have been made among the different groups. thus, the purpose of this study is to conduct the filling gaps by comparing the result between freshmen and sophomores. in addition, this research is to establish if quizlet can increase the effectiveness of l2 vocabulary learning and assess the experiences of two groups. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 155 3. methods 3.1 pedagogical setting & participants the research subjects included 100 business english-major students in banking university ho chi minh city. the sample of this study was collected from 50 freshmen and 50 sophomores. all of the participants have experienced the english environment of the university. most of the freshmen and sophomores were introduced to quizlet by teachers. however, freshmen were new to it, while sophomores used it for a while. this difference helped the study assess how they apply quizlet in learning vocabulary. thus, the results collected from this sample can show the difference between freshmen and sophomores. 3.2 design of the study this study employed the quantitative research method through the mixture of non-experimental and cross-sectional study designs. due to the nature of the research, the questionnaire was posted on facebook groups and collected answers from participants once. the frequency of usage and attitudes in utilizing the quizlet application were investigated and performed a retrospective based on students’ experiences. the data collection tools were a questionnaire in google forms combining a 5-point likert scale. the content of the questionnaire was based on the research questions in this study and some ideas from the questionnaire of gilbert’s research (2016). we modified and supplemented it to suit the reality of this study. the scale included 11 items related to the motivation and active learning factors affecting freshmen and sophomores’ vocabulary learning habits. on a 5-point likert scale, response options were presented: ranging from strongly disagree, disagree, not sure, agree, and strongly agree. according to the characteristics of this study, quota sampling was applied because of the limited time for primary data collection. the procedure of collecting primary data lasted two weeks. it consisted of finding the general situation of students using quizlet, creating a questionnaire, modifying it in line with the real situation, posting the official questionnaire on the facebook forum to all of the participants, and receiving their responses in a week. https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, t. t. et al. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 156 4. findings and discussions 4.1. research question 1: how do the learners use quizlet for vocabulary? 4.1.1 time table 2. the percentage of the quizlet time usage in freshmen and sophomore year (%) freshmen sophomores under 20 minutes each week from 20 to 40 minutes each week from 40 to 60 minutes each week above 60 minutes each week 37.50 33.33 12.5 16.67 58.18 27.27 9.09 5.46 table 2 illustrates how much time students spent studying vocabulary on quizlet outside of class. the majority of freshmen and sophomores did not use a considerable amount of time for quizlet. based on figure 1, 37.5% of the freshmen and 58.2% of the sophomores spent less than 20 minutes each week. the percentage of sophomores increases by 20.7% percent more than freshmen. notably, in the "20 to 40 minutes per week" and "40 to 60 minutes per week" average segments, the percentage of first-year students is also 6% higher than second-year students by 6% and 3.4%. in addition, a few of the students used more than one hour a week to study vocabulary, especially the sophomore (freshman =16.7% and sophomore= 5.5%). these findings show that most of the students in this study used quizlet as a support mechanism for vocabulary development in addition to traditional learning methods, which is similar to the results found by burston (2014). to explain why first-year students spend more time than second-year students, nakata (2006) demonstrated that freshmen want to increase their motivation to learn and achieve. thus, they improved their learning experience and the extent to which they remember what they have learned. however, the percentage shows that students have not yet chosen quizlet as a habit to learn every day. besides, they may spend their time on other works outside class. the evidence is the decreasing number of freshmen and sophomores studying from 20 to 40 minutes, 40 to 60 minutes, and above 60 minutes per week. the reason for this was explained logically by jogja english teachers association (2018). they also found some activities that make students have no time to learn outside class, such as doing assignments, part-time jobs, and doing house chores. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 157 4.1.2 function table 3. the percentage of the quizlet functions usage of freshmen and sophomores (%) freshmen sophomores flashcards learn test spell match live 33.33 20 20 14.67 9.33 2.67 37.08 16.85 20.22 8.43 14.5 3.37 first, based on the data, the flashcard rate is over 30%, but the live rate is below 4%. in particular, the rate of flashcard usage in the freshmen year is 33.33% and in the sophomore year is 37.1%, which is the highest percentage of quizlet functions mentioned in the survey. in contrast, live is the least chosen, with 2.7% in the freshman year and 3.4% in the sophomore year. besides, there is a difference between the two research subjects in match and spell. firstyear students like using spell, but second-year students are interested in match. according to the survey, students are interested in flashcards more than other functions. flashcard allows students to create a new study set every time they like easily. thus, the figures show freshman and sophomore students tend to set up flashcards to learn vocabulary because of their essential capability. in addition, the customization of flashcards helps students learn vocabulary that is not only requested by teachers but also requested by themselves. that is true with agung ginanjar anjaniputra & vina aini salsabila analysis (2018) about the benefits of flashcard. for the live function, the reason why the lowest percentage in both years is that students must pay money to use it. most of the time, students only use live in the classroom when their teacher creates live game-based and gives the code to participants. however, the specific explanation for this has not been discovered in previous studies yet. finally, there is a difference between the percentage of students who use match and spell. spell function is used more among freshmen students because they do not have specialized vocabulary background, even if they don't know those words before. when using spell, quizlet helps them practice pronunciation and memorize vocabulary quickly. students only touch the screen and match possible words and meanings together regarding the match function. this function is both easy to use and saves time in line with the point of view that hougham (2019) demonstrated. thus match is more suitable for students with a vocabulary background as sophomore students. hence, from these findings, quizlet functions can all help students acquire vocabulary effectively. based on the results, most freshmen and sophomores tend to use flashcards more than other functions because of the ease and convenience it brings. https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, t. t. et al. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 158 4.2. research question 2: how effectively does quizlet help learners with vocabulary? 4.2.1 motivation figure 1. the mean value of students motivation in using quizlet based on the survey, it is found that the lowest mean score of both groups was the same item (quizlet motivates me to spend more time learning vocabulary). in detail, the mean value is quite the same (m1=3.68, m2=3.48), which is at a moderate level. it indicates that most of the freshmen and sophomores did not spend much time using quizlet to learn vocabulary. however, it is found that the motivation which quizlet has brought back can not be denied, which is shown through the other items. the statement "quizlet enhances my competence through group work activities in class" has the highest mean score from both groups (m1=4.06, m2=4.08). this can be considered that quizlet is helpful in learning vocabulary and helps enhance students' learning performance and competitiveness, especially the live function on the quizlet application. normal lessons in class will become more exciting with quizlet digital games. in forsythe's study (2016), he had applied quizlet live to his lessons and asked for the students' feedback. as expected, his students commented that they really enjoyed the game, and above all, quizlet live certainly helped them with vocabulary acquisition. moreover, quizlet live can motivate students to consider autonomous study as a way to prepare for the game and, through that, increase the effectiveness of their classroom participation (sophia, 2016). in general, the mean score of the survey is at a moderate to high level of approval. (3<m<5). this somehow indicates the effectiveness of quizlet on motivating vocabulary acquisition of acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 159 freshmen and sophomores at banking university. 4.2.2 active learning figure 2. the means value of students' initiative in using quizlet figure 2 compares the mean values in terms of each criterion to clarify the freshmen and sophomore differences. in particular, the statement "quizlet enhances my competence through group work activities in class" has the highest level of agreement with m1= 3.96 and m2 = 4.02. based on appendix 2, 82% of freshmen and 72% of sophomores tend to actively search for another vocabulary related to the lesson through the quizlet app. the findings demonstrate the effect of quizlet on students' learning, especially in increasing competitiveness. in addition, as the motivation section mentioned, freshmen and sophomores are motivated to get higher scores in competition in class, so both consciously enlarge their vocabulary to have plus-point in class. the findings are quite similar to gilbert's (2016) research. using quizlet becomes a useful strategy to motivate studying l2 vocabulary, as shown by the important gains the students want to achieve on their scores. although the percentage of sophomores looking up other new words is higher than that of freshmen, there is no big difference in this ratio. next, item two, "i track my progress for reaching my goal by the percentage of completing vocabulary," got the second-highest score with the exact means m1 = 3.68 and m2 = 3.42. this figure shows that students can detect how much they lack knowledge about that topic and have a direction to adjust their way of learning. students are accustomed to using technologies in learning vocabulary, so applying quizlet becomes an easy and exciting method. that has been https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, t. t. et al. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 160 demonstrated in kálecký's (2016) and sanosi's (2018) study. moreover, thanks to the motivations and benefits that quizlet provides, the freshmen and sophomore students viewed the use of flashcards in acquiring vocabulary positively outside class. as figure 2 mentioned, flashcard is the most chosen function, so the mean results show that students were quite fond of creating flashcards with the value m1= 3.46 and m2= 3.5. it showed flashcard as a way to promote and develop learner-centered learning environments. these results demonstrate that most of the students in this study made an effort to take advantage of the benefits of the flashcard function to improve their memory and review vocabulary better. it is similar to the research shown by burston (2014) and taylor & francis study (2020). as a result, according to the results, it is clear that the students perceived quizlet to be beneficial in terms of their l2 development. most of the figures about the level of motivation and active learning show a concurrence trend. that proves that quizlet creates a fun environment that motivates the freshmen and sophomore students in vocabulary acquisition. thanks to those motivations, students are aware of the importance of expanding their knowledge and always actively spend time promoting self-study outside of class time. 4.2.3 outcome figure 3. the mean value of student’s outcome after using quizlet according to the survey, both freshmen and sophomores have admitted that they can better memorize vocabulary with quizlet. this has been demonstrated by the high level of approval of the two items "quizlet helped me improve my vocabulary." (m1=3.86, m2=3.7) and "quizlet helps me to remember vocabulary better." (m1=3.92, m2=3.7). this result can be explained by acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 161 various features of quizlet, which provides an updated, enjoyable and effective way of vocabulary learning for students (anjaniputra, 2018). 4.3. research question 3: what are the difficulties when learners use quizlet? although quizlet is perceived as a good tool, there are still limitations and imperfections. when students were asked about difficulties in using quizlet, the two most frequent answers were features limited in quizlet mobile and being distracted by ads and social media. with more than 40% of choices from the sample, advertising and social media become a barrier to affect the freshmen and sophomore students. this finding indicates that it is difficult for them to turn off notifications from social networking applications or ignore promotional purchase ads from floating e-commerce platforms on the learning platform. this is the same with setiawan & wiedarti's study (2020) because it also demonstrates students can be quickly distracted when they study quizlet vocabulary. furthermore, 33% of freshmen and 30% of sophomore students were also disappointed that the app offers fewer features on mobile. eight learning modes are available in the website application interfaces. however, only five are offered in the mobile application interface (sanosi, 2018). with this finding, students might have difficulty applying all the functions to learn vocabulary at the same time though the mobile phone is a useful device that can be brought everywhere. the least selected difficulty is the information and knowledge containing errors (freshmen= 10% and sophomore= 9%). the percentage shows that vocabulary sets on quizlet have good reliability. this is not the same view as setiawan & wiedarti's study (2020) that students may learn some of the incorrect or ambiguous word meanings. although students can not be immune to the wrong learning materials, this only happens with self-study students. thus, students could access materials that their teachers have prepared on quizlet. in the second-year survey, there are two other difficulties mentioned. "quizlet does not have strict rules to use its features well" and "create vocabulary cards with sounds for extra money." however, the main reason that hinders the learning process of the freshmen and sophomore students is being distracted by pop-up ads, social networks, and limited mobile learning functionality. to sum up, students need to practice self-control or set study times to control distractions. besides, students can spend time learning on the computer to use the quizlet functions fully, and signing up for quizlet go is a way to handle annoying ads on this application. https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, t. t. et al. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 162 table 4. the percentage of difficulties in using quizlet items freshmen sophomores distracted by ads or social media (facebook, instagram...) quizlet mobile does not have some features as on the website limitation in providing learning information materials definitions of some words are inaccurate others 42% 33% 15% 10% 0 % 41% 30% 17% 9% 3%* * others: "quizlet does not have strict rules to use its features well." "create vocabulary cards with sounds for extra money." 5. conclusion based on the finding, quizlet could help students improve their vocabulary so that they can have enough motivation and have an interest in vocabulary learning. besides, it becomes an effective application for them by assisting students in approaching new words or assessing their learning progress. however, some limitations need to be solved, such as the less usage time of students each week, distracting ads and social media, or some paid functions. from these problems, the authors of this research can put forward some potential solutions for schools, lecturers, and students. school directors expressed that they indicated quite high intentions to assist lectures and non-commercial activities of their students and teachers (geuens, de pelsmacker & mast, 2002). thus, by sponsoring quizlet packages or purchasing sharable accounts, schools can help many students approach quizlet functions. full access to quizlet plus might pique students' curiosity and interest. it might encourage them to use and experience. students would enjoy and desire the study method of quizlet. next, lecturers should have more recommendations about quizlet or give students homework on quizlet. this way, students can effectively exploit the benefits of quizlet and increase time for study (gilbert 2016). due to the interest and support from school and lecturers for students to effectively exploit the benefits of quizlet and increase time for study, this habit would increase the time students actively learn vocabulary and improve their english skills. students who have good study habits will know how to build their learning plan and self-study as they devised (julius & evans, 2015). although this study revealed positive results, it is not without its shortcomings. first, because of the impact of the pandemic, the survey had to collect samples online and was limited to 100 english first year and second-year students. this limitation made the results less general. also, this study focused on students who major in the english language at banking university ho chi minh city, so these results cannot be applied to students of any majors or schools. lastly, it would be interesting if a future study looked at the differences between general vocabulary and specific vocabulary; consequently, the results only indicated the quizlet effectiveness to acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 163 general vocabulary. it would be worthwhile if future studies compare this difference and expand the research object to get more data for further analysis on vocabulary acquisition. acknowledgement we deeply appreciate the insightful comments of ms. dao nguyen anh duc – our mentor and lecturer of the faculty of foreign languages of banking university, ho chi minh city, on our earliest drafts and whole study. and we wish to thank her support during the process of our work and participation in the conference. references anjaniputra, a. g., & salsabila, v. a. (2018). the merits of quizlet for vocabulary learning at tertiary level. indonesian efl journal, 4(2), 1-11. doi: 10.25134/ieflj. v4i2.1370. barr, b. (2016). checking the effectiveness of quizlet as a tool for vocabulary learning. the center for elf journal 31, 36–48. doi:10.15045/elf_0020104. bri, s. (2019). pros and cons of using a quizlet in your classroom. retrieved july 23, 2019, from https://www.aeseducation.com/blog/quizlet-pros-cons dizon, g. (2016). quizlet in the efl classroom: enhancing academic vocabulary acquisition of japanese university students. teaching english with technology, 16(2), 40-56. retrieved from http://www.tewtjournal.org eady, m. j., & lockyer, l. (2013). tools for learning: technology and teaching strategies: learning to teach in the primary school. queensland university of technology, australia, 71-89. retrieved from https://scholars.uow.edu.au/display/publication76376 franciosi, s. j. (2017). the effect of computer game-based learning on fl vocabulary transferability. educational technology & society, 20 (1), 123–133. geuens, m., de pelsmacker, p., & mast, g. (2002). attitudes of school directors towards in‐ school marketing: an exploratory study. young consumers, 3(3), 57–67. https://doi.org/10.1108/17473610210813547 hakan, k. & enisa, m. (2018). autonomy in vocabulary learning of turkish efl learners. the eurocall review, 26(2), 58 – 70. julius, m., & evans, a. s. (2015). study of the relationship between study habits and academic achievement of students: a case of spicer higher secondary school, india. international journal of educational administration and policy studies, 7(7), 134–141. https://doi.org/10.5897/ijeaps2015.0404 kalecky, r. (2016). quizlet vs. vocabulary notebook: the impact of different methods of storing and revising vocabulary on students’ progress. retention and autonomy. unpublished master's thesis, masaryk university. retrieved from https://is.muni.cz/th/qzvxl/roman_kalecky_-_quizlet_vs.pdf https://www.aeseducation.com/blog/quizlet-pros-cons http://www.tewtjournal.org/ https://scholars.uow.edu.au/display/publication76376 https://doi.org/10.1108/17473610210813547 https://doi.org/10.5897/ijeaps2015.0404 https://is.muni.cz/th/qzvxl/roman_kalecky_-_quizlet_vs.pdf https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, t. t. et al. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 164 lees, d., & mcnee, g. (2015). effects and impressions of digital vocabulary-learning vs. paperbased. humanities review, 20, 143-164. matthew, g. (2019). celebrating 2019 and quizlet’s impact. retrieved december 13, 2019 from https://quizlet.com/blog/2019-impact-report nadezhda v. b., larisa l. z., irina g. a., lidia, e. m. & alexander, v. c. (2019). media promotion role of economic vocabulary: specific features and functions in presentation and advertisement. online journal of communication and media technologies, 9(2), e201907. nguyen, t. n. q., & vo, n. t. t. (2021). the need of applying english learning apps to helpvan lang university students improve their spoken english performance. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 72-86. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/33/22 prensky, m. (2001). digital natives, digital immigrants part 1. on the horizon 9, 1-6. rezaei, a., mai, n., & a., p. (2014). the effect of mobile applications on english vocabulary acquisition. jurnal teknologi (sciences & engineering), 68(2), 73-83. richard, m. f., & rebecca, b. (2009). active learning: an introduction. retrieved from https://www.engr.ncsu.edu/stem-resources/legacy-site/education-related-papers/activelearning-introduction/ ryan, r. m., & deci, e. l. (2000b). self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. american psychologists, 55(1), 68-78. sanosi, a. b. (2018). the effect of quizlet on vocabulary acquisition. asian journal of education and e-learning, 6(4), 71-77. setiawan, m. r., & wiedarti, p. (2020). the effectiveness of quizlet application towards students’ motivation in learning vocabulary. studies in english language and education, 7(1), 83-95. doi:10.24815/siele.v7i1.15359 skattenborg, v. (2020). using quizlet for vocabulary learning-is quizlet more effective and motivating than non-digital methods? (master's thesis). retrieved from https://hiof.brage.unit.no/hiofxmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/2723664/skattenborg_vibeke.pdf?sequence=1 sri, r. (2017). new quizlet feature lets students customize study materials with pictures. retrieved from https://thejournal.com/articles/2017/08/24/new-quizlet-feature-letsstudents-customize-study-materials-with-pictures van, l. k., dang, t. a., pham, d. b. t., vo, t. t. n., & pham, v. p. h. (2021). the effectiveness of using technology in learning english. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 24-40. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/26 https://quizlet.com/blog/2019-impact-report https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/33/22 https://www.engr.ncsu.edu/stem-resources/legacy-site/education-related-papers/active-learning-introduction/ https://www.engr.ncsu.edu/stem-resources/legacy-site/education-related-papers/active-learning-introduction/ https://hiof.brage.unit.no/hiof-xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/2723664/skattenborg_vibeke.pdf?sequence=1 https://hiof.brage.unit.no/hiof-xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/2723664/skattenborg_vibeke.pdf?sequence=1 https://thejournal.com/articles/2017/08/24/new-quizlet-feature-lets-students-customize-study-materials-with-pictures https://thejournal.com/articles/2017/08/24/new-quizlet-feature-lets-students-customize-study-materials-with-pictures https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/26 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 165 vargas, j. (2011). modern learning: quizlet in the social studies classroom. unpublished master's thesis, wichita state university. wright, b.a. (2016). transforming vocabulary learning with quizlet. in p. clements, a. krause, & h. brown (eds.), transformation in language education. tokyo: jalt. biodata nguyen thanh thuy is currently a junior of business english at banking university of ho chi minh city, vietnam. her field of interest is english learning methods, so she chose the topic related to it application in english learning to present at the conference. this is a great opportunity for her to learn new things and experiment through this event. nguyen dinh tri is a junior majoring in the english language at banking university ho chi minh city. to be honest, this is the first research that he has finished and this also is the first time that he has taken part in such an international conference. he hopes that the conference can help him improve himself and develop new skills. nguyen dang le quoc khanh is a junior at banking university in ho chi minh city, specializing in english. he has a passion for learning languages. he really wants to become multilingual. honestly, this is the first time he has completed a research project, and it is also the first time he has attended an international conference. he sincerely believes that the conference can widen his horizons. same with other members, mai huy hoang is a banking university ho chi minh city's junior. he is following a bachelor's program in business english. he has used his skills in reading and writing to participate in this study. this is his first research in the study program. le thi thanh xuan is currently a junior at banking university in ho chi minh city, vietnam. to be honest, she is in charge of learning business english in accordance with her college's program. this is her first time conducting research at university. citation asiacall online journal received: 18/10/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 08/04/2022 vol. 13, no. 2, 2022 accepted: 27/04/2022 pp. 60-71 online: 28/04/2022 citation | pham, t. t. t., & ha, h. n. (2022). cultural groups of words in efl coursebooks and pedagogical implications. asiacall online journal, 13(2), 60-71. doi: https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221324 cultural groups of words in efl coursebooks and pedagogical implications pham thi thanh thuy1*, ha hong nga1 1 hanoi national university of education, viet nam * correspondence: pham thi thanh thuy, hanoi national university of education, viet nam. email: phamthanhthuy09@gmail.com * https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0184-1544 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221324 abstract vocabulary seems to be a high mountain to climb for language learners. cultural words are among the enormous range of vocabulary on diverse topics. as far as this study is concerned, the structure and meaning of cultural groups of words in selected efl course books are explained and analyzed; after that, pedagogical implications are recommended for learning these words. the key research methods include describing and analyzing the structure and meaning of cultural words in efl coursebooks. findings revealed that cultural words in selected efl coursebooks possessed several distinctive features of structure and meaning. at the end of the study, several pedagogical implications in online english teaching and learning were proposed. keywords: cultural words, efl course books, structure, meaning, pedagogical implications 1. introduction english vocabulary is a focus for learners during acquiring the language. cultural words are among the common wide range of vocabulary to memorize frequently. this special type of word needs proper concern by both language teachers and learners. it can be recognized that there have not been many studies conducted on the structure and meaning of english cultural words. hence, within the research paper, the authors would like to describe and analyze this issue of english cultural words from selected efl coursebooks used for students at hanoi national university of education. after that, appropriate pedagogical implications are proposed in english vocabulary teaching and learning. significance of the study studies revealed that vocabulary or esp vocabulary had been a focus of linguistics research so far. regarding cultural words in efl course books, the topic has been of concern to several authors. however, cultural words in efl course books in relationship with suggested online activities to learn this special type of vocabulary, to some extent, are still not researched much. therefore, our research is going to contribute to clarifying the topic and discussing the theoretical framework relating to cultural words in efl course books and pedagogical implications in the current context of the worldwide covid-19 pandemic. 2. literature review 2.1. definition of cultural words there appear to be several definitions of cultural words by authors. wiezbicka (1997:5) stated that, in a sense, it might seem obvious that words with special, culture-specific meanings reflect and pass on not only ways of living characteristics of a given society but also ways of https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221324 mailto:phamthanhthuy09@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0184-1544 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221324 https://asiacall.info/acoj pham thi thanh thuy & ha hong nga vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 61 thinking. she considered cultural keywords extremely vital and revealed words in a certain culture (wiezbicka, 1997, 15-16). li, ran & xia (2010) named cultural words as words with image culture and explained that the words are the results of long-lasting history and culture of tribes, closely associated with traditional legends or ancestors’ worship. to determine the criteria to define cultural words, wierzbicka (1997:16) confirmed that the words are of common vocabulary, frequently used on a typical semantic aspect, and finally put in the central position of a particular complete phrase. these criteria are useful for authors to determine cultural words among diverse words used in speaking and writing. in terms of forms of cultural words, wierzbicka (1997:17) said that cultural words were not only single words but also common collocations, set phrases, grammatical constructions, proverbs, and so on. clearly, cultural vocabulary is expressed in a variety of forms. these forms of cultural words are found in such materials as efl course books for language learners. 2.2. classification of cultural words cultural words have been classified by many researchers. here are several ways to categorize this special type of word. to start with, newmark (1988:94) divided cultural words into five smaller types, as follows: (1) ecology covers flora, fauna, wind, valley, and mountains; (2) material culture or artifact covers food, cloth, housing, and city, transportation; (3) social culture covers work and leisure; (4) organization covers customs, activities, procedures, political and administrative concepts, religion, arts, and (5) gestures and habits. alonso & ponte (2015) proposed the following classification for cultural words, specifically, into 12 types. table 1. classification of cultural words everyday living food, working, school, holidays, leisure activities, clothes, housing cultural heritage famous monuments and people, literature, tv shows, movies, music. national identity languages, religions, nationality, history, humour, art and politics from different cultures. popular culture rites, traditions, celebrations, festivals, social conventions, dances, discos, religious observances and values, and types of music, among others. society living standards, classes, urban tribes, minorities, family structures, regional cultures, and subcultures. geography countries, continents, cities, towns, streets. stereotypes typical features attributed to certain cultures. language borrowings, informal register, idioms, collocations. worldwide issues political, economic, social and environmental issues. institutions and organization official institutions and organizations from different countries. varieties words from other varieties of english. social interaction greetings, apologies, politeness. as far as this research is concerned, the authors determine cultural words based on the second way of classification in the study done by alonso & ponte (2015) since it is in detail with clarity. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 62 2.3. meaning of cultural words the topic of the meaning of cultural words has been so far discussed widespread worldwide. a variety of authors possess both similar and different viewpoints. cultural words are among a common range of words. the meaning of cultural words has been mentioned in several works when culture is a significant factor in the words. smirnitsky stated that the meaning of words is the natural reflection of objects, phenomena, or relationships in awareness (or a psychological composition similar in nature, formed on the reflection of separated elements in reality) in the structure of words in terms of their inner side. (nguyen, 2018, 21) ullman (1967) explained the meaning of a word is the relation between the sound of the word and its content of definition. he drew a triangle of meaning, in which he focused on making a distinction between linguists, logicians, and psychologists. he asserted that it should not be considered the same between viewpoints, the position of linguists with which of logicians and psychologists. lyons (1995) changed the triangle of meaning into one called the "triangle of signification" with three tops, that is, signal, definition, and things signified. he assumed that the content of meaning definition consisted of numerous parts distinguished in functions and contents, and it is necessary to distinguish different types of meaning. regarding the meaning of selected cultural words, there witnessed many research papers. in semantics, culture, and cognition – universal human concepts in culture-specific configurations, wiezbicka (1992) researched different dimensions of psychology, emotion, and ethics by comparing meanings of couples of words in english and russian, that is, soul, memory, and heart; fate and destiny; courage, bravery, risk, and so on. additionally, wiezbicka figured out and contrasted the meanings of a few cultural keywords in anglo english, including privacy, personal autonomy, fairness, mind, reason, sense, evidence, experience (wiezbicka, 2006, 2010), australian english: bloody, bullshit, whinge, dob in (wiezbicka, 1997, 2002), russian: duša (soul), sud’ba (fate), toska (thirst), iskrennost’ (genuineness), pravda (truth), obščenie (communication) and avos’ (possible) (wiezbicka, 1997, 2002, 2010), polish: przykro (annoyingly), rodzina (family), wolność (freedom) (wiezbicka, 1997, 2001). importantly, the principles for semantics analysis practiced by wiezbicka were also used in analyzing cultural keywords. levisen (2012) continued the direction of wiezbicka’s research on several cultural keywords. in detail, in cultural semantics and social cognition – a case study on the danish universe of meaning, he analyzed systematically, from the perspectives of semantics and national pragmatics, a few danish cultural keywords, that is, hygge (warmth), tryghed (security), lykkelig (happiness), verb synes (seem) và mener (think), etc. in the light of theoretical framework of natural semantic metalanguage (nsm) (goddard and wiezbicka, 1994, 2002). nguyen (2018) had an overview of the meaning of words in the relationship with culture in vietnamese and international studies, compared cultural and lexical semantics of vietnamese and english cultural keywords, and shaped a framework to compare cultural keywords. more specifically, her thesis compared two groups: the semantics of cultural keywords with specific references and the semantics of cultural keywords with non-specific references between vietnamese and english; as well, she revealed the similarities and differences in the linguistics (characteristics of semantics) and culture (characteristics of social life, perceptions, thinking...) between two cultural keywords groups of vietnamese and english community. two groups of https://asiacall.info/acoj pham thi thanh thuy & ha hong nga vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 63 cultural words were mentioned, that is, the group with real referential things (land, water, house, man) and another group without real referential things (dragon, ghost, fairy). le (2017:15) clarified the role functions and meaning of four cultural keywords: fate – hometown – face – soul in vietnamese people's awareness and action in comparison with english and russian. she discussed several cognitive features of vietnamese people accompanied by similarities and differences between vietnamese and english, russian. the writer consulted typical linguistic materials (vietnamese, english, and russian) with sociology survey data to figure out conceptions used by vietnamese for painting the world picture in words that differed from other languages during expressing the same conception. 2.4. vocabulary in efl course books and its cultural components vocabulary is considered the key to success in mastering four skills of a language. it was stated that learners with a limited vocabulary range found more difficulties in l2 reading and writing (hu and nation, 2000). course books or textbooks are the main tools for language teachers to select vocabulary and activities for lessons in order to attract learners’ engagement (criado and sanchez, 2012). vocabulary has a strong connection with the culture of different countries in the form and meaning as it reflects the life of the whole community (wiezbicka, 1997; grossberg and morris, 2005). cefr (2001) explained that vocabulary was partially influenced by the cultural characteristics of the community where the speaker was living. liddicoat and scarino (2013:28) owned a comparatively similar idea that words were more noticeably affected by culture and code of cultural context. the authors found a few research conducted several years ago in terms of cultural words in efl textbooks. georgiveska (2000) analyzed two textbooks, one for secondary efl students in macedonia, the other is headway (intermediate) which was internationally learned. findings showed that gaps in socio-cultural vocabulary were discovered, and the meaning of words related to culture was not explained specifically. another research conducted by mahmood, asghar, and hussain (2012) analyzed an elt textbook quantitatively in pakistan. the research aimed at figuring out the predominant culture in the textbook and references the native culture of learners. they confirmed that the target culture should be significantly concerned within the textbook, and international culture should not be the major focus. alonso & ponte (2015), in an analysis of cultural vocabulary in elt textbook, deeply investigated cultural words in two elt textbooks of two levels which were used for teaching in spain (that is, aspire – upper intermediate and english alive 4). the range of cultural words was taken out from the sections of vocabulary and reading comprehension, classified based on the list of cultural forms (byram & morgan, 1994; cefr, 2001). findings revealed that the number of cultural words in the two elt textbooks was not balanced; in english alive 4, cultural vocabulary on cultural heritage and geography outnumbered the words on other topics; in aspire – upper-intermediate, words on social interaction and popular culture were many more counted. the research broadens the knowledge of cultural words in elt coursebooks. 2.5 research questions within this brief study, the writers are going to answer the following research questions: (1) what is the structure and meaning of cultural words in the coursebook real life (upper-intermediate)? (2) what are the pedagogical implications of learning english cultural words? acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 64 3. methods 3.1. pedagogical setting the authors described and analyzed the structure and meaning of cultural groups of words in the coursebook real life (upper-intermediate), which is currently used for 2nd-year english majors at the faculty of english table 2. description of the coursebook real life (upper-intermediate) coursebook: cunningham s.& bygrave j. (2011). real life (upper-intermediate). pearson education limited. number of units: 10 sections in each unit: 6 sections: grammar, vocabulary, reading, listening, speaking, writing topics for 10 units: (1) going to extremes, (2) living together, (3) global network, (4) happy and successful, (5) pop culture, (6) something different, (7) body and mind, (8) consumer society, (9) right and wrong, (10) life changes after that, the writers proposed appropriate pedagogical implications of online teaching and learning english cultural groups of words from the coursebook. 3.2. design of the study the study was carried out based on such methods as collecting, describing, and analyzing cultural words from the coursebook real life (upper-intermediate) to figure out the structure and meaning of this special type of vocabulary. 3.3. data collection & analysis the authors took vocabulary words out from the coursebook real life (upperintermediate), then analyzed the structure and meaning of these special words based on certain theoretical frameworks (definitions and classification of cultural words as mentioned above in the literature review). cultural characteristics of diverse countries were revealed through the procedure. 4. findings and discussion the cultural words were collected from the coursebook real life (upper-intermediate). they belonged to different cultural groups, including proper nouns, collocations, and idioms/ proverbs. in terms of structure or meaning, findings on cultural words in efl course books contribute to clarifying and correctly comprehending this special type of words in english. language learners are advised to be careful while managing to figure out english cultural words so as not to misunderstand them from the perspective of culture. 4.1. structure of cultural words in efl course books proper nouns the authors found a large number of cultural words with the structure of proper nouns. this group of cultural words is easily recognized for their capitalized first letters. some examples are below: https://asiacall.info/acoj pham thi thanh thuy & ha hong nga vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 65 they can be famous names (bill gates), names of continents (america), names of countries (the uk), nationalities (korean), names of a state (hawaii), names of cities (budapest), names of a prize in cinema (oscar) or sports (the world cup). collocations the collocations that the writers found in the coursebook are grouped into several types: verb + noun, verb + preposition + noun, verb + noun (object) + preposition + v_ing, verb + adverb, adjective + preposition + v_ing, adjective + noun. thus, the structures of english collocations are diverse, requiring learners’ thorough understanding and using so that meaning is not misunderstood. some examples can be found in the coursebook as follows: play a gangster, score the winning goal, get on with her parents, suffer from exhaustion, expect her to help with household jobs, behave reasonably, be desperate to move to a place of my own. idioms/ proverbs this group of cultural words is of limited number within the course books. however, it does not mean that the group rarely appears in the book. several idioms/ proverbs were seen in real life (upper-intermediate). the authors are interested in this type of cultural word for its meaningful inner culture. hereinafter are a few examples: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. success is often about being in the right place at the right time. from preliminary research, the authors found such structure of cultural words in the coursebook chosen. the very first group of proper nouns accounted for the largest number of cultural words from the coursebook. the second group of collocations could be seen with different combinations using nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions. the third group of idioms/ proverbs is of a smaller number though it is typical in terms of culture included in each idiom or proverb. 4.2. meaning of cultural words in efl course books as far as the cultural words from the coursebook were mentioned above, meaning features are revealed and analyzed in terms of cultural perspective. proper nouns this subtype of cultural words taken out from the coursebook can be easily comprehended in meaning as they exactly mean certain known people, continents, states, nationalities, cities, places, or prizes. it can be understood in vietnamese meanings as follows: bill gates (bill gates), america (châu mĩ), the u.k (vương quốc anh), korean (người hàn quốc, tiếng hàn), hawaii (hawaii), budapest (budapest), oscar (oscar), the world cup (giải vô địch thế giới). collocations the meaning of collocations should be carefully investigated based on the cultural context and structures of the collocations so that readers understand them clearly in vietnamese. for example: play a gangster (đóng vai xã hội đen), score the winning goal (ghi bàn quyết định chiến thắng), get on with her parents (hòa hợp với bố mẹ cô ấy), suffer from exhaustion (bị kiệt sức), expect her to help with household jobs (mong cô ấy giúp làm việc nhà), acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 66 behave reasonably (cư xử phù hợp), be desperate to move to a place of my own (trở nên tuyệt vọng đến mức chuyển đến nơi ở riêng). above are suggested translations for selected english collocations in the coursebook. readers are completely able to possess their own way of figuring out the collocations, provided that they understand the collocations well in the appropriate context. idioms/ proverbs it is ideal to find comparatively equivalent idioms/ proverbs in vietnamese for the english ones. in case it is quite hard to find one, readers should manage to understand the meaning of the idioms/ proverbs to avoid misunderstanding. for example: beauty is in the eye of beholder. (vẻ đẹp là ở trong mắt người xem.) success is often about being in the right place at the right time. (thành công thường là ở đúng nơi vào đúng thời điểm.) it can be seen obviously that understanding different groups of cultural words needs sufficient knowledge of culture. the group of proper nouns is the most understandable as the names themselves are typical for people, places, events, and many other aspects of life all over the world. the other groups, including collocations and idioms/ proverbs, require more effort and analysis for their more complicated structure and carefulness to avoid misunderstanding during figuring out the meaning in the context. in comparison with results from previous studies, it was discovered cultural words in the efl coursebook mentioned in this research paper were analyzed for larger groups, including proper nouns, collocations, and idioms/ proverbs. previous studies were mainly related to certain groups of vocabulary, such as words on clothes, plants, and flowers. the words in these papers were discussed with the specific structure of single, compound, complex words and phrases. regarding meanings of cultural words, it could be said that in previous studies, specific vietnamese word groups of diverse cultural topics such as food, animals, and colors were clarified in contrast with such words in other languages, including english, french, and russian. within this piece of writing, the authors did not contrast the meaning of such english cultural groups of words found in the efl coursebook; they managed to find equivalent vocabulary and phrases in vietnamese with the notice of cultures in two different countries. hereinafter are selected works on structure and meanings of certain cultural groups of words that the authors made effort to find from linguistic journals, books and ph.d thesis. some names can be counted: nguyễn chi lê (2009), đặng ngọc lệ (2013), phạm thị châu pha & trần thị phương lý (2016), nguyễn thị thu hà (2016), trương thị mai (2016), lê thị hồng nga (2014), nguyễn văn dũng (2014), vũ thị thắng (2014), trần minh hùng (2018), vũ thị ngọc minh (2014), nguyễn thị hương lan (2018), vũ đức nghiệu (2010), nguyễn thị bích hợp (2015), hà thùy dương (2020), nguyễn thị thủy chung (2021), võ thị mỹ hạnh (2021). 4.3. research questions: to answer research question 1 (what is the structure and meaning of cultural words in the coursebook real life (upper-intermediate)?), findings show that cultural words found in the https://asiacall.info/acoj pham thi thanh thuy & ha hong nga vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 67 coursebook belong to such structure as proper nouns, collocations, and idioms/ proverbs. the majority of the cultural words are in the form of proper nouns (that is, famous names, places, events, etc.), which appear in nearly every session in the coursebook. in terms of meaning, learners and readers are required to possess cultural knowledge to comprehend these groups of cultural words, especially the second and third groups, that is, collocations and idioms/ proverbs. it is advised to find equivalent expressions in vietnamese to figure out such collocations and idioms/ proverbs; moreover, context is also a factor to note in this case. research question 2 (what are the pedagogical implications of learning english cultural words?) is a part of the study which is suggested based on the theories and findings. the authors would like to mention the implications of online teaching and learning vocabulary, including cultural words, within this study. here are suggested quizlet, quizizz and google form, blooket, wordwall vocabulary tasks that can be used in english vocabulary teaching and learning: the first activity suggested is associated with the quizlet app. the teacher-designed tasks on the appropriate vocabulary topic, such as topics in the coursebook on the quizlet app. different tasks, including flashcards, learn, write, spell, test, match, gravity, are created with selected words on the topic together with images. learners memorize new words by accomplishing all the online tasks. image 1. vocabulary task on quizlet app the second type of online app for designing vocabulary tasks is quizizz. this app is beneficial for a number of subjects, including english. it has been widely used so far with online teaching and learning in the context of the covid-19 pandemic. the instructor designs appropriate online vocabulary tasks on the chosen topic in the coursebook, such as multiplechoice, gap filling, and true/ false questions, and add colorful pictures or videos to make the tasks more attractive. after that, the instructor is able to choose indirect or instructor-led playing for the vocabulary games that he has created before class. for the first time playing quizizz games, students were completely engaged in the activity with joy and excitement. the player gets a score at the end of the game and is ranked in the group of classmates, which motivates the students to get higher and higher scores. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 68 image 2. vocabulary task on quizizz app the third online app to suggest is google form. this app has been taken advantage of for the past few years by a variety of people, including teachers and researchers. it has been popularly used for its convenience. diverse tasks are created on google form, such as multiplechoice, gap-filling, text adding, video attaching, and image adding. it enables designers to add answers to questions, scores for correct responses, and to auto-grade, the responses after students have finished the tasks. online vocabulary tasks on google form used to be the first choice for language teachers some years ago. at present, language teachers still favor this google app in designing online tasks and tests. image 3. vocabulary tasks on the google form app the fourth suggestion is the blooket app. this app has been used much recently by teachers and students with a variety of game modes applied for the same question set, such as gold quest, fishing frenzy, crypto hack, and blook rush, which motivates the students to play and learn at the same time. learners are extremely interested in the game without recognizing that it is, in fact, a task to learn. language teachers are able to search for english vocabulary games on diverse topics available online and direct the game for a limited time. they can also design questions for the game which are appropriate for the lectures. https://asiacall.info/acoj pham thi thanh thuy & ha hong nga vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 69 image 4. vocabulary tasks on blooket.com the fifth app to utilize for memorizing vocabulary is wordwall. this app is designed for vocabulary games only. for the same set of questions, players have the right to choose different ways to play, as you can see in the photos. with this game, learners are able to play without the control of the teacher. the game is normally designed with colorful images; thus, it stimulates the learners a lot while playing. players can get bonus points after finishing answering the questions, which makes the learners happy. image 5. vocabulary tasks on the wordwall app 5. conclusion from the above findings, obviously, cultural words found in the coursebook real life (upper-intermediate) possess typical features in terms of structure and meaning. these features should be cared about by readers so that they understand the cultural words thoroughly and rightly. pedagogical implications in online language teaching and learning are also proposed for educators, teachers, learners, and researchers who may concern. for the limited scope of the study, the authors selected cultural words from the coursebook real life (upper-intermediate) for analysis only. for further research, the writers are expected to extend the scope to other efl coursebooks being used by vietnamese students. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 70 references ahmet, o. & selami, a. (2020). the effects of the use of quizlet on vocabulary learning motivation. language and technology 2020, volume: 2, issue: 1, 16 25 alonso a. c. & ponte d. c. (2015). an analysis of cultural vocabulary in elt textbooks. odisea, no.16 issn 1578.3820.2015.83-96. anjaniputra, a. g. & salsabila, v. a. (2018). the merits of quizlet for vocabulary learning at tertiary level. indonesian efl journal, 4(2), 1-11. criado, r. and a.sanschez (2012). lexical frequency, textbooks and learning from a cognitive perspective. a corpus-based sample analysis of elt materials. resla extra, 1: 77-94.3. georgievska, e. (2000). textbook vocabulary and cultural competence: a case study in efl in the republic of macedonia. durham theses, durham university, 30 jan. 2015, http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4532. dung h.t.t & hai t.q. (2022). changes in students' experiences and perceptions towards elearning at hoa sen university during covid-19 pandemic. asiacall online journal, vol. 13, no. 1, 2022, pp. 22-39, retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/94. hu, m. and p. nation (2000). vocabulary density and reading comprehension. reading in a foreign language 13: 403-430. nguyễn liên hương (2018). nghiên cứu đối chiếu ngữ nghĩa từ vựng văn hóa việt – anh (trên tư liệu một số nhóm từ). luận án tiến sĩ ngôn ngữ học, chuyên ngành ngôn ngữ học so sánh và đối chiếu. đại học quốc gia hà nội. levisen c. (2012). cultural semantics and social cognition: a case study on the danish universe of meaning. de gruyter mouton, germany. li f., ran s. & bai x. t. (2010). translation of words with cultural imagine. tạp chí giảng dạy và nghiên cứu ngôn ngữ, tập 1, số 5, phần lan. liddicoat, a., and a. scarino (2013). intercultural language teaching and learning. malaysia: willey-blackwell. lyons j. (1995), linguistic semantics: an introduction, cambridge university press, uk. mahmood m.a., asghar, a. m, and z. hussain (2012). cultural representation in esl textbooks in pakistan: a case study of “step ahead 1”. journal of education and practice 3, 9: 35-42. maria, d. a. p.& deli n. (2021). merdeka belajar in pandemic: using quizizz gamebased learning to improve students’ vocabulary mastery. language literacy: journal of linguistics, literature and language teaching, volume 5, number 1, pp: 221-227, june 2021, doi: 10.30743/ll.v5i1.3842 nation isp (2001). learning vocabulary in another language. cambridge university press. newmark p. (1988). a textbook of translation. new york: prentice hall. samet b. (2018). using quizizz.com to enhance pre-intermediate students’ vocabulary knowledge. international journal of language academy, volume 6/3 september 2018, p. 295-303. doi number: http://dx.doi.org/10.18033/ijla.3953. st. ullman (1967). the principles of semantics. oxford: basil blackwell. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4532 http://dx.doi.org/10.18033/ijla.3953 https://asiacall.info/acoj pham thi thanh thuy & ha hong nga vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 71 pham, t. t. (2022). promoting students’ autonomy in online classes: a study on first-year non-english major students at thuongmai university. asiacall online journal, 13(2), 42-59. https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221323 lê thị kiều vân (2017), tâm thức của người việt qua một số từ khóa (chuyên luận ngôn ngữ học văn hóa – tri nhận), nxb. đại học sư phạm thành phố hồ chí minh. wiezbicka a. (1992). semantics, culture, and cognition: universal human concepts in culturespecific configurations. new york: oxford university press. wierzbicka a. (1997). understanding cultures through their key words. new york: oxford university press. biodata pham thi thanh thuy, ph.d candidate, is teaching english at hanoi national university of education. she earned her ma degree in university of languages and international studiesvietnam national university, hanoi. she majors in 4 skills of english, vocabulary, linguistics, and methods of teaching and learning english. she has attended many conferences including viettesol convention international conference 2020 and 17th camtesol international conference 2021. her slogan is: “you cannot live the 2nd time, so live and work with love at your fullest effort!” email : phamthanhthuy09@gmail.com mobile : 84975908370 ha hong nga, ma is currently vice-dean of english faculty, hanoi national university of education. she has worked as a teacher-trainer in english teaching since she graduated from hanoi university – viet nam in 1990. her major interests include linguistics, 4 skills of english, esp, english teaching and studying methodology. she has attended many training courses and conferences in viet nam and overseas. email: nga.hahong@gmail.com mobile: 84936881969 mailto:phamthanhthuy09@gmail.com mailto:nga.hahong@gmail.com asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, basim m. abubaker faraj designing a web-based english language program for new-coming university students (english for university) basim m. abubaker faraj university of benghazi, libya abstract this article describes a program designed by the author for new-coming university students in the university of benghazi, libya. the students are all libyans, so they all speak arabic as their mother tongue; also, they have almost the same level of english language proficiency which is nearly intermediate level. the program makes use of freely available tools of wix website builder, with a plenty of easy and enjoyable devices to be used. the website consists of a number of sections which represent the major language skills. each section has additional materials and exercises for students to enhance a specific language skill. this paper describes the materials designed for teaching listening and taking notes. keywords: teaching listening and taking notes, wix website builder introduction in recent years, language teachers have been more concerned about the use of technology in their teaching. in fact, the most challenging skill is how to design a new program to suit their own contexts. accordingly, it becomes highly required for language teachers and educators alike to understand clearly what procedures should be adopted in the design process, and what tools should be chosen in order to satisfy their educational goals. in fact, it is assumed that the first consideration that the designer should take into account is the target audience by whom that program will be used. in this regard, levy& stockwell (2006) claim that “…an understanding of the learners` background, role, and perspective is crucial in design.” (p. 35) in this paper, i am going to present a call project that i have been developed for my own setting, describing the context in which this program is intended to be implemented, reporting the main purpose of this program, and finally giving some details about how it works properly. it is clear that both the potential users and the learning context attributes are essential in designing a call program, and teachers should be aware of such considerations to get the maximum benefits of their designs. “…while these technological innovations facilitate computer-based learning activities……, they are ultimately tools in the hands of course authors who must use them creatively to maximize the students' language learning experience.” (chen, belkada, & okamoto, 2004) general remarks: in the homepage, url: http://basimfaraj.wix.com/new-eap , there are four major sections representing the four different academic language skills which are taught in the program. for the purpose of this project, the only active section is “listening and note taking”; the others are just for demonstration. once you click on that section, you can simply follow the links down the bottom of each page (i.e. from page 1 to page 4). http://basimfaraj.wix.com/new-eap asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, basim m. abubaker faraj occasionally, there are some other links for extra material presented in each page, you can simply open that link and then return back to the original page by clicking on back button of “internet explorer”. thanks in regard to my own context, the program i have designed is proposed to be employed for newcoming university students in the university of benghazi which is one of the major higher education institutions in my home country (libya). importantly, the students are all libyans so they all speak arabic as their mother tongue; also, they have almost the same level of english language proficiency which is nearly intermediate level. moreover, it is expected that they all have basic computer skills such as searching through the internet, playing audio-visual files, using word processing and saving different folders into the hardware. significantly, it is highly expected that all students have the same level of difficulty dealing with academic language skills. the general course into which this project is integrated is a ten-week intensive eap course which is offered every year before the commencement of first semester. the organisation principle of the course curriculum is thematic in nature. all themes are academic and each one is covered with a number of activities which reflect the real situation that students will face in their academic life. the major language skills included in this course curriculum are: research and academic reading, listening to lectures and taking notes, presentation skills, and academic writing. it is clear that all of what have been mentioned regarding the audience and the context as well as the main course curriculum are worthy being considered in selecting the educational materials and designing the website. generally speaking, the call program that i have developed for this group of students is a content-based learning website. this website is aiming to enhance the academic language skills which are taught mainly in the class, “… learners’ needs should be analyzed in order to select language components that match what students require to succeed in their academic studies. (kimball, 1998, p. 411) basically, the website is created by using the “wix website builder” which is available online for public with no charge; it provides an ideal way of constructing websites with a plenty of easy and enjoyable devices to be used. the website i have designed consists of a number of sections which represent the major language skills mentioned earlier. each section has additional materials and exercises for students to enhance a specific language skill. for the purpose of this project, the skill that i am going to focus on is “listening and taking notes”. this skill in particular is deemed to be one of the most challenging tasks among the tertiary students in efl context where english is used as a medium of instruction. the materials included in this section of the website are: presentation of some interesting notes to be read by students in order to enhance their understanding of different listening strategies and techniques. for the purpose of providing extra information, there is a hyperlink to another webpage including some theoretical facts, and there is a video giving more details about listening and note-taking skills. practicing note-taking by listening to an academic lecture which indeed reflects the real situation that the students will experience. during this activity, the students need to listen and take notes; then, they need to compare these notes with a typical sample provided on another version of the same video. the tool utilised for this activity is youtube program where the lecture is published online. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, basim m. abubaker faraj a number of exercises on listening comprehension and taking notes are presented to the students with answers to ensure that they get the maximum benefits of the program. besides, there is an optional test to be completed and emailed to the teacher for evaluation. for the purpose of increasing the interactivity, there is a link to “comments” page which enables students to add any suggestions to be read by other users. also, the contact button which is linked to the teacher`s email for enquiries and assignments. additionally, there is a link to a number of useful resources for students including online dictionaries. in fact, the website is designed mainly as an off-class learning tool which aims to support the in-class lessons by providing extra materials and activities to be practiced by the students in a motivational and practical way. hence, it is expected that learners work on their own time after they finish the class whether in the university where there are a lot of accessible facilities or at home in a completely selfgoverning environment. importantly, such a learning strategy can be beneficial in developing the students` independence and autonomy. hence, the role of teachers is confined in the classroom by explaining some related issues, managing the class discussion and giving feedback on the students` performance. conclusion in conclusion, this web-based program could be regarded as a simple presentation of using technology; namely the internet, in language education. it is clear that both the potential users and the learning context attributes are essential in designing such a call program, and teachers should be aware of such considerations to get the maximum benefits of their designs. significantly, using new techniques in language teaching could be quite helpful for our students; particularly, when we design ourselves. also, the process of designing such programs is quite easy, flexible and does not need any professional work at all. references chen, j., belkada, s., & okamoto, t. (2004). how a web-based course facilitates acquisition of english for academic purposes. language learning & technology, 8(2), 33-49. kimball, j. (1998). task-based medical english: elements for internet-assisted language learning. computer assisted language learning, 11(4), 411-417. levy, m., & stockwell, g. (2006). call dimensions: options and issues in computer assisted language learning. mahwah, n.j.: l. erbaum associates. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, le huong hoa and le thi hong duyen applying mind maps as a teaching and learning strategy for esp le huong hoa police university, vietnam hoalehuong@yahoo.com le thi hong duyen haiphong medical university, vietnam hongduyen.yhp@gmail.com abstract esp teaching has become a growing trend and mainstream in europe and advanced areas and regions in asia. though the importance of esp teaching has come to be realized after long being ignored, the practice has not been quite satisfied (dudley-evans, 1998). in fact, esp is still in the beginning period and many efforts have been made by researchers, educators, trainers and teachers in order to find better ways as well as initiatives to facilitate esp teaching and learning. a question raised here is whether esp is really difficult for students to grasp or the way weas teachers provide them with the knowledge of esp is not interesting and effective enough to attract and get them close to the lessons. the problem has been actually voiced out in many researches about how to change the syllabi, how to integrate real-world materials in esp classes, the roles of teachers and students, and many teaching and learning strategies as well. from the above situation, the study is designed to exploit possibilities of using mind-map in esp teaching and learning in the hope of improving the students' learning effectiveness. keywords: esp, mind-map, teaching strategy, learning strategy introduction nowadays, english has been widely used in many areas such as politics, economics, tourism, telecommunication, culture, science, technology, so on. since vietnam carried out the open door policy towards the regional and global integration, the english language has become more and more important for people of all ages and careers nationwide. therefore, there is great demand for teaching and learning english throughout the country for different purposes. it is evident that teaching english for specific purposes (esp) has become one of the most prominent features of the english language teaching process (hutchinson &waters, 1987; robinson, 1991). hutchinson and waters (1987) reported that esp is an approach for language teaching in which all decisions regarding content and methods are based on the learners’ reasons for learning. it focuses on using english effectively in specific academic fields such as business, law, medicine, sciences, etc. holding an important position in any esp classroom, textbooks play a crucial part in meeting the learners' needs, increasing their motivations, as well as facilitating their learning. in dudley-evans and st john's (1998) words, this role is more prominent in situations where english is a foreign language (efl) and naturally the esp classroom may be almost the only source of english in exposing learners to the language. in this regard, the essential position of reading comprehension in efl settings has turned this skill to the most important one needed for learners' success in a way that it is often known as the main goal of english language learning in such context (erfani, et al. 2011). however, reviewing the current esp textbooks in vietnamese academic context also shows that while the most significant skill which the students need for success is reading (farhadi, 2006; riazi, 2006), the lack of useful strategies and techniques in such textbooks development as well as the low face validity in such textbooks are obvious (iranmehr, et al. (2010); soleimani, 2006). the situation above urges the researcher to think of implementing a quasi-experimental research of applying mind-map as a teaching and learning strategy to esp with the hope to investigate the probable effectiveness of using mind-map context in esp reading comprehension ability of medical and police university students whose syllabus mostly focuses on this skill. mailto:hoalehuong@yahoo.com mailto:hongduyen.yhp@gmail.com asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, le huong hoa and le thi hong duyen mind-map and its uses using mind-map in teaching and learning vocabulary according to nattinger (1988), words in our mental lexicon are tied to one another not only by meaning, form and sound but also by sight. therefore, mind-map is a kind of visualization which is helpful for memorizing vocabulary. teachers and students can use this tool to form a net of vocabulary topics which cover the subject matter. for traditional way of learning, students have to learn long lines of vocabulary within the topics. by that way, there is no connection among words and the word lists are so limited and boring. with mind-map, however, we can learn many words in a funny and effective way. the lists of words can be replaced by a picture of words. and as a very famous saying of napoleon, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. more importantly, the words are shown in connection when we look at the mind-map, which enables us to learn words easier. diagram 1: an example of using mind-maps to teach and learn medical terminology using mind-map in teaching and learning reading skills as mentioned, most esp course books concentrate on developing the reading skills.. students learn to skim and scan the texts in order to comprehend them and do the exercises that follow. because mind-map can be used to organize the information, it will be a great tool for students to skim and scan the readings and summarize the text by the model of a mind-map. besides, mind-map is known as a powerful brainstorming tool. it is helpful to apply it in the pre-reading activities in order to exploit the students’ preexisting knowledge to the topic. diagram 2: an example of brain-storming pre-reading activities using mind-map in communicative situations in vietnam, many students feel embarrassed dealing with english at work when they enter in the real world. of course, one main reason is due to their poor competence of english but it is also due to a fact that esp courses such as english in medicine, law, engineering, construction, etc., hardly provide students with communicative situations which they might encounter in their future jobs. for many asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, le huong hoa and le thi hong duyen teachers of esp, time limitation is also one of the big problems. how can they integrate communicative situations into their lessons in less time-consuming way? mind-map will be the solution. mind-map can be used as an effective tool in brain-storming activities. the teachers should take advantage of any time when the real situations occur in order to get students to talk, discuss, and share their ideas. teachers can raise a question related to a certain situation the students might cope with in their job and ask them to give their opinions. when students really enjoy and take part in the process of discussion, they are truly involved in communicative situations and develop their speaking skills. by that way, mind-map facilitates the assimilation of knowledge and foster communication between teachers and students. diagram 3: an example of using mind-maps in a communicative situation research questions in line with the attempt to determine whether mind-map context has any effect on improving esp reading comprehension ability, a null hypothesis was formulated as: mind-map context with the preferred computer-based type has no effect on the improvement of esp reading comprehension of university students majoring medicine. this study is further conceptualized and elaborated in the following research questions: is there a significant difference in the pre-test reading scores of the control group (i.e., students who do not participate in a mind-mapping program) and those of the experimental group (i.e., students who do participate in a mind-mapping program)? is there a significant difference in the post-test reading scores of the control and experimental groups? methodology participants this study involved 60 students majoring medicine at medical university. they were chosen to serve as experimental and control groups. to assess their language proficiency, a standard test of english was given to them and based on their scores they were categorized as pre-intermediate. design based on the purpose of the study, it followed a quasi-experimental design displaying the following characteristics: two homogeneous groups of pre intermediate level students served as control and experimental groups. a treatment, namely mind-mapping context was offered to experimental group and the text-only context to control group. two tests as pretest and posttest were administered in each group. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, le huong hoa and le thi hong duyen procedure after assigning the participants to two equal groups, the experimental group was encouraged to study the texts along with mind-mapping. they were taught for twelve weeks and during this time and the participants of control group were taught through texts only. in a more precise word, this group was not asked or encouraged to apply this tool in the process of reading esp passages. after instructions, a posttest was performed for both groups. results the effect of mind-mapping context on reading comprehension ability of university students was determined with the pretest-posttest equivalent group design. the pretest was given before students received reading instructions. to control for confounding variables, the control group were taught using the same instructional methods, except for enjoying mind-map context with the preferred computer-based type. at the end of the treatment, an independent sample t-test was used to analyze the data. to answer the research question, after scoring the tests and tabulating the scores for each subject, the results were put under a series of statistical analyses. next, an independent t-test was used to verify the pre-test results on both groups. at the end of the study, the posttest was given to the groups and to confirm or reject the hypothesis, a ttest was used. table 1: pre-test means (m) and standard deviations (sd) reading control (n=30) experimental (n=29) t-test m sd m sd written test 3.6 1.4 3.9 1.2 1.65 table 2: post-test means (m) and standard deviations (sd) reading control (n=30) experimental (n=29) t-test m sd m sd written test 9.3 1.8 12.3 1.4 6.3 considering (t-observed = 1.65 < t-critical = 2.00) at the pretest and (t-observed = 6.3> t-critical =2.00) at the posttest shows that a remarkable difference between the two groups at the posttest stage is obvious. after comparing the two mean scores through t-test calculations, the researcher felt justified that the null hypothesis could be rejected. while the two groups were not significantly different at the outset of the study, they scored differently on the posttest and the difference was statistically significant. conclusions and implications the present findings seem to lend support to most of the related available findings in the field of elt. the present study, as an attempt to integrate mind-map context in esp, has focused on the extent to which mind-map context can enhance esp reading comprehension of university students. finding revealed that it could be cogently argued that this strategy do aid esp reading comprehension of university students. this study was an attempt to seek ways to develop students into independent readers in the hope of giving students a love for reading, a thirst for it. the results of the study suggest that a well-conducted mind – map program can make a significant on reading proficiency. however, some limitations may have occurred: the condition in which the research was conducted was too good: the students were tested through both tests: the placement test and the pretest, which may not be very practical for carrying out on a large scale. the sample size was not big enough. therefore, the result drawn from the study may not have been of high representativeness. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, le huong hoa and le thi hong duyen during the one-month treatment, some students were occasionally absent from class, which might have affected the result of the post-test. however all the students were present at the pretest and post-test. to prevent the hawthorn effect, the researcher made sure that the students did not know about the research. to control for short-term memory effects, the pretest-post-rest papers were neither corrected by the teachers nor returned to the students in both classes. in conclusion, from a research perspective, the two groups would, ideally, have continued the control and experimental treatments for a longer period and on other subjects to see if the effect remained, if the experimental group continued their impressive progress and if the study may have been of high representativeness. students who are not currently skilled, enthusiastic readers face unnecessary and serious obstacles to realizing their potential contributions to themselves, their families in particular and to society in general. thus, it is time for the teachers to create and implement programs to help students to get motivated in studying as well as students who fall behind in learning esp. the model set in this study suggests that mind-map can play an important role in assisting students to improve their level of reading proficiency, and reading skill as well as the benefits that flow from them are essential if students are to become people who understand the word to know what are changing around them. references buzan, t. (1986). use your memory. london: guild publishing. buzan, t. (1988). super creativity. new york: st martin’s press. buzan, t. (1996). the mind map book: how to use radiant thinking to maximize your brain’s untapped potential. new york, penguin group. dudley-evans, t. & st john, m.j. (1998). developments in esp. cambridge: cup. erfani, s. m., iranmehr, a., & davari, h. (2011). deepening esp reading comprehension through visualization. journal of language teaching and research, 2(1), 270-273. http://dx.doi.org/10.4304/jltr.2.1.270-273. farhady, h. (2006). reflections on and directions for esp materials development in samt, in kiani & khayamdar (eds.), proceedings of the first national esp/eap conference (vol. 3). tehran, samt publication. farrand, p., hussain, f. & hennessy, e. (2002). the efficacy of the mind map study technique. medical education. 36: 426-431. gimenez, j.c. (1996). process assessment in esp: input, throughput and output. retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0889490696000075 hutchinson, t. & waters, a. (1987). english for specific purposes. a learningcentered approach. cambridge: cup. iranmehr, a., erfani, s. m., & davari, h. (2010). a call for the reengineering of iranian esp textbooks. sino-us english teaching, 7(7), 23-30. iranmehr, a., erfani, s. m., & davari, h. (2010). a call for the reengineering of iranian esp textbooks. sino-us english teaching, 7(7), 23-30. nattinger, j.r. (1988). some current trends in vocabulary teaching. in: r. carter and m. mccarthy, eds. vocabulary and language teaching. harlow: longman. riazi, a. (2005). features of quality eap textbooks: insights from literature and book reviews. in kiani, g. r., & khayamdar, m. (eds.), proceedings of the first national esp/eap conference (vol. 1). tehran, samt publication. ruiz-primo, m. (2000). on the use of concept maps as an assessment tool in science: what we have learnt so far. retrieved from http://redie.uabc.mx/vol2no1/contents-ruizpri.html susman, j.i. (1983). action research: a sociotechnical system perspective in ed. g. morgan, beyond method. strategies for social research. london: sage publications. http://dx.doi.org/10.4304/jltr.2.1.270-273 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0889490696000075 http://redie.uabc.mx/vol2no1/contents-ruizpri.html asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, ania b. lian proceedings of asiacall2013 the 12th international conference of the asia association of computer-assisted language-learning khon kaen university, khon kaen, thailand 20th 23rd november, 2013 innovation and renovation in tell in asia editor’s foreword asiacall2013, the 12th international conference of asiacall was hosted by khon kaen university, khon kaen, thailand. again, it was a very successful conference and asiacall, the asia association of computer assisted language learning, is grateful to the host university for organising this event. special thanks go to conference patron, dean, associate professor dr. kuntida tuwamsuk, and conference organiser and president, assistant professor phiphawin srikrai and her team of colleagues and students at khon kaen university. each year, asiacall members meet in different countries. the conference brings together early and established scholars and teachers who exchange constructive research on the uses of technology to enhance the learning of languages. the scholars come from all over asia and beyond, including australia, africa, north africa, the middle east, the usa and europe. the 2013 conference involved presenters from approximately 20 countries. the publications included in these proceedings capture a range of perspectives linking innovation and call/ tell. they also reflect the issues which organisations, scholars and language teachers face in their professional contexts, policy environments and budgetary constraints. the discussions and research presented in these proceedings show researchers testing tools for knowledge management in their specific contexts of practice, experimenting with their novelty and assessing their impact on the students and on their own teaching practices. among the tools described by the researchers were mind maps; webquests in english for specific purposes; website building applications used to teach a variety of relevant skills; simple and yet extremely innovative strategies for working with video and sound in order to improve comprehension, listening and pronunciation of esl students. other papers focused on the stakeholders. this included students, policy-makers, governments. regarding the students, researchers looked at the different skills and attributes that appear to be characteristic of successful esl students studying at a distance. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, ania b. lian having just returned from the international conference on language teaching organised by the university of technology, mara uitm, kedah campus in penang, and having given a workshop on the use of technology in esl classrooms in kedah, i felt that while the results of various studies resonated with my recent experiences in malaysia, there is still much work to be done to share and build on mutual experiences and insights informed by local contexts and concerns. the use of mobile technology and social networks for teaching english was engaged by scholars from china. the popularity of social sites in china is growing, and the idea of english as an asian language without a doubt is a relevant area for study and experimentation. not all conference presentations were submitted for publication. with time we will see more submissions. one aspect that needs closer attention is the relationship that we as teachers and researchers create between our workplace environment and the broader community. increasingly, schools and other educational institutions recognise their role as partners in the community which they serve, at the local and global levels. projects expanding on this area of study can teach us a lot about learning and using a target language in order to make a difference. please note that three submissions were selected for additional peer-review and, after the normal peerreview processing for research articles, were subsequently published in the asiacall online journal, vol. 9, 2014, as research articles (http://asiacall.info/acoj/acoj-2014/). these papers have not been reported here. the asiacall online journal (acoj) thanks all contributors to the current proceedings. the theme of the next conference, to be held at the national changhua university of education, changhua city, taiwan, is “building capacity and call: practices and challenges”. dr. ania lian chief editor asiacall online journal http://asiacall.info/acoj/acoj-2014/ citation asiacall online journal received: 15/10/20221 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 02/11/2021 vol. 13, no. 1, 2022 accepted: 05/11/2021 pp. 1-21 online: 13/11/2021 citation | dau, t. t. l. (2022). remote teaching amid the covid-19 pandemic in vietnam: primary school efl teachers’ practices and perceptions. asiacall online journal, 13(1), 1-21. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.001 remote teaching amid the covid-19 pandemic in vietnam: primary school efl teachers’ practices and perceptions dau thi thanh luy seameo regional training center in vietnam (seameo retrac) corresponding author’s email: dttluy@vnseameo.org eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.001 abstract the massive school closures worldwide due to the covid-19 pandemic have resulted in a surge of remote teaching. this study investigated teachers' practices and perceptions on teaching english remotely to primary school students in the school lockdowns in vietnam. a mixed-methods design was employed to collect data from different primary public schools in ho chi minh city, binh duong and dong nai provinces. ten semi-structured interviews were conducted, and a questionnaire was used to collect data from 50 teachers. the majority of selected participants were those who practiced at least one form of remote teaching activities, either asynchronous or synchronous. the findings show that zoom, zalo, and youtube were the three most popular platforms teachers used. numerous challenges also emerged, such as more workload, more stress, technical issues, students' lack of learning devices, the requirement for parent's assistance, more interactions, and hands-on activities. despite the obstacles, the majority of teachers showed their positive attitudes towards remote teaching. they learned new ict tools and pedagogies and intended to continue using this approach after the pandemic. in order to improve the effectiveness of remote teaching, such suggestions as creativity and flexibility in designing lessons, parents' support, teacher's training, and upgraded ict infrastructure are recommended. keywords: remote teaching, perceptions, challenges, primary school teachers, pandemic 1. introduction the covid-19 pandemic has created the worst crisis in education, where schools for over 168 million children worldwide have been suspended for roughly a year (united nations international children's emergency fund [unicef], 2021). as a majority of the world's schoolchildren, primary school students have accounted for the most among those who missed at least three-quarters of classroom instruction (unicef, 2021). school closures due to the covid-19 have resulted in a dramatic change in education with the rapid growth of elearning, in which teaching takes place remotely and via media platforms. as cited in unicef (2021), the data showed that more than 90% of education ministries around the world had introduced some types of remote learning through radio, television, or the internet. the ministry of education and training of vietnam (moet), in particular, quickly guided https://asiacall.info/acoj http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.001 mailto:dttluy@vnseameo.org http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.001 https://asiacall.info/acoj dau thi thanh luy vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 2 schools to implement remote learning via the internet or on television in order to ensure the continuity of learning for students. in a virtual meeting with unicef's representatives in 2020, minister phung xuan nha emphasized that although remote teaching was a temporary action responding to the covid-19 pandemic, this would be an opportunity for the acceleration of digital transition in the education sector (unicef vietnam, 2020). as a result, it is vital to understand what happened in the time when "teaching is moving online, on an untested and unprecedented scale" (burgess & sievertsen, 2020) so that the education sector will be able to identify future directions and prepare for unavoidable situations. in the world, there have been several studies on remote teaching of tertiary level during the covid-19 pandemic. however, scant research has investigated this emergency remote teaching to the primary level, where students need more support from teachers and parents. an examination is especially necessary for teaching subjects like the english language, which requires more interactions between teachers and students or students and students. therefore, there is an urgent need for research into teachers' attitudes towards teaching english remotely to primary school children, the obstacles they meet when delivering remote learning sessions, and what to do to improve this teaching approach to young learners. this study attempts to address the issues as mentioned above through an investigation with primary english teachers in vietnam, where nationwide schools were closed twice in the academic year 2020 2021. the first closure was from february to april 2020, and the second time happened in february 2021. 2. literature review 2.1 e-learning being considered as a modern tool to handle the issues occurring in the teaching and learning process (agustina & cahyono, 2017), e-learning (electronic learning) has emerged as a new trend in education and is now widely regarded as the most significant learning paradigm, particularly in the wake of the covid-19 outbreak, when people are advised to avoid crowds and practice social distancing as pandemic prevention strategies (mardiah, 2020). arkorful and abaidoo (2014) refer to e-learning as the use of information and communication technologies (icts) to allow access to online learning or teaching resources. goyal (2012) also listed a number of terms used to define this form of teaching and learning, including online learning, virtual learning, distributed learning, network, and web-based learning. in this research, the term "e-learning" refers to any form of electronically supported learning, whether on the internet or television, in which the student interacts with teachers, contents, and other students regardless of location or time (kisanga, 2016). in general, there are two types of e-learning activities: asynchronous and synchronous. the asynchronous events take place at any time through media platforms such as email and discussion boards, where students can learn at their own time and pace. conversely, synchronous activities occur through live video conferencing and chat, in which teachers and learners interact with each other in real-time (hrastinski, 2008). table 1 is adapted from kim, 2020. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 3 table 1. asynchronous and synchronous learning asynchronous synchronous timing logging in at own time learning at own pace logging in at the same time communication posting responses to activities reading and writing feedback live interactions talking back or forth within a group examples of tools e-mail, discussion board (ex. google docs, blackboard, youtube) video conference tools (e.g., google hangout, blackboard collaborate, zoom meeting) role of teachers setting up discussion boards facilitator between students instructor interacting with students e-learning has been proven to bring learners, teachers, and educational organizations many benefits. in terms of cost-effectiveness, online courses efficiently dispense with numerous expenditures that are operating a brick-and-mortar class incurs such as space, classroom facilities, and staff, offering a large number of students in one class without many building space requirements (arkorful & abaidoo, 2014; kim 2020). in addition, e-learning eases time constraints and geographical boundaries where every student or teacher has options of choosing the location and time that is most convenient for him or her (arkorful & abaidoo, 2014; chitra & raj, 2018). material comprehension skills are also improved because students have more time to comprehend a message in asynchronous activities, which allow self-pacing among students (hrastinski, 2008; mardiah, 2020). to young learners, icts play an important role in their learning. specifically, icts promote children's language development in language learning because most children enjoy the internet, television, radio, youtube videos, and mobile learning applications (dewi, 2019). dewi (2019) also confirmed the significant role of icts in eliciting students' creativity and proficiency in both local and international cultures. regarding the effectiveness of online learning, montiel-chamorro (2018) found that there are no statistically significant differences in the outcomes or overall scores of students when comparing two online classes with two face-to-face classes in his investigation at a university in colombia. the finding is in line with that of russell (1999), as cited in nguyen (2015), when he compiled over 350 studies on distance and online education dating back from 1928. students in online learning environments even performed modestly better than those receiving face-to-face training, according to the meta-analysis of the u.s. department of education (2010). despite the positive results for the efficacy of online learning, it is uncertain if this holds true through investigations (nguyen, 2015), and there was no evidence that online learning is a superior learning approach when it lacks vital personal interactions (arkorful & abaidoo, 2014). especially, the findings may not be generalizable to k-12 settings where there are still few thorough studies (nguyen, 2015). https://asiacall.info/acoj dau thi thanh luy vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 4 2.2 implementation of e-learning in primary schools in vietnam according to austrade (2020) in the vietnam edtech scoping study report, e-learning was introduced in vietnam in 2007, and the ministry of education and training (moet) has worked relentlessly in order to completely bring the internet to the sector and boost the implementation of icts in management, teaching and learning activities. to this end, a number of measures to increase the use of ict in the classroom have been implemented, such as developing ict facilities, training ict skills for teachers, and adjusting pedagogical curriculum (peeraer & petegem, 2011 and pham, 2014, as cited in pham and lee, 2019), and looking for sponsorship from private sectors and partnerships such as microsoft and viettel (truong, 2020). as a result, all areas of education are projected to implement ict in their curriculum, pedagogical, and training activities (truong & qalati, 2020). regarding primary education in vietnam, computer science, as a selective subject, is embedded in the curriculum of grades 4 and 5. therefore, students have opportunities to be exposed to ict in class. however, according to nguyen et al. (2017), students mainly access the internet from home because the internet penetration is increasing rapidly due to the proliferation of smartphones and 3g subscriptions in households. there is still a big difference in pedagogical practice and teaching resources between rural and urban areas due to the current infrastructure and teaching competency, in which just 17% of students in remote mountainous areas have access to the internet (truong, 2020). moreover, teachers in urban areas have opportunities to attend numerous training workshops while their counterparts receive less (nguyen et al., 2017). although access to ict is not a barrier anymore and teachers have good basic ict skills, the majority of primary english teachers in vietnam are low-level users (huynh & pham, 2018). teachers still lack confidence in applying ict in teaching, and they mostly use ict as a replacement for their teaching activities (peeraer & petegem, 2011). many researchers also claimed that vietnamese teachers usually use common applications like word processors, powerpoint presentations, search engines, images, audio, and the use of more advanced applications which engage students in learning is low (peeraer & petegem; 2011; dang, 2013, huynh & pham, 2018). when choosing the ict tools for teaching, teachers consider the lesson objectives, the availability, and accessibility of the tool, the learners' needs, and the level of familiarity (truong & qalati, 2020). in connection with teachers’ perceptions on applying ict in english language teaching to young learners in vietnam, teachers recognize a variety of benefits such as getting more comfortable in teaching, increasing critical thinking, promoting teaching and learning, and facilitating problem-solving while they also admit this is a time-consuming approach (truong & qalati, 2020). a number of factors that hinder teachers in ict implementation include the absence of collaboration among teachers and students, inadequate technological knowledge, lack of leaders’ support and a shortage of qualified teachers (truong & qalati, 2020), lack of ict facilities, time, and money, too much content curriculum, oversized classes, lack of support from colleagues, technical staff and leaders, low internet connection (huynh & pham, 2018; pham, tan and lee, 2019). to tackle these problems, pham, tan, and lee (2019) emphasized the significant role of moet in providing training for teachers and efficiently allocating budget for supply and maintenance of ict infrastructure in schools, allowing a lighter and more flexible curriculum and encouraging teachers to share ideas and experience to others. nguyen et al. (2017) also highlighted the urgent need for moet and educators in the country to upgrade ict facilities in classrooms and revise school curriculum and improve acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 5 teachers' ict skills. truong and qalati (2020) again indicated the government's role in organizing online and offline training workshops for new teachers. 2.3 challenges in the emergency remote teaching due to the covid-19 pandemic hodges et al. (2020) defined emergency remote teaching as "a temporary shift of instructional delivery to an alternate delivery model due to crisis circumstances". responding to the covid19 pandemic, the education sector witnessed frustrations arising from a lack of knowledge about what to do and how to cope with situations that educators or teachers had never encountered before (kim, 2020). due to the pandemic, the quick switching to online teaching meant that several teachers were simply trying to survive by turning what had been planned for a normal face-to-face class into an online format todd (2020). mardiah (2020) found that this shifting is not effective in actual practices. this conclusion was in line with rahayu and wirza (2020) when they indicated online learning is not practical. many obstacles plagued remote teaching emergencies. teachers expressed their rational worries about the internet and technology, which did not always function when teaching or learning remotely (hoang & le, 2021; cardullo et al., 2021). unstable internet connection not only had a major impact on students’ listening process (ha & ngo, 2021) but also consumed much time in handling the logging in and out of students or uploading teaching materials (hoang & le, 2021). teachers also worried about the difficulties of equity and their concerns about social engagement and peer relations (cardullo et al., 2021). in terms of teachers’ ict competence, hoang and le (2021) found that the majority of teachers in their study were not confident in technology skills. teachers' fear of ict in remote teaching resulted in an unwillingness to employ complicated platforms (ly et al., 2021). in addition, yi and jang (2020) argued that remote teaching in the pandemic had changed teaching practices and experiences, which require teachers to be more creative and collaborative in instructions and to perform more roles such as video makers in designing lesson plans. hoang and le (2021) also disclosed that re-designing teaching and learning activities, preparing online learning resources, and supporting students brought teachers heavy workload during the pandemic. yang (2020) added the inability of students to apply self-study skills, the difficulty in managing students' progress, and lack of interactions as factors affecting online learning. teaching remotely is more challenging when working with young students. when exploring the practices of the school from home program designed for primary teachers in indonesia during the pandemic, rasmitadila et al. (2020) divided difficulties teachers faced into four subcategories including technical obstacles, student’s conditioning, the participation of students, and online teaching experience. as technical issues are concerned, not all parents have smartphones or laptops, and the internet signals are poor, especially in the rural areas. consequently, students cannot follow the lessons and delay doing assignments. in addition, the process of studying at home for students is distracted by internal factors such as interference from family members and external factors such as the fact that students talk to each other on different topics. another challenge is that participation is limited due to low data packages, the ownership of smartphones or laptops, and losing motivation which demands teachers to find ways to maintain student's enthusiasm in virtual classes. in addition, teachers who have no experience in teaching online or who are not tech-savvy will find it difficult to run online learning because the school from home program requires them to master a number of applications such as whatsapp, google forms, worksheets, youtube, zoom, google classroom and powtoon. according to kim (2020), limitations of online https://asiacall.info/acoj dau thi thanh luy vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 6 learning vary depending on the technological ability of teachers and students to access the internet or to use computers. especially more efforts have to be put on working with young learners who require adult availability and involvement in supervising or assisting them with technical skills (kim, 2020; cardullo et al., 2021). misirli and ergulec (2021) also found that parents of young learners (pre-school and primary school) joined the learning process as a technical assistant and a class participant as well. moreover, online learning can easily lose children's focus because they need more interaction and hands-on activities (kim, 2020). rhayu and wirza (2020) added that some teachers struggled with using ict, creating engaging content, explaining it as well as giving feedback and assessment. besides, cardullo et al. (2021) were also concerned about the vast disparities among children from the rich and underprivileged families. still, from teachers’ perspectives, they were willing to support and motivate students, trying to create learning opportunities for the good of learners in these unprecedented situations (cardullo et al., 2021). despite a number of challenges emerging, several studies found teachers' positive attitudes towards online teaching, and these teachers looked for support where necessary and tried to apply various methods (todd, 2020; rahayu & wirza, 2020; and hoang & le, 2021). many teachers admitted that the technical skills of both students and teachers were improved from teaching and learning online (cardullo et al., 2021; tunmibi, aregbesola, adejobi, and ibrahim, 2015). irene van der et al. (2020) also found teachers' intention in integrating ict in their teaching more often once they get back to a normal faceto-face class. the fact that the teachers' intention to implement technology in teaching and their pretty high involvement in it indicate their awareness of the importance of technology in online teaching (rahayu & wirza, 2020). 2.4 research questions in order to get concrete results, this study is guided by the following questions: 1. what tools or platforms do teachers use to operate teaching and learning during the school closures? 2. what obstacles do teachers face when delivering remote lessons? 3. what are teachers’ perceptions on facilitating remote teaching to primary school students? 3. methods 3.1 pedagogical setting & participants in order to investigate the practices and the perceptions of teachers on the sudden shift to teaching english remotely due to the covid-19 pandemic, this study targeted at different primary public schools in ho chi minh city, binh duong and dong nai provinces, where various types of remote teaching were implemented during the school lockdowns in the academic year 2020-2021. the majority of selected participants were those who used at least one form of asynchronous or synchronous remote instruction. a questionnaire was sent to the participants via google forms with 50 valid answers collected, and 10 semi-structured interviews were also conducted via phones at the same time. the teachers who participated in acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 7 the interviews were randomly selected from six different schools, and they were also among those who answered the questionnaire. 39 (78%) survey respondents are young teachers aged 22-34, 9 (18%) aged 35-42 and 2 (4%) aged 43-59. interestingly, 21 (42%) teachers have experience in conducting remote teaching activities for less than 1 year, the same number as those who have from 1 to 3 years. no one has more than three years of remote teaching, and the number of teachers who have not conducted any remote teaching event is only 8 (16%). 3.2 design of the study this study employed a mixed-methods design to gather, analyze and combine both quantitative and qualitative data in order to better comprehend the research questions than using either approach alone (cresswell, 2012). the reasons for combining methods are that neither quantitative nor qualitative methods are adequate to catch the tendencies and facts of a situation on their own (ivankova, 2007). in this study, a questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data and ten semi-structured interviews were used to collect qualitative data. the quantitative scores on the questionnaire from a larger population compensated for the shortcomings of the qualitative data of a few interviews (cresswell, 2012). on the other hand, the qualitative data gave more detailed information about the interview setting and an in-depth understanding of the research problems. based on the design types of cresswell (2012), the convergent parallel design was applied in the study, in which data of both quantitative and qualitative methods was simultaneously collected, analyzed separately, then compared and interpreted. figure 1. the convergent parallel design, adapted from cresswell, 2012 3.3 data collection & analysis the data was collected by two instruments: a survey questionnaire and a semi-structured interview, both in the vietnamese language. the questionnaire, which was adapted from vu et al. (2020) and cardullo et al. (2021), comprised items of two different formats: the multiple-choice and the questions of 5-point likert scale from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree''. the questionnaire contained thirty questions divided into two main sections. the first section asked for teachers' demographic information such as gender, ages, online teaching experience, and one item of ict tools for teaching was also included in this part. the second section measured teachers' perceptions on conducting remote teaching activities during the covid-19 school closures. the second section was also divided into five subsections to fully answer the research questions: (1) teachers’ perceived challenges in their quantitative data collection and analysis qualitative data collection and analysis compare or relate interpretation https://asiacall.info/acoj dau thi thanh luy vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 8 remote teaching practices, (2) reasons for not conducting online classes, (3) teachers’ perceived ict competence, (4) teachers’ suggestions to improve remote teaching, and (5) teachers’ intentions to remote teaching after the pandemic. after collecting data, the author used the software spss 20. to conduct a reliability test for the variables in the questionnaire, including six items of "perceived challenges", four items of "reasons not conducting online teaching", six items of "ict competence", four items of "suggestions" and three items of "intentions" variables. according to wim et al. (2008), as cited in hajjar (2018), a value of cronbach’s alpha between 0.6 and 0.8 is acceptable. the results showed that most variables satisfied this value range, except the value of variable “perceived challenges” with only 0.442. consequently, the item “students enjoy learning” was removed from “perceived challenges” so that cronbach’s value of these variables reached 0.698. as the questionnaire was considered as well constructed, descriptive statistics were used to describe the teachers’ opinions on the measurements. the interview questions consisted of nine open-ended questions relating to teachers’ overall perceptions on remote teaching to primary school students, how they facilitated remote teaching activities during the school closures, the effectiveness of these activities, challenges they faced, recommendations and future intentions to remote teaching and learning practices. the ten participants were coded from t1 to t10, and the data were categorized and put in a matrix format for easy analysis. 4. findings and discussion 4.1. tools/ platforms used for remote teaching and learning. in light of numerous applications or platforms available in the market for remote teaching, and some of them are free, some are premium, the participants were asked to mention the tools they used to facilitate their remote teaching during the school closures. figure 2 depicts the results from the survey. figure 2. tools/platforms used in teaching during the covid-19 school closures as evident in figure 2, zoom meeting was the most common tool for remote teaching in ho chi minh city, binh duong and dong nai provinces (40% of users), followed by zalo (24%), 40% 6% 24% 4% 14% 8% 4% 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 zoom meeting google classrooom zalo facebook youtube school's website others acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 9 and youtube (14%). just a few teachers used google classroom, facebook, and the school's website, and nobody used television for their teaching activities. similarly, in the interviews, zoom meeting, zalo, and youtube were also the three most popular platforms that teachers mentioned to organize their remote teaching in the covid-19 pandemic. these applications are free, and zalo, which is used widely in vietnamese households (chapman, 2019) is considered as the best way to connect with students. many teachers organized asynchronous teaching activities in which they recorded their video lessons and later shared them with their students via youtube or zalo groups. t3 had his video lessons posted on the school's website. in addition, a few teachers used other platforms such as google meet and facebook to create remote learning activities. noticeably, teachers employed engaging applications such as google forms, quizizz, and kahoot to motivate students as well as check their understanding. 4.2. teachers’ perceived challenges in teaching english remotely to primary school students in this part of the questionnaire, teachers were asked to rate their agreement on the obstacles they got when organizing remote teaching activities. as mentioned in the methodology part, the item “students enjoy learning" was removed from this group of variables to make the questionnaire more reliable. figure 3 below shows retained variables. figure 3. teachers’ perceived challenges the results show that the majority of teachers agreed with the obstacle statements in the questionnaire with high rates. the two biggest problems were that young learners need parents' help with technology and young learners need more interactions and hands-on activities (96% of the agreement for each). these findings were consistent with those of kim (2020) when the teachers in her study stated that they needed to create more interacting and hands-on activities such as singing, dancing, cutting, drawing, and creating patterns. 92% of teachers also agreed that it is more difficult to teach primary children in a remote setting 2%2% 18% 2% 2% 14% 26% 6% 4% 2% 64% 48% 60% 50% 60% 20% 6% 32% 46% 36% 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 there is more workload teaching activities are more stressful it is more difficult to teach primary children in a remote setting young learners need parents’ help with technology young learners need more interactions and hands-on activities strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree https://asiacall.info/acoj dau thi thanh luy vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 10 compared to older students. in line with the finding of hoang and le (2021), teachers in this study revealed that there is more workload (84%), and teaching activities are more stressful (54%). furthermore, numerous challenges emerged from the interviews. in accordance with the findings of rasmitadila et al. (2020), 70 % (seven teachers) had the similar comment that many students did not have their own computers, laptops or smartphones. these students had to use their parent’s devices but their parents went to work all day without leaving their gadgets at home. this was a big problem for teachers when they had to depend on parents’ schedules to organize the lessons for students. according to t8, “teachers even have to schedule the same lesson two or three times a day for different groups of students whose parents work in different shifts in the factories". many teachers agreed that due to a lack of parents' time and assistance, the number of students joining online classes was not high. "this causes a big gap in knowledge among students, and teachers have to review the lessons when students get back to face-to-face class," as t5 revealed. "most parents are factory workers, they lack ict ability to assist their children’s learning” (t1), “they don’t know how to sign in online learning platforms” (t7). “some of the parents do not care about their children’s study” (t6). considering the difficulties arising from students, many teachers reported that primary school students were still too young. “they do not know all the functions of the online learning apps so their performance is slow” (t4). in addition, t8 said that “children’s self-learning ability is low”, similarly to yang (2020)’s findings about the inability of students in self-study at home during the covid-19 lockdowns. “young students easily lose their focus or fall asleep due to lack of interactions” (t10). t8 also complained that many students chatted to each other about different topics. regarding teachers’ limitations, a few teachers admitted that they were not proficient in some ict tools which they learnt from the internet, so they did not understand or fully exploited the functions (t8 &t10). this finding is consistent with that of ly et al. (2021) when they found that some teachers had a fear of complicated ict tools. a few teachers in this study felt pressured and embarrassed when making video lessons because they lacked confidence in front of the camera and making videos required more time, workload and creativity (t8, t9 & t10). this finding corroborates those of yi and jang (2020) when they confirmed that remote teaching requires teachers to be creative, collaborative and to perform more roles such as video makers. 4.3. teachers’ perceived reasons for not conducting synchronous online classes in this part of the questionnaire, teachers were asked to give their reasons for not conducting synchronous online classes. these reasons are also considered as difficulties hindering teachers in organizing online teaching. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 11 figure 4. teachers’ perceived reasons for not conducting synchronous online classes as revealed, the majority of teachers strongly believed that face-to-face class is more effective (80%). this result is in line with mardiah (2020), rahayu and wirza (2020) when they concluded the shifting to online teaching was not effective in actual practices. in addition, 64% of teachers also strongly agreed that they had technical issues such as complicated ict tools, low internet connection, limited time and participants for one application account. the finding supports evidence from the previous observations of rasmitadila et al. (2020), cardullo et al., (2021), hoang & le (2021), and ha & ngo (2021). besides, the reason that students did not have computers or laptops connected with the internet also accounts for 56% of agreement. however, many teachers did not agree with the statement “i do not know how to conduct an online class (there is no proper training)” with 68% of disagreement. a possible explanation for this result is that teachers received some types of training and guidelines for remote teaching. in the interviews, six teachers (60%) also admitted that they got at least one training on how to organize the remote teaching, either official training or sharing sessions. these findings are fairly different from those of hoang & le (2021) when only 49,3% of teachers in their study admitted that they got clear guidance of moving to remote teaching. some teachers in this study argued that they did not receive any official training from the school, and they proactively learnt from the internet or from sharing among their teaching team. 14% 2% 6% 6% 54% 8% 6% 14% 18% 10% 24% 24% 2% 14% 78% 64% 56% 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 i do not know how to conduct an online class (there is no proper training) face-to-face class is more effective i get technical issues such as complicated ict tools, low internet connection students do not have computers or laptops connected with internet strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree https://asiacall.info/acoj dau thi thanh luy vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 12 4.4. teachers’ perceived ict competence figure 5 shows teachers’ self-report about their capabilities to use ict tools in teaching activities. figure 5. teachers’ perceived ict competence in contrast with the earlier findings of peeraer and petegem (2011) and huynh and pham (2018) when they found that vietnamese primary english teachers were low users of ict, it is obvious from figure 5 that teachers in the current study had high perceptions on their ict ability. 64% agreed that they had mastered those ict tools before covid-19 pandemic. 50% knew many types of remote teaching tools. their ict implementation was no longer just using basic office applications in the computers, they used advanced applications to engage students such as kahoot, quizizz, google forms instead. this difference may be explained by the fact that the majority of participants in this study were young teachers aged 22-34 who are considered better at icts. besides, 42% agreed that they did not have any difficulties in using those ict tools while 30% had neutral opinions and 28% disagreed with the statement. regarding learning ict tools, most teachers admitted that they proactively learnt new ict tools (86%), and they mainly explored new ict tools by themselves more than what their school provided (70%). noticeably, 90% of the teachers agreed that they learnt more new ict skills and pedagogies after teaching remotely in the covid-19 pandemic. this finding further supports the previous studies of cardullo et al., (2021) and tunmibi, aregbesola, adejobi, and ibrahim (2015) who observed that technological skills of both teachers and students were improved after teaching and learning online. 2% 2% 6% 28% 18% 2% 4% 2% 28% 30% 32% 12% 24% 8% 52% 36% 42% 74% 62% 72% 12% 6% 8% 12% 8% 18% 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 i mastered those ict tools before covid-19 pandemic i do not have any difficulties in using those ict tools i know many types of remote teaching tools i proactively learn new ict tools i explore new ict tools by myself more than what my school provides i learn new icts skills and pedagogies after teaching remotely in the covid-19 pandemic strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 13 4.5. teachers’ overall perceptions on remote teaching for primary school students in the interviews with ten teachers from six different schools, teachers had different opinions about teaching english online to primary students. supporting the evidence from the previous studies of todd (2020), rahayu & wirza (2020), and hoang & le (2021), the majority of teachers in the interviews (70%) had positive attitudes towards this teaching approach. these teachers opined that “remote teaching is a good way, especially in the pandemic, to ensure students’ learning continuity and school’s curriculum”. “this is also a suitable method to help students review not only old knowledge but also practice self-study skills at home” (t1). t10 added that “teaching and learning online gives students and teachers opportunities to be exposed to icts and learning resources on the internet”. according to t6 and t8, “another advantage of remote teaching is that students can learn at any time and anywhere or re-watch the video lessons for better understanding”. this also accords with the observations of hrastinski (2008) and mardiah (2020) when they concluded that students’ material comprehension skills were improved in asynchronous learning activities. on the other hand, other teachers had mixed feelings about teaching online to primary children. because it was a requirement of social distancing practice in the covid-19 pandemic, remote teaching was a good choice to ensure students’ learning continuity. in fact, remote teaching to young learners was not effective due to numerous difficulties (t6, t9 & t10). according to t8, “primary school students are still too young to take the initiative in the study. it is hard for them to acquire knowledge through the screen because primary children are usually active and easy to lose concentration. students of grades 3-5 are acceptable in online classes, but students of grades 1-2 get very low effectiveness. the reason is that students of grades 1-2 usually look around, not looking at the screen, not caring about what the teacher is saying, even getting out of the chair, running around". similarly, t8 and t9 said that learning via zoom meeting is suitable for grades 3-5. for grades 1-2, teachers can send links of lessons and exercises via zalo for students to study with the assistance of their parents. when evaluating the effectiveness of the remote teaching activities that the teachers had been operating, five teachers (t1, t3, t4, t6 & t7) reported that there were about 70-80% of student’s participation in their online classes. the rest of teachers said that their online teaching practices were not as effective as they expected when the student’s participation was just 50%. the other students did not participate in online learning because they did not have laptops, computers or smartphones, and their parents were too busy to support them. 4.6. teachers’ suggestions for improving remote teaching in order to better remote teaching and learning practices, teachers were asked to rate their attitudes towards the suggestions provided in figure 6 below. https://asiacall.info/acoj dau thi thanh luy vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 14 figure 6. teachers’ suggestions to improve remote teaching it can be seen from the results that teachers strongly agreed with all the statements with more than 90% of the agreement for each. the statement of “the curriculum needs to be revised” also got high agreement with 86%. these suggestions are in line with those of nguyen et al. (2017), pham, tan and lee (2019), and truong and qalati (2020) when they mentioned the roles of moet in providing enough ict facilities and training for teachers, and revising school curriculum in order to reduce the difficulties teachers were facing. similarly, from the interviews, parents' support was also highly required to make remote learning more effective. parents can help their children by providing learning devices and assisting them with technology. many other suggestions were also drawn such as sharing teaching materials among teachers, flexibility in time and place of organizing online classes (t1), shortening lessons or small amount of knowledge in each lesson to help students acquire and remember knowledge better (t4, t5), creating attractive lessons by inserting interactive games (t7), teachers’ mastering in ict tools to make creative lessons (t8), providing handouts for students who cannot join remote learning (t3), and combining many tools such as zoom, zalo and youtube in delivering lessons to better remote teaching and to reduce limitations of only one tool (t10). 2% 2% 14% 4% 6% 8% 6% 60% 58% 60% 60% 58% 26% 36% 32% 32% 36% 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 the curriculum needs to be revised schools need to provide enough ict infrastructure schools need to provide proper training for teachers experienced teachers need to share teaching techniques with others parents need to assist their children’s learning at home strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 15 4.7. teachers’ perceived intentions to remote teaching and icts for young learners teachers' plans of using remote teaching and icts in teaching after the covid-19 pandemic were rated as follows. figure 7. teachers’ intention in using remote teaching and icts the results from figure 7 reveal that 76% of teachers had positive attitudes towards continuing remote teaching to young learners. 92% also agreed that they would modify the teaching activities to take advantage of icts, and they will encourage students to use icts in learning. in the interviews, eight out of ten teachers showed their intentions to continue organizing remote teaching activities for primary school children after the covid-19 pandemic. two others said they would do remote teaching if their schools required them to do so (t2& t7). most teachers agreed that a 35 minute-period in each class is too short, so it is a good idea to organize extra online classes to help students review knowledge and learn more advanced lessons. “these lessons could be set up on weekends or before exams" (t3 & t10). four teachers (t4, t5, t6 &t8) confirmed that they would combine face-to-face teaching and remote teaching activities with helping students master the knowledge learned in school. slower students could re-watch the lessons many times, and faster learners could acquire new knowledge from the extra lessons. moreover, through short tests on google forms or language games, teachers can evaluate students' understanding so that they give feedback immediately. understanding the benefits of remote teaching, all teachers agreed that they highly recommend this approach and are willing to share their knowledge and skills with other teachers. it is encouraging to compare these findings with those of rahayu and wirza (2020) and irene van der et al. (2020) when they found the high intention of teachers in implementing 2% 22% 8% 8% 58% 66% 66% 18% 26% 26% 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 i will recommend and continue using remote teaching in teaching english to young learners i will modify the teaching activities to take advantages of icts i will encourage my students in using icts in learning strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree https://asiacall.info/acoj dau thi thanh luy vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 16 technology in teaching after the pandemic. a possible explanation for this is teachers' awareness of the advantages of icts in teaching and learning. 5. conclusion 5.1. conclusion remote teaching is unavoidable in the context of the covid-19 pandemic when school closures have happened massively in order to prevent the disease outbreak. this study strived to know how primary english teachers did to ensure students' learning continuity during the school lockdowns, the challenges they were facing and their views towards teaching english remotely to primary school students. the findings of the study are disclosed as follows. following the guidelines of the moet and school management boards, teachers tried to choose ict tools or platforms which were suitable for their students’ circumstances to organize the remote teaching. thanks to the free policy, zoom meeting, zalo and youtube were the most popular platforms that teachers used. many teachers organized synchronous teaching activities via zoom, and others made video lessons and posted on youtube and zalo for students’ learning. however, the sudden switch to remote teaching without any preparation or experience brought teachers plenteous obstacles. it is even more difficult when working with primary school students. one of the hardest problems was that primary school children need parents' involvement and assistance in their learning process. this also requires parents to provide their children with learning devices and support them with technology. teachers are required to create more interactions and hands-on activities to keep students focused as well. in addition, the quick shift to remote teaching put lots of pressure on teachers when they had to perform new roles such as a video maker. although many teachers admitted that they were good at the remote teaching tools, and they knew how to conduct an online class, remote teaching overloaded them and made them feel stressed when they tried to learn how to create an attractive video or a creative lesson. some of them still felt unconfident in front of the camera. furthermore, the problems that many students did not have computers, laptops and technical issues made their teaching practices ineffective. that may be the reason why they still believed face-to-face learning was more effective in comparison with remote learning. when it comes to teachers' overall views on remote teaching to young learners, the majority of teachers expressed their positive attitudes towards this teaching paradigm. despite the challenges, they believed that remote teaching was a good way to ensure students' learning progress and the school's curriculum, especially in the current situation of the covid-19 pandemic. teachers and students also had opportunities to be exposed to the abundant teaching and learning resources from the internet. through the asynchronous activities, students could learn at their own pace and time, so they understand the lessons better. teachers revealed that they learnt new ict tools and improved ict skills after teaching remotely during the pandemic. many intended to continue using the remote teaching approach after the pandemic as a way to give students extra lessons, even though their school does not require to do so. in order to tackle the challenges in facilitating remote teaching, many suggestions are drawn in the study. regarding the school's role, it's necessary to provide proper training for teachers acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 17 in using ict tools and remote teaching pedagogies. schools also need to upgrade ict infrastructures and revise the curriculum to make it suitable for remote learning. shortened lessons may help young students have time to comprehend the knowledge. schools need to let teachers be flexible in choosing teaching materials, time, and place to organize their lessons so that they can meet their students' needs. in connection to the teacher's role, it is a must for them to master the ict tools and platforms in order to create attractive lessons. it is suggested that teachers can combine different ict tools, both synchronous and asynchronous approaches to make teaching activities more effective. experienced teachers also need to share knowledge and skills with their colleagues. for the students who do not have conditions to join remote learning activities, teachers can make handouts for them, guide them to selfstudy, and review the lessons when they get to a face-to-face class. additionally, parents play a crucial role in supporting their children's learning at home by giving them learning devices and assisting them with technology. 5.2. limitations although this study may contribute to the current literature an insight into what happened during the school closures due to the covid-19 pandemic and the efl teachers' perspectives on remote teaching to primary school students, several limitations urge for further research on this topic. firstly, the study was done with a small sample of teachers, so the results may not be generalizable to all academic settings, especially in the rural and remote areas where the conditions for remote learning are still inadequate. secondly, the study mainly focused on teachers' views and practices without any investigations on those of other stakeholders such as students, parents, and schools. finally, the effectiveness of remote teaching has not been thoroughly examined when the time-shifting to remote teaching was not long enough to evaluate. as a result, further studies can fulfill these limitations with investigations into perspectives of parents, students, and schools, broadening research to rural and remote areas, and evaluating the effectiveness of remote teaching activities. references agustina, e., and cahyono, b., y. (2017). perceptions of indonesian teachers and students on the use of quipper school as an online platform for extended efl learning. journal of language teaching and research, 8 (4), 794-800. arkorful, v. and abaidoo, n. (2014). the role of e-learning, the advantages and disadvantages of its adoption in higher education. international journal of education and research, 2 (12), 397-410. austrade report (2020), vietnam edtech scoping study summary report. retrieved from https://www.austrade.gov.au/australian/education/news/data/austrade-report-vietnamedtech-scoping-study burgess, s. and sievertsen, h., h. (2020). schools, skills, and learning: the impact of covid-19 on education. voxeu cepr. retrieved from https://voxeu.org/article/impact-covid-19-education cardullo, v., wang, c.-h., burton, m. and dong, j. (2021). k-12 teachers’ remote teaching self-efficacy during the pandemic. journal of research in innovative teaching & learning, 14 (1), 32-45. https://doi.org/10.1108/jrit-10-2020-0055 https://voxeu.org/article/impact-covid-19-education https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=victoria%20cardullo https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=chih-hsuan%20wang https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=megan%20burton https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=jianwei%20dong https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/2397-7604 https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/2397-7604 https://doi.org/10.1108/jrit-10-2020-0055 https://asiacall.info/acoj dau thi thanh luy vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 18 chapman, g., v. (2019). how is zalo challenging facebook messenger, whatsapp, and viber in southeast asia. quoracreative. retrieved from https://quoracreative.com/article/zalo-app#disqus_thread chitra, a., p. and raj, m., a. (2018). e-learning. journal of applied and advanced research. 3 (1), 11-13. cresswell, j. w., 2012. educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research, 4th ed., pearson. dang, x., t., (2013). ict in foreign language teaching in an innovative university in vietnam: current practices and factors affecting ict use. thesis for doctor of education, researchgate. retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265090672_ict_in_foreign_language_teachi ng_in_an_innovative_university_in_vietnam_current_practices_and_factors_affecting _ict_use dewi, p. (2019). teaching english for young learners through icts. humanitatis journal on language and literature, 6 (1), 11-24. goyal, s. (2012). e-learning: future of education. journal of education and learning, 6 (2), 239-242. ha, g. l., & ngo, t. c. t. (2021). challenges in learning listening comprehension via microsoft teams among english majors at van lang university. international journal of tesol & education, 1(3), pp. 142-175. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11250/ijte.01.03.009 hajjar, s., t., el, (2018). statistical analysis: internal-consistency reliability and construct validity. international journal of quantitative and qualitative research methods, 6 (1), 27-38. hoang, n. t., & le, d. h. (2021). vocational english teachers’ challenges on shifting towards virtual classroom teaching. asiacall online journal, 12(3), 58-73. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/39 hodges, c., moore, s., lockee, b., trust, t., & bond, a. (2020). the difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning. educause. retrieved online from: https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remoteteachingand-online-learning. hrastinski, s. (2008). asynchronous and synchronous e-learning. educause quarterly, 4, 5155. huynh, n., m., k., and pham, t., t., n. (2018). ict use of teachers in teaching english in vietnam. proceeding: 2nd international conference on social sciences, humanities and technology (icsht 2018), global academic excellence, 310-315. huynh, n., m., k., and pham, t., t., n. (2018). teachers’ perception towards the use of ict in vietnam: using activity theory to identify contradictions. the university of danang, journal of science and technology, 6 (127), 55-58. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 19 irene van der, s., omid, n., ellen, s., & stan van, g. (2020). teachers’ online teaching expectations and experiences during the covid19-pandemic in the netherlands. european journal of teacher education, 43 (4), 623-638, doi: 10.1080/02619768.2020.1821185 ivankova, n., & stick, s. (2007). students’ persistence in a distributed doctoral program in educational leadership in higher education: a mixed-methods study. research in higher education, 48(1), 93-135. doi: 10.1007/s11162-006-9025-4 kim, j. (2020). learning and teaching online during covid-19: experiences of student teachers in an early childhood education practicum. international journal of early childhood, 52, 145–158. kisanga, d., h. (2016). determinants of teachers’ attitudes towards e-learning in tanzanian higher learning institutions. international review of research in open and distributed learning, 17 (5), 109-125. ly, t. n. l., nguyen, t. l., & nguyen, h. n. (2021). using e-learning platforms in online classes: a survey on tertiary english teachers' perceptions. asiacall online journal, 12(5), 34-53. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.004 mardiah, h. (2020). the use of e-learning to teach english in the time of the covid-19 pandemic. english teaching and linguistics journal, 1 (2), 49-55. misirli, o., ergulec, f. (2021). emergency remote teaching during the covid-19 pandemic: parents experiences and perspectives. educ inf technol https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639021-10520-4 montiel-chamorro, m. l. (2018). comparing online english language learning and face-toface english language learning at el bosque university in colombia. vcu scholars compass, virginia commonwealth university. https://doi.org/10.25772/cper-nm95 nguyen, t. (2015). the effectiveness of online learning: beyond no significant difference and future horizons. merlot journal of online learning and teaching, 11 (2), 309-319. nguyen, t., q., naguib, r., n., g., das, a., k., papathomas, m., vallar, e., a., wickramasinghe, n., …, nguyen, v. a. (2017). primary education in vietnam and pupil online engagement. international journal of educational management, 32(1), 7183. peeraer, j., and petegem, p., v. (2011). information and communication technology in teacher education in vietnam: from policy to practice. educational research for policy and practice. doi:10.1007/s10671-011-9106-9 pham, t., t., n., tan, c., k. and lee, k., w. (2019). issues and challenges in using ict for teaching english in vietnam. call-ej, 20(3), 140-155. rahayu, r., p. and wirza, y. (2020). teachers’ perception of online learning during pandemic covid-19. jurnal penelitian pendidikan, 20 (3), 392-406. rasmitadila, aliyyah, r., r., rachmadtullah, r., samsudin, a., syaodih, e., nurtanto, m., tambunan, a., r., s. (2020). the perceptions of primary school teachers of online learning during the covid-19 pandemic period: a case study in indonesia. journal of ethnic and cultural studies, 7 (2), 90-109. http://dx.doi.org/10.29333/ejecs/388 https://www.researchgate.net/journal/international-journal-of-educational-management-0951-354x http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10671-011-9106-9 https://asiacall.info/acoj dau thi thanh luy vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 20 russell, t. l. (1999). the no significant difference phenomenon: a comparative research annotated bibliography on technology for distance education: as reported in 355 research reports, summaries and papers. north carolina state university. todd, r., w. (2020). teachers’ perceptions of the shift from the classroom to online teaching. international journal of tesol studies, 2 (2), 4-16. truong, t., h., t. and qalati, s., a. (2020). preschool teacher’s attitude towards the integration of information technology into english teaching for young children in vietnam. international journal of economics, commerce and management, 8 (2), 279294. truong, v., h., (2020). unicef education covid-19 case study viet nam – the digital transformation accelerated by covid-19. unicef vietnam. retrieved from https://www.unicef.org/eap/media/7136/file/case_study%3a_viet_nam_%e2%80%9 3_the_digital_transformation_accelerated_by_covid-19.pdf tunmibi, s., aregbesola, a., adejobi, p., and ibrahim, o. (2015). impact of e-learning and digitalization in primary and secondary schools. journal of education and practice, 6 (17), 53-53. unicef vietnam (2020). minister of education and training phung xuan nha requests unicef’s support in distance learning. retrieved from https://www.unicef.org/vietnam/stories/minister-education-and-training-phung-xuannha-requests-unicefs-support-distance-learning unicef. (2021). covid-19 and school closures: one year of education disruption. retrieved from https://data.unicef.org covid-19 and school closures unicef data u.s. department of education, office of planning, evaluation, and policy development, (2010). evaluation of evidence-based practices in online learning: a meta-analysis and review of online learning studies, washington, d.c. vu, c., t., hoang, a., d., than, v., q., nguyen, m., t., dinh, v., h., le, t., q., a.,..., nguyen, wim j., katrien w., patrick d. p., and patrick v. k., ( 2008). marketing research with spss. prentice-hall; pearson education. isbn: 978-0-273-70383-9. 274-275 y., c., (2020). dataset of vietnamese teachers’ perspectives and perceived support during the covid-19 pandemic. elsevier journal, data in brief (31). yang, x. (2020). teachers’ perceptions of large-scale online teaching as an epidemic prevention and control strategy in china. ecnu review of education, 3(4) 739–744 yi, y. and jang, j. (2020). envisioning possibilities amid the covid-19 pandemic: implications from english language teaching in south korea. tesol journal, 11, e543. https://data.unicef.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/covid19-and-school-closures.pdf https://data.unicef.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/covid19-and-school-closures.pdf https://data.unicef.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/covid19-and-school-closures.pdf acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 21 biodata ms. dau thi thanh luy is working as an academic officer at seameo regional training center in vietnam (seameo retrac). her responsibilities include designing english training curriculum for young learners, tests and extra learning activities. besides, she has been teaching english for more than ten years. she received an ma degree in applied linguistics from curtin university, australia in 2014. her research interest is engaging young learners with educational games and technology. using video dubbing task to improve sentence stress for asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, le huong hoa & le thi hong duyen applying mind–maps as a teaching and learning strategy to english for special purposes (esp) le huong hoa police university, vietnam hoalehuong@yahoo.com le thi hong duyen haiphong medical university, vietnam hongduyen.yhp@gmail.com abstract questions are being raised in vietnam whether esp programs are difficult for students to study, and whether teachers are capable of providing students with sufficient quality of knowledge to meet the demands of esp programs. many researchers nowadays advocate for syllabi change in esp programs, the use of authentic, realworld based materials, and for reconceptualization of pedagogic models that inform the teaching strategies in these programs. this article reports on a study designed to explore the possibilities of mind-mapping in esp teaching and learning in the hope of improving students' learning effectiveness. keywords: esp, mind–maps introduction nowadays, english has been widely used in many areas such as politics, economics, tourism, telecommunication, culture, science, technology, so on. since vietnam carried out the open door policy towards the regional and global integration, the english language has become more and more important for people of all ages and careers nationwide. therefore, there is great demand for teaching and learning english throughout the country for different purposes. it is evident that teaching english for specific purposes (esp) has become one of the most prominent features of the english language teaching process (hutchinson &waters, 1987; robinson, 1991). hutchinson and waters (1987) reported that esp is an approach for language teaching in which all decisions regarding content and methods are based on the learners’ reasons for learning. it focuses on using english effectively in specific academic fields such as business, law, medicine, sciences, etc. holding an important position in any esp classroom, textbooks play a crucial part in meeting the learners' needs, increasing their motivations, as well as facilitating their learning. in dudley-evans and st john's (1998) words, this role is more prominent in situations where english is a foreign language (efl) and naturally the esp classroom may be almost the only source of english in exposing learners to the language. in this regard, the essential position of reading comprehension in efl settings has turned this skill to the most important one needed for learners' success in a way that it is often known as the main goal of english language learning in such context (erfani, et al. 2011). however, reviewing the current esp textbooks in vietnamese academic context also shows that while the most significant skill which the students need for success is reading (farhadi, 2006; riazi, 2006), the lack of useful strategies and techniques in such textbooks development as well as the low face validity in such textbooks are obvious (iranmehr, et al. (2010); soleimani, 2006). the situation above urges the researcher to think of implementing a quasi-experimental research of applying mind-map as a teaching and learning strategy to esp with the hope to investigate the probable mailto:hoalehuong@yahoo.com mailto:hongduyen.yhp@gmail.com asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, le huong hoa & le thi hong duyen effectiveness of using mind-map context in esp reading comprehension ability of medical and police university students whose syllabus mostly focuses on this skill. mind-map and its uses 1. using a mind-map in teaching and learning vocabulary according to nattinger (1988), words in our mental lexicon are tied to one another not only by meaning, form and sound but also by sight. therefore, mind-map is a kind of visualization which is helpful for memorizing vocabulary. teachers and students can use this tool to form a net of vocabulary topics which cover the subject matter. for traditional way of learning, students have to learn long lines of vocabulary within the topics. by that way, there is no connection among words and the word lists are so limited and boring. with mind-map, however, we can learn many words in a funny and effective way. the lists of words can be replaced by a picture of words. and as a very famous saying of napoleon, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. more importantly, the words are shown in connection when we look at the mind-map, which enables us to learn words easier. figure 1: an example of using mind-maps to teach and learn medical terminology 2. using a mind-map in teaching and learning reading skills as mentioned, most esp course books concentrate on developing the reading skills. students learn to skim and scan the texts in order to comprehend them and do the exercises that follow. because mind-map can be used to organize the information, it will be a great tool for students to skim and scan the readings and summarize the text by the model of a mind-map. besides, mind-map is known as a powerful brainstorming tool. it is helpful to apply it in the pre-reading activities in order to exploit the students’ pre-existing knowledge to the topic. figure 2: an example of brainstorming pre-reading activities asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, le huong hoa & le thi hong duyen 3 using mind-map in communicative situations in vietnam, many students feel embarrassed dealing with english at work when they enter in the real world. of course, one main reason is due to their poor competence of english but it is also due to a fact that esp courses such as english in medicine, law, engineering, construction, etc., hardly provide students with communicative situations which they might encounter in their future jobs. for many teachers of esp, time limitation is also one of the big problems. how can they integrate communicative situations into their lessons in less time-consuming way? mind-map will be the solution. mind-map can be used as an effective tool in brainstorming activities. the teachers should take advantage of any time when the real situations occur in order to get students to talk, discuss, and share their ideas. teachers can raise a question related to a certain situation the students might cope with in their job and ask them to give their opinions. when students really enjoy and take part in the process of discussion, they are truly involved in communicative situations and develop their speaking skills. by that way, mind-map facilitates the assimilation of knowledge and foster communication between teachers and students. figure 3: an example of using mind-maps in a communicative situation research questions in line with the attempt to determine whether mind-map context has any effect on improving esp reading comprehension ability, a null hypothesis was formulated as: mind-map context with the preferred computer-based type has no effect on the improvement of esp reading comprehension of university students majoring medicine. this study is further conceptualized and elaborated in the following research questions: 1. is there a significant difference in the pre-test reading scores of the control group (i.e., students who do not participate in a mind-mapping program) and those of the experimental group (i.e., students who do participate in a mind-mapping program)? 2. is there a significant difference in the post-test reading scores of the control and experimental groups? asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, le huong hoa & le thi hong duyen methodology 1. participants this study involved 60 students majoring medicine at medical university. they were chosen to serve as experimental and control groups. to assess their language proficiency, a standard test of english was given to them and based on their scores they were categorized as pre-intermediate. 2. design based on the purpose of the study, it followed a quasi-experimental design displaying the following characteristics: two homogeneous groups of pre intermediate level students served as control and experimental groups. a treatment, namely mind-mapping context was offered to experimental group and the text-only context to control group. two tests as pretest and posttest were administered in each group. 3. procedure after assigning the participants to two equal groups, the experimental group was encouraged to study the texts along with mind-mapping. they were taught for twelve weeks and during this time and the participants of control group were taught through texts only. in a more precise word, this group was not asked or encouraged to apply this tool in the process of reading esp passages. after instructions, a posttest was performed for both groups. 4. results & data analysis the effect of mind-mapping context on reading comprehension ability of university students was determined with the pretest-posttest equivalent group design. the pretest was given before students received reading instructions. to control for confounding variables, the control group were taught using the same instructional methods, except for enjoying mind-map context with the preferred computer-based type. at the end of the treatment, an independent sample t-test was used to analyze the data. to answer the research question, after scoring the tests and tabulating the scores for each subject, the results were put under a series of statistical analyses. next, an independent t-test was used to verify the pre-test results on both groups. at the end of the study, the posttest was given to the groups and to confirm or reject the hypothesis, a ttest was used. table 1: pre-test means (m) and standard deviations (sd) reading control (n=30) experimental (n=29) t-test m sd m sd written test 3.6 1.4 3.9 1.2 1.65 table 2: post-test means (m) and standard deviations (sd) reading control (n=30) experimental (n=29) t-test m sd m sd written test 9.3 1.8 12.3 1.4 6.3 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, le huong hoa & le thi hong duyen considering (t-observed = 1.65 < t-critical = 2.00) at the pretest and (t-observed = 6.3> t-critical =2.00) at the posttest shows that a remarkable difference between the two groups at the posttest stage is obvious. after comparing the two mean scores through t-test calculations, the researcher felt justified that the null hypothesis could be rejected. while the two groups were not significantly different at the outset of the study, they scored differently on the posttest and the difference was statistically significant. conclusions and implications the present findings seem to lend support to most of the related available findings in the field of elt. the present study, as an attempt to integrate mind-map context in esp, has focused on the extent to which mind-map context can enhance esp reading comprehension of university students. finding revealed that it could be cogently argued that this strategy do aid esp reading comprehension of university students. this study was an attempt to seek ways to develop students into independent readers in the hope of giving students a love for reading, a thirst for it. the results of the study suggest that a well-conducted mind – map program can make a significant on reading proficiency. however, some limitations may have occurred. for example, the condition in which the research was conducted was too good: the students were tested through both tests: the placement test and the pretest, which may not be very practical for carrying out on a large scale. the sample size was not big enough. therefore, the result drawn from the study may not have been of high representativeness. during the one-month treatment, some students were occasionally absent from class, which might have affected the result of the post-test. however, all the students were present at the pretest and post-test. to prevent the hawthorn effect, the researcher made sure that the students did not know about the research. to control for short-term memory effects, the pretest-post-rest papers were neither corrected by the teachers nor returned to the students in both classes. in conclusion, from a research perspective, the two groups would, ideally, have continued the control and experimental treatments for a longer period and on other subjects to see if the effect remained, if the experimental group continued their impressive progress and if the study may have been of high representativeness. students who are not currently skilled, enthusiastic readers face unnecessary and serious obstacles to realizing their potential contributions to themselves, their families in particular and to society in general. thus, it is time for the teachers to create and implement programmes to help students to get motivated in studying as well as students who fall behind in learning esp. the model set in this study suggests that mind-map can play an important role in assisting students to improve their level of reading proficiency, and reading skill as well as the benefits that flow from them are essential if students are to become people who understand the word to know what are changing around them. references buzan, t. (1986). use your memory. london: guild publishing. buzan, t. (1988). super creativity. new york: st martin’s press. buzan, t. (1996). the mind map book: how to use radiant thinking to maximize your brain’s untapped potential. new york, penguin group. dudley-evans, t. & st john, m.j. (1998). developments in esp. cambridge: cup. erfani, s. m., iranmehr, a., & davari, h. (2011). deepening esp reading comprehension through visualization. journal of language teaching and research, 2(1), 270-273. http://dx.doi.org/10.4304/jltr.2.1.270-273 farhady, h. (2006). reflections on and directions for esp materials development in samt, in kiani & khayamdar (eds.), proceedings of the first national esp/eap conference (vol. 3). tehran, samt publication. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, le huong hoa & le thi hong duyen farrand, p., hussain, f. & hennessy, e. (2002). the efficacy of the mind map study technique. medical education. 36: 426-431. gimenez, j.c. (1996). process assessment in esp: input, throughput and output. retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0889490696000075 hutchinson, t. & waters, a. (1987). english for specific purposes. a learningcentered approach. cambridge: cup. iranmehr, a., erfani, s. m., & davari, h. (2010). a call for the reengineering of iranian esp textbooks. sino-us english teaching, 7(7), 23-30. iranmehr, a., erfani, s. m., & davari, h. (2010). a call for the reengineering of iranian esp textbooks. sino-us english teaching, 7(7), 23-30. nattinger, j.r. (1988). some current trends in vocabulary teaching. in: r. carter and m. mccarthy, eds. vocabulary and language teaching. harlow: longman. riazi, a. (2005). features of quality eap textbooks: insights from literature and book reviews. in kiani, g. r., & khayamdar, m. (eds.), proceedings of the first national esp/eap conference (vol. 1). tehran, samt publication. ruiz-primo, m. (2000). on the use of concept maps as an assessment tool in science: what we have learnt so far. retrieved from http://redie.uabc.mx/vol2no1/contents-ruizpri.html susman, j.i. (1983). action research: a sociotechnical system perspective in ed. g. morgan, beyond method. strategies for social research. london: sage publications. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0889490696000075 http://redie.uabc.mx/vol2no1/contents-ruizpri.html citation asiacall online journal received: 29/09/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 01/11/2021 vol. 13, no. 1, 2022 accepted: 16/11/2021 pp. 40-72 online: 17/11/2021 citation | pham, n. k. t. (2022). vietnamese students’ perspectives on online micro-teaching (omt) as a technique in english teacher education in the 4.0 era. asiacall online journal, 13(1), 40-72. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.003 vietnamese students’ perspectives on online micro-teaching (omt) as a technique in english teacher education in the 4.0 era pham ngoc kim tuyen vietnam national university, ho chi minh city, vietnam correspondence: pham ngoc kim tuyen, university of social sciences & humanities (ussh), vietnam national university, ho chi minh city (vnuhcm), vietnam. e-mail: pnkimtuyen@hcmussh.edu.vn eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.003 abstract since its emergence in 1963, micro-teaching has been widely adopted as an effective technique in teacher training and development across various disciplines, especially in english language teaching. a huge body of research focuses on its effectiveness and students’ and teachers' perceptions of this practice. however, scant literature can be found on online micro-teaching (omt), particularly in vietnam. therefore, this survey research is aimed to explore vietnamese students' perspectives on omt, centering on (1) what and how they learned, (2) what difficulties they faced, and (3) what suggestions they made on future omt. to address those questions, both qualitative and quantitative methods were employed to collect data. specifically, a questionnaire via google forms, consisting of 17 closedand open-ended questions, was delivered to 142 students at the faculty of english linguistics and literature, the ussh, vnuhcm. the study results show that the participants could learn teaching and digital competencies from omt through six main ways. additionally, they faced three main difficulties, namely (1) checking students' learning progress/attention/concentration, (2) promoting students' participation, engagement, and collaboration, and (3) technology (internet connection and teaching equipment). however, to better improve future omt sessions, the participants provided five key suggestions, including (1) backup plans, (2) preparation, (3) training and rehearsal with tools and omt, (4) engagement methods, and (5) classroom management and professionalism. they also recommended some online tools for omt. keywords: micro-teaching, online micro-teaching, teacher education 1. introduction since its emergence in stanford university’s teacher education program in 1963, microteaching has been conceived as an effective teacher-training technique and has been implemented around the globe. micro-teaching, with its typical characteristics of (1) reduced length, (2) narrowed scope, and (3) fewer students than usual, has been considered as a “safe” setting in which students may learn how to teach (allen & ryan, 1969, cited in park, 2021). therefore, micro-teaching has been implemented in a myriad of forms in various disciplines, especially in english teacher education programs. http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.003 mailto:pnkimtuyen@hcmussh.edu.vn http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.003 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 41 in ho chi minh city, vietnam, several institutions offer english teacher education programs, most of which embed micro-teaching as part of the training process for preservice teachers or student teachers. one such institution is the faculty of english linguistics and literature (ef), university of social sciences and humanities (ussh), vietnam national university, ho chi minh city (vnuhcm). at the ef, it is compulsory for all students to take the teaching methodology course, which provides them with the fundamentals of english language teaching, followed by a micro-teaching episode as one final assessment task. in addition, students majoring in english language teaching are required to take further teaching-related courses, namely teaching practice 1 and 2. while the teaching methodology course is theoryoriented, teaching practice 1 and 2 courses are practice-oriented, and micro-teaching is also an integral part of the two courses. besides the full-time undergraduate program, the ef offers a tesol certificate program intended for those who do not major in english language teaching or tesol but wish to teach english at foreign language centers. the program enrollees receive a tesol certificate when they finish all the required courses, one of which is teaching practice 3. the course gives the students opportunities for more intensive english teaching practice with the micro-teaching technique. last may 2021, when the students of teaching methodology, teaching practice 1, 2, and 3, taught by the researcher, were preparing their lesson plans for the coming micro-teaching episodes, the covid-19 pandemic started raging in vietnam for the fourth time. consequently, the remaining theory-oriented sessions switched from face-to-face to online teaching and learning, and all students of those courses conducted their micro-teaching sessions online for the first time. however, this new type of practice, online micro-teaching (omt), particularly in the vietnamese teaching context, is needed given technological advancements in the fourth industrial revolution, also known as the 4.0 era of the digital revolution. azrai, rini, and suryanda (2020) concluded in their study that micro-teaching was still essential in teacher education in the fourth industrial revolution. also, teacher education programs are now challenged with the goal of developing the next generation of teachers who are proficient in integrating technology into their daily practice (diana, 2013). to that end, omt needs to be studied to provide student teachers teaching practice opportunities but also help familiarize themselves with teaching online. given the potential value of omt, the current study is aimed to explore the students' perspectives on their omt experiences. the study results are expected to give the researcher, the teacher in charge of the teaching-related courses mentioned earlier, a better understanding of omt to improve it in the future. further, the study is hoped (1) to make a theoretical contribution to the research body on micro-teaching in general, on omt in particular, (2) to benefit other teachers, managers, or developers in the design of omt as part of their english teacher education programs, and (3) to lay the groundwork for future research on omt. https://asiacall.info/acoj pham ngoc kim tuyen vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 42 2. literature review this section displays related theories on micro-teaching and explores how micro-teaching can be conducted online in relevant studies. 2.1 micro-teaching in this part, micro-teaching is reviewed in terms of its definitions, rationale, procedure and cycle, applications, benefits and limitations, and some other related aspects. 2.1.1 definitions of micro-teaching several definitions of micro-teaching can be found throughout the literature. for example, cooper and allen (1971) defined micro-teaching as “a teaching situation which is scaled down in terms of time [4-20 minutes per teaching episode] and numbers of students [3-10 students]” (p. 8). another definition which also focuses on the "scaled-down" nature of micro-teaching was given by mcaleese and unwin (1971), who considered micro-teaching as a "scaled-down teaching encounter, scaled-down in terms of class size, lesson length and teaching complexity" (cited in trott, 1976, p. 2). in addition, micro-teaching was later defined as "a laboratory training procedure aimed at simplifying the complexities of regular teaching-learning processes'' (perlberg, 1987, cited in grossman, 2009). despite the variations in the way micro-teaching was defined, micro-teaching frequently involves a micro-teaching episode, including a lesson and immediate feedback on a student teacher's effectiveness. the sources of feedback can be diverse, from videotape or audio-tape recordings, supervisors, students to the student teacher's self-perception. some other aspects of micro-teacher encompass lesson length, number of re-teaches, the amount and kind of supervision, the use of video or audiotape recordings, and the number and type of students (cooper & allen, 1971). further, allen and eve (1968, p. 181) put forward five essential conditions for creating a microteaching setting as follows: 1) actual teaching takes place. 2) the complexity of the normal teaching situation, including the student numbers, the lesson scope, and the class time, is deliberately reduced. 3) the focus of teacher training is reduced to accomplishing a specific task, such as the practice of instructional skills or techniques of teaching, the mastery of specific curriculum materials, or the demonstration of a particular teaching methodology. 4) a high degree of control over elements such as time, the use of students, and the methods of feedback and supervision are structured into the training situation. 5) the typical feedback dimension in teaching is greatly expanded through an immediate follow-up critique utilizing sources such as the student teacher's own analysis, students' or peers' reactions, videotapes, and the supervisor. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 43 overall, a major attraction of the micro-teaching format is that it simplifies the teaching activities and provides an opportunity for real experimental control and manipulation of variables in teaching (allen & eve, 1968). 2.1.2 rationale for micro-teaching in addition to the definitions of and essential conditions for micro-teaching, cooper and allen synthesized and presented the rationale for its application as a teacher training technique (1971). however, some of the following claims made about micro-teaching overlap the five essential conditions mentioned above. 1) micro-teaching is real teaching, reduces the complexities of normal classroom teaching, and permits greater control over the trainee's environment regarding students, feedback methods, supervision, and other aspects. 2) knowledge and information about the student teacher's performance (through various sources of feedback) aids him/her in his/her acquisition of teaching skills. 3) micro-teaching provides a setting in which the trainee can teach students of varying backgrounds, intellectual abilities, and age groups before teaching a real class. 4) micro-teaching provides a low-threat and low-risk situation in which the trainee can reduce his/her anxiety level and fear of failure experienced by beginning teachers in actual classrooms. 5) micro-teaching allows for spaced or distributed, repetitive practice over a period of time, necessary to overlearn skills that will be used during regular teaching. in general, micro-teaching has been a favorable teacher training technique because of its real, simplified, controlled, low-threat, low-risk, practical, and feasible nature. therefore, the above rationale for micro-teaching can function as the foundation for its benefits later mentioned in section 2.1.5. 2.1.3 micro-teaching procedure and cycle traditionally, according to mcknight’s description (1980), in a typical micro-teaching program, after a teaching skill is described for the trainee through a videotape of a master teacher modeling the skill, the trainee delivers a brief teaching performance which is videotaped and played back for review and feedback/critique from various sources including the trainee’s supervisor, peers, students, and self-perceptions. the trainee later revises his/her lesson and teaches it again to a different group of students. the second teaching situation is also followed by a critique session. such a procedure is repeated until the trainee can master the identified teaching skills and has been known as the teach/re-teach format. the micro-teaching cycle is summarized and visually represented in figure 1. https://asiacall.info/acoj pham ngoc kim tuyen vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 44 figure 1. micro-teaching cycle (adopted from reddy, 2019, p. 69) as shown in figure 1 (adopted from reddy, 2019, p. 69), the trainee first plans his/her lesson based on a set of teaching skills which have been described and demonstrated or modelled by his/her supervisor. the trainee teaches the first lesson, which is usually observed by his/her supervisor and peers and videotaped for review and critique. based on the given feedback, the trainee re-plans, revises the lesson, and teaches it again for another critique session. the cycle may repeat several times until the trainee can gain an adequate level of mastery of the designated teaching skills and apply them in actual classroom teaching. overall, this cycle resonates with the micro-teaching procedure as earlier described by mcknight (1980). 2.1.4 applications of micro-teaching given the rationale for micro-teaching as presented in section 2.1.2, micro-teaching can be applicable in a wide range of situations, contexts, and disciplines. cooper and allen (1971) summarized six main applications of micro-teaching as follows: 1) preservice training: this was the original purpose of micro-teaching when it was developed at stanford university, which is the preservice training of student or intern teachers through their practice and acquisition of teaching skills. 2) in-service training: several uses of micro-teaching for in-service teachers have been suggested. micro-teaching can be used as one of the following: (a) as a trial framework for team presentation (experiments with new techniques in content and mode of presentation), (b) as a site for ascertaining the proper instructional level of materials, (c) as a method of pre-employment prediction (as a framework for selection or rating experienced teachers seeking employment), and (d) as a means of training supervisors to evaluate beginning teachers. 3) micro-counselling: through micro-teaching, trainees practice basic component skills of counseling such as attending behavior, the reflection of feeling, and summarization of feeling. 4) supervisor training: micro-teaching has great utility for training supervisors, especially with the strongly recommended use of videotape recorders in enhancing the supervisory effectiveness in observation and assessment of instruction. 5) college teachers training: micro-teaching has been used to improve college teaching, for example, by developing teaching skills and techniques. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 45 6) peace corps training: micro-teaching became a major component in the training of peace corps volunteers into english teachers. apart from the six main applications above, micro-teaching has been employed in a wide variety of areas such as in (1) medical education (assisting medical students to acquire the skills of relating to patients), (2) administration and personnel (training administrators, secretaries, receptionists, politicians, or ministers presentation and communication skills), or (3) service areas (enhancing professional competence of social workers, psychiatrists, and police officers) (allen & eve, 1968). 2.1.5 benefits and limitations of micro-teaching this section examines the benefits and limitations of micro-teaching, primarily based on the review of some related theoretical papers on micro-teaching. seven groups of benefits of microteaching can be identified as follows: 1) micro-teaching promotes real-time teaching experiences (remesh, 2013), offers an opportunity for actual practice (ralph, 2014), a real teaching situation for developing teaching skills (reddy, 2019), opportunity to apply and practice the pedagogic theories student teachers learned (azrai, rini, & suryanda, 2020). 2) it has a positive influence on student teachers' consciousness and perceptions about their teaching skills (ismail, 2011) and helps to develop, improve, sharpen, accomplish, and master specific teaching skills and competencies (ismail, 2011; fernadez, 2012; reddy, 2019; azrai, rini, & suryanda, 2020). 3) specifically, it helps student teachers develop timing, planning, asking questions, management of the class, using different materials and examples, and physical appearance during the teaching process (saban & çoklar, 2013); improved classroom use of language, introductory, procedure, and closure (wangchuk, 2019), and lesson planning skill (ralph, 2014). 4) besides, micro-teaching provides expert supervision and constructive feedback on prospective teachers based on their individual differences in teaching behavior, especially with the support of video recordings of their performances (ralph, 2014; reddy, 2019). 5) micro-teaching allows a chance to evaluate their own strengths and weaknesses (saban & çoklar, 2013), learn from trainees' peers' performances (ralph, 2014), and is effective in understanding and modifying teaching behaviors (reddy, 2019). 6) it increases the confidence of trainee teachers in their teaching (ralph, 2014; reddy, 2019; wangchuk, 2019). 7) finally, the typical characteristics of micro-teaching were also considered as its advantages, summarized by ralph (2014), including (a) it is a vehicle of continuous training applicable at all stages not only to teachers at the beginning of their career but https://asiacall.info/acoj pham ngoc kim tuyen vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 46 also for more senior teachers, (b) it enables the projection of model instructional skills, (c) it provides repeated practice (re-planning, re-teaching, and re-critique) without adverse consequences to the trainee teacher or his/her students, (d) it reduces the complexity of teaching process as it is scaled-down teaching (reduced class time, class size, and lesson content), and (e) it is a safe environment for prospective teachers to plan, teach, and reflect on their teaching. however, six groups of limitations of micro-teaching can also be found throughout the literature. 1) sometimes, micro-teaching does not involve teaching actual students, deviates from normal classroom teaching, requires a special classroom setting, resulting in the lack of real experience regarding classroom conditions at school (ralph, 2014; reddy, 2019; azrai, rini, & suryanda, 2020). 2) student teachers experience initial nervousness about teaching their peers (ralph, 2014). 3) there is limited class time, thus limited opportunities to reflect on trainees’ own teaching (lee & wu, 2006). 4) micro-teaching is skill-oriented (only focusing on a few specific skills), and content is not emphasized (reddy, 2019). 5) a large number of trainee teachers cannot be given the opportunity for re-teaching and re-planning (reddy, 2019). 6) finally, micro-teaching is a very time-consuming technique and may raise administrative problems as regards arranging micro-lessons (micro-teaching episodes) (reddy, 2019). in general, the benefits and limitations of micro-teaching will serve as the theoretical basis for the discussion of the study findings later presented in section 4. 2.1.6 other aspects of micro-teaching to justify the study's conceptual framework, which is given in section 2.3, the design of the questionnaire, the main data collection method in the study, and the implementation of omt, some other components of micro-teaching are worth considering. those components include (1) modeling and supervision, (2) feedback, (3) observation, (4) criteria for teaching evaluation, and (5) teaching skills. first, cooper and allen (1971) stressed the importance of modeling, reporting that when videotaped modeling performance demonstrates desired behavior, trainees' ability to acquire modeled teaching skills in a transfer task is enhanced. likewise, grossman (2009) placed great value on supervision as part of professional development. specifically, the important roles of the supervisor or teacher trainer are highlighted during the student teachers' planning stage when the supervisor provides them with the necessary knowledge and skills of teaching in acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 47 preparation for their micro-teaching episodes. additionally, the supervisor helps to point out teacher trainees' teaching strengths and weaknesses in the feedback giving sessions. second, feedback is a very effective technique for modifying some teaching behaviors (cooper & allen, 1971). it plays a pivotal role in enhancing the preservice teachers' skills by enabling them to pursue a reflective teaching experience, reflecting on their strengths, and rectifying their errors (wangchuk, 2019). as mentioned earlier, feedback can derive from various sources such as the student teacher's own analysis, students' or peers' reactions, videotapes, and the supervisor (allen & eve, 1968). to obtain information about a teaching performance for critique, feedback needs to be closely associated with observation. traditionally, classroom observation has occupied a prominent role in terms of its use as a tool by which to judge and subsequently promote good practice (o’leary, 2004, cited in leshem & bar-hama, 2008). cooper and allen (1971) summarized three main advantages of observation, including (1) observation broadens the experience of the observer and lessens the number of actual presentations by each trainee to alter his/her teaching behavior, (2) it enables the trainee to assess his/her own teaching behavior more critically, and (3) it results in a variety of creative approaches for presenting similar lessons or concepts. some of the most common tools for observation are (1) observation forms, (2) detailed written notes on the lesson, (3) audiorecordings for reinforcement of written notes, and (4) video recordings (leshem & bar-hama, 2008). however, whatever observation tools are used, teacher trainees need explicit criteria for effective teaching to identify the quality of their teaching (leshem & bar-hama, 2008). examples of criteria for assessment on an observation form were given by leshem and barhama (2008, p. 259), consisting of: 1) instructional components: clarity of instructions, sequence of activities, and classroom management; 2) affective components: giving feedback and reinforcement, awareness of students’ needs; 3) language components: use of l1, oral, and written proficiency; 4) cognitive components: lesson planning, stating clear objectives, and designing activities to achieve lesson objectives; and 5) metacognitive components: the ability to analyze the lesson and to reflect upon their professional development. those criteria were considered, together with the teaching skills synthesized by cooper and allen (1971) and reddy (2019) regarding the design of the questionnaire used in the study. the following is the list of teaching skills summarized by cooper and allen (1971): 1) frequency in asking questions (asking as many questions as possible) 2) probing questions (asking students for more information, asking them to justify their responses, prompting or giving them hints, refocusing their attention on a related issue https://asiacall.info/acoj pham ngoc kim tuyen vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 48 or earlier responses) 3) higher-order questions (prompting students to use reasons/ideas instead of remembering information) 4) divergent questions (requiring students to think creatively, asking them to make hypotheses and use their imagination to reorganize concepts into novel patterns) 5) reinforcement (using positive reinforcement such as rewards to increase students’ participation) 6) recognizing attending behavior (observing students’ verbal and non-verbal responses so that the teacher can make proper instructional and classroom management decisions) 7) silence and non-verbal cues (controlled use of teacher silence to get students to speak and techniques of using non-verbal communication) 8) cueing (giving students hints or clues regarding their answering questions or making comments to enhance their perception of success experience) 9) set induction (ways of introducing upcoming activities and establishing common frames of reference between the teacher and students to facilitate communication) 10) stimulus variation (techniques and behaviors to keep students attentive and alert throughout a lesson) 11) closure (helping students to perceive a logical organization of the main points/ideas presented in a lesson and perceive a feeling of achievement through their ability to connect past and new knowledge at the end of a lesson) 12) lecturing (delivery techniques, use of visual aids, pacing, etc.) 13) use of examples (using examples relevant to students’ experience and knowledge, relating examples to the principles or ideas being taught, asking students to give examples that illustrate the points of teaching to check their understanding or whether lesson objectives are met, and using analogies or metaphors to relate the unknown to the known) 14) planned repetition (clarifying and reinforcing major ideas, keywords, principles or concepts in a lecture or discussion) 15) completeness of communication (sensitivity training on the importance and difficulty of being understood, helping teaching to be more responsive to possible miscommunication) reddy (2019) also gave a list of teaching skills for micro-teaching, most of which overlap cooper and allen’s (1971) such as (1) introduction skill (set induction), (2) reinforcement, (3) skill of stimulus variation, (4) skill of probing questions, (5) silence and nonverbal cues, and (6) skill of achieving closure. the remaining additional teaching skills are presented below. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 49 1) lesson planning (with clear-cut objectives and an appropriate planned sequence. the content should be concise, appropriate, relevant, and could cover the specified duration.) 2) presentation and explanation skills (teacher enthusiasm, explanation, narration, giving appropriate illustrations and examples, planned repetition, and encouraging group discussion wherever necessary. the trainee teacher should be able to explain the concept by simple, relevant, rightly, and interesting examples to increase students’ understanding.) 3) the skill of stimulus variation (the effective components of the skill are gestures (hand, facial, body), change in the speech pattern, voice variation and modulation (pitch, volume, speed), change in the interaction pattern, focusing, pausing movement, and emphasis on significant points) (added description from reddy (2019)) 4) proper use of audio-visual aids (the key components for this skill are neatness, readability, adequate spacing, distinct size, proper spacing between words and lines, and use of relevant words or phrases 5) the skill of black-board writing (the components of the skill of black-board writing: legibility (easy to read), size and alignment (in a straight line), highlighting main points, utilization of the space, black-board summary, correctness, the position of the teacher, contact with students.) 6) classroom management (providing proper instructions, restricting inappropriate behavior, and calling the students by name are essentials of this skill.) overall, the two lists of teaching skills above serve as the frameworks of reference regarding the design of questionnaire items on teaching competencies which are discussed later in section 3.4. 2.2 online micro-teaching (omt) and relevant studies this section explores how micro-teaching can be conducted online through a review of the most related studies. it appears that no specific definition of online micro-teaching (omt) can be found in the literature. however, a thorough review reveals four main ways in which micro-teaching takes place, highly associated with online tools for teaching. online tools refer to any kinds of applications, programs, or software that are used on the internet. son (2011) classified online tools for language teaching into 12 categories, including: 1) learning/content management systems (lmss/cmss): blackboard, drupal, joomla, moodle, and sakai 2) communication tools: gmail, skype, tokbox, windows live messenger, yahoo! messenger, jabberwacky, verbot, mybb, phpbbtangler, and voxopop 3) live and virtual worlds: elluminate, livestream, opensimulator, activeworlds, second https://asiacall.info/acoj pham ngoc kim tuyen vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 50 life, ustream, wimba classroom, and wiziq 4) social networking and bookmarking sites: delicious, diigo, elgg, facebook, grouply, myspace, ning, socialgo, linkedin, twitter, lang-8, and livemocha 5) blogs and wikis: blogger, edmodo, edublogs, livejournal, wordpress.com, pbworks, wikispaces, and penzu 6) presentation tools: 280 slides, animoto, empresser, prezi, sliderocket, and zoho 7) resource sharing tools: google docs, titanpad, zoho writer, box.net, dropbox, voicethread, xtranormal, flickr, picasa, mypodcast, podomatic, glogster, screenr, slideshare, photopeach, dipity, ourstory, jing, schooltube, teachertube, videopress, vimeo, watchknow, and youtube 8) website creation sites: google sites, jimdo, kompozer, mahara, movable type, snappages, weebly, webnode, webs, and wix 9) web exercise creation tools: contentgenerator, smile, esl video, jclic, hot potatoes, quia, lingt and listen and write 10) web search engines: ask.com, bing, google, and yahoo! search 11) dictionaries and concordances: dictionary.com, merriam-webster online, yourdictionary.com, compleat lexical tutor, forvo, howjsay, visuwords, onelook dictionary search, and vlc web concordancer 12) utilities: calculateme, calendarfly, doodle, clustrmaps, currency converter, dvolver moviemaker, google earth, lesson writer, storybird, cacoo, mindmeister, mindomo, remember the milk, surveymonkey, voki, time and date, tinyurl.com, w3c link checker, wallwisher, wayback machine, and wordle the above categorization helps to give an overview of online tools to facilitate a better understanding of how any tools can be integrated into a micro-teaching procedure or episode. an emphasis on the implementation of micro-teaching episodes in the following research examples is placed; only the one that most fits the operational definition of omt in the current study is closely reviewed. first, kelleci, kulaksiz, and pala's study (2018) illustrate the first way of how micro-teaching is conducted. the focus of the study is social network-supported micro-teaching (snsm) which takes place in a two-phase process. in the planning phase, preservice teachers prepared lesson plans and posted them in a facebook group for the supervisor's feedback. in the implementation stage, preservice teachers conducted micro-teaching sessions face-to-face in real classroom settings. they taught their peers, played the students' roles, the lesson in their revised lesson plans, and received feedback from their supervisor and peers at the end of the second stage. google drive, google forms, and spreadsheets were used to upload the lesson plans in the facebook group as well as to exchange feedback on the lesson plans and micro-teaching. overall, despite the use of online tools, micro-teaching in this study, with no detailed acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 51 description, still took place face-to-face in real classroom settings, as traditionally depicted. the next three studies show the second way of carrying out micro-teaching episodes, all of which were video-recorded and posted on an online platform. specifically, kusmawan (2017) considered micro-teaching in his study as omt consisting of four key elements, namely video recordings, expert judgment, teacher judgment, and discussion forums. elementary teacher participants of the study video-recorded their best teaching strategies within five to six minutes, while experts and other teachers gave their judgments on those micro-teaching episodes based on the given guidelines. all those video recordings and experts’ and teachers' judgments were posted into the smart teacher portal, created in 2011 with support from the world bank under the program of better education through the reformed management and universal teacher upgrading project (bermutu). afterward, a moderator, usually a lecturer knowledgeable about micro-teaching, moderated discussion forums in the same portal. in bodis, reed, and kharchenko’s study (2020), however, the core component of the microteaching process is voicethread, a multimodal asynchronous computer-mediated communication tool that provides a space for students to upload their work in a secure environment, as well as receive feedback both from their teachers and peers. to prepare the preservice teachers for their final assessment of video-recording a mini-lesson and writing a self-reflection paper on their teaching, two voicethread micro-teaching tasks were assigned. voicethread task 1 asked the preservice teachers to video-record a lesson teaching a language skill or aspect such as pronunciation, and task 2 teaching any language focus. the instructors made modeling videos of micro-teaching samples, showed the technical capabilities of voicethread, and gave feedback. in short, all the video recordings, feedback, and self-reflection practice assignments were exchanged via voicethread. in the next study by roza (2021), the video conferencing application zoom was used for theory sessions on micro-teaching skills, while youtube was the channel for student teachers to post their video-recorded micro-teaching lessons. unfortunately, no detailed description of micro-teaching implementation was given in the study. the last two studies demonstrate how micro-teaching can be conducted online using the synchronous mode of interaction but in two different manners. ledger and fischetti (2020) employed micro-teaching 2.0 in their study. micro-teaching 2.0 refers to traditional microteaching in combination with simlab hitl simulation technology as a virtual classroom. in simulation technologies, hitl refers to a human interactor working behind the scenes to enable synchronous voice and body responses. an hitl learning environment consists of four components: an interactor (trained improvisation actors and puppeteers to control the actions and responses of the avatars), avatars (symbols representing students in the virtual classroom), students (student teachers), and observers (experts or supervisors/instructors) connected via computer and internet access. each micro-teaching experience is recorded for feedback and self-reflection, but how feedback and self-reflection were provided was not described. besides, some other examples of simulation technologies for micro-teaching include kindergarten classroom, simschool, second life, teachlive™, mursion™, and simlab™ (ledger & https://asiacall.info/acoj pham ngoc kim tuyen vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 52 fischetti, 2020). unlike ledger and fischetti (2020), ersin, atay, and mede (2020) studied micro-teaching conducted synchronously online with real people, not in a virtual classroom with avatars. this makes their study the most similar to the current one; therefore, it deserves a closer examination than the others above. the participants of the study were preservice teachers of an english education program offered by a state university in turkey. due to covid-19 outbreak, their theory sessions switched into the online mode via zoom, and so did their micro-teaching sessions, as part of the so-called "e-practicum" followed by "e-mentoring". the study is aimed to explore the "e-practicum" and "e-mentoring" from the perspectives of the preservice teachers. three major phases of the study include (i) preparation and construction phase before the “epracticum”, (ii) the “e-practicum” itself, and (iii) the “e-mentoring” provided to preservice teachers afterward. in the first stage, six volunteer preservice teachers designed their lesson plans on the topics and content given on the syllabus for feedback from their e-mentor, a university supervisor. all communication took place in a whatsapp group created by the ementor earlier. the “e-practicum” micro-teaching consisted of three forty-minute zoom sessions. the sessions were held in a row with ten-minute breaks in between. during the sessions, four preservice teachers conducted reading lessons, and two of them speaking lessons to teach english as a foreign language. right after the “e-practicum” micro-teaching sessions, the students (student teachers’ peers) shared their reflections, detailed feedback, and comments on the student teachers’ micro-teachings in the whatsapp group. finally, the e-mentoring was provided by the e-mentor to the student teachers one day after the “e-practicum” micro-teaching sessions. the e-mentor organized three forty-minute zoom sessions for this purpose. the ementor identified the strengths and weaknesses of each student teacher's micro-teaching performance, making suggestions on problematic areas for improvement. before the end of the "e-mentoring” sessions, the student teachers were asked to write their feelings and thoughts about “e-mentoring” in the whatsapp group. the findings from two interviews with the student teachers before and after the “e-practicum” revealed the participants’ feelings and thoughts about the “e-practicum” and “e-mentoring”. generally, the participants held a positive attitude towards the “e-practicum” and “ementoring”, finding them useful, beneficial, achievable, and feasible. they also highlighted the importance of peers’ reflections and feedback, the e-mentor’s theoretical instructions, practical support, and feedback on micro-teaching sessions, which resonates with the ideas by cooper and allen (1971), wangchuk (2009), and grossman (2009) as mentioned earlier. in addition, four benefits the preservice teachers could gain from the "e-practicum" and "e-mentoring" include (1) experiencing online teaching practice (aligned with remesh, 2013; ralph, 2014; reddy, 2019; azrai, rini, & suryanda, 2020), (2) developing teaching skills and competences (aligned with ismail, 2011; fernadez, 2012; reddy, 2019; azrai, rini, & suryanda, 2020), (3) reducing their teaching anxiety, and boosting their confidence and readiness in teaching (aligned with ralph, 2014; reddy, 2019; wangchuk, 2019) and teaching online, and (4) learning how to deal with problems posed in online teaching. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 53 apart from the benefits, during their micro-teaching sessions, the participants faced two main difficulties that are usually faced by teachers in online education: classroom management and technical problems. the participants said they had to struggle with how to keep the students engaged, how to prevent daydreaming, and how to control students’ attention span. this problem is also one of the challenges of online teaching and learning given by gillett-swan (2017), and yusuf and jihan (2020). further, the listed technical problems in the study entail not being able to broadcast the sound of the video recording, not being able to see the chatbox when they shared their screen or not being able to unmute the students on time, while yusuf and jihan (2020) emphasized both teachers’ and students’ limited access to the internet. three main suggestions were also made by the student teachers to address their problems. they suggested that (1) student teachers possess a calm attitude, (2) they make use of the virtues of online tools to facilitate the learning process, and (3) they build up their virtual experience and skills. the last suggestion is in line with darling-hammond's (2010, cited in diana, 2013) recommendation, who believed that access to technology and training with technology significantly influences a teacher's ability to integrate technology into the classroom. likewise, gillett-swan (2017) emphasized step-by-step instructions for how to access and use each of the platforms and technologies as one of the ways to overcome challenges of online teaching and learning, while yusuf and jihan (2020) highlighted the importance of providing workshops or training programs on management of online classes for educators. additionally, research on the disadvantages or challenges of online learning and teaching in the vietnamese context is worth considering because omt in the current study was conducted in vietnam. for example, nguyen and duong (2021) explored the challenges facing students during their online learning using microsoft teams, which is a video conferencing application like google meet. the challenges include (1) internet connection, (2) learning equipment (errors of laptop or microsoft teams software), (3) power failure, (4) lack of computer skills, (5) working in groups, and (6) students’ having no self-motivation to study online. meanwhile, hoang and le (2021) investigated vietnamese teachers' challenges with their online teaching. specifically, they claimed problems with (1) teachers’ technology competence, (2) their virtual classroom management, (3) heavy workload, (4) students’ motivation in online learning, (5) students’ technology competence and technical support, (6) the institution’s purposes and strategies of online teaching implementation (lack of training workshops on what kinds of tools they should use for their teaching, assessing, and even monitoring their virtual classes). further, seven main elements for effective online english teaching gleaned from le’s study (2021) encompass (1) teaching method, (2) course content, (3) learning activities (updated news delivery, games, polls, and student presentations), (4) myriad interaction (short questions), (5) learning incentives (bonus marks), (6) supportive learning environment (teacher voice, praise, encouragement, good teacher-student and student-student relationships, turning on webcams), and (7) supplementary materials. she also made four recommendations on providing effective online teaching, namely (1) structuring an effective course design, (2) creating community and engagement, (3) facilitating online interaction, and (4) supplying adequate learning support. it https://asiacall.info/acoj pham ngoc kim tuyen vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 54 can be implied from those four suggestions that the teacher plays an important role in delivering an effective online lesson, which is also agreed by ngo (2021), who emphasized the teacher’s role and their adequate training in online teaching to ensure students’ engagement during online teaching and learning. the aforementioned findings by vietnamese authors serve as a framework of reference for the questionnaire design, especially regarding the students’ difficulties during their omt and the discussion of the current study’s findings. in short, micro-teaching can be conducted online in four main ways: (1) face-to-face microteaching with technology-assisted administration process such as exchanging materials and feedback, (2) video-recorded micro-teaching lessons with technology-supported materials and feedback exchanges, (3) synchronously online micro-teaching in a virtual classroom with avatars moderated by an interactor, and (4) synchronously online micro-teaching with real people. micro-teaching in the current study was conducted in a fourth way, and very few similar studies can be found in the vietnamese context. therefore, the current study is expected to bridge such a gap, thus contributing to research on omt in vietnam. 2.3 conceptual framework of the study based on the review of micro-teaching and how micro-teaching can be conducted online in sections 2.1 and 2.2, omt in the current study refers to a combination of traditional microteaching with the support of online tools, namely a video conferencing program such as google meet for theory-oriented and micro-teaching sessions, and a learning management system, google classroom, to manage the courses, to exchange materials and discussions between the teacher and students. a detailed description of omt episodes is given in section 3.3. 3. research methodology 3.1 research setting and participants the study was conducted at the faculty of english linguistics and literature (ef), university of social sciences and humanities, vietnam national university, ho chi minh city (ussh, vnuhcm). with the purposive sampling method, the participants were selected based on two main criteria: (1) they attended at least one of the teaching-related courses, namely teaching methodology, teaching practice 1, 2, or 3, undertaken by the researcher, and (2) they experienced omt at the end of the course. further, participants of the study enrolled in different study programs at the ef, including standard, high-quality, and tesol certificate. however, the syllabuses for teaching methodology (tm), teaching practice (tp) 1, 2, or 3 are quite similar across the programs except that teaching practice 3 is only delivered in tesol certificate program. table 1 gives a brief description of the participants’ backgrounds based on the data from questions 1 to 5 in the questionnaire. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 55 table 1. participants’ background information (n=100) category items count/ percentage (%) category items count/ percentage (%) age 18-19 6 courses taken teaching methodology 86 20-21 74 teaching practice 1 29 22-over 20 teaching practice 2 12 gender male 22 teaching practice 3 10 female 78 using it in language teaching 33 year of study second-year 47 teaching english to young learners 24 third-year 26 materials development for language teaching 29 fourth-year 15 classroom-based assessment 5 graduate 12 study program standard 69 high-quality 28 tesol certificate 10 3.2 research design and questions to explore the ef students' perspectives on their omt experiences, a survey research design was employed because surveys are useful for gathering factual information, data on attitudes and preferences, beliefs and predictions, behavior, and experiences – both past and present (weisberg, krosnick, & bowen, 1996, cited in cohen, manion, & morrison, 2007). both quantitative and qualitative methods were used as regards data collection and analysis, which is further elaborated in section 3.4. to achieve the study aim, three main research questions (rq) were raised: (1) what and how did the ef students learn from their online micro-teaching experience? (2) what difficulties did they encounter during their online micro-teaching experience? (3) what are their suggestions on how to improve online micro-teaching sessions? https://asiacall.info/acoj pham ngoc kim tuyen vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 56 3.3 description of omt sessions in this study the following describes how the researcher implemented omt in her classes. during the teaching-related courses, namely teaching methodology (tm) and teaching practice (tp) 1, 2, and 3, the researcher-cum-teacher-in-charge provided knowledge and instructions on english language teaching approaches, methods, and techniques. once theory sessions were finished, the researcher guided the students to design their lesson plans in groups focusing on one aspect such as grammar or pronunciation or one of the four skills such as listening or speaking. vocabulary teaching was recommended to be integrated into any lesson. the students posted their lesson plans in google classroom for the teacher’s feedback. the students then delivered their omt sessions, teaching their revised lesson plans as one final assessment task at the end of the courses. afterward, those from the tm course took a written final exam, while those from tp courses submitted a reflection paper as a substitute for the final. as regards omt sessions, students, in groups, took turns to deliver their micro-teaching (omt groups) within the given time limit while some others observed their peers (peer observationpo-groups), and the rest played the role of students (volunteer student-vs-groups). because tm courses are more theory-oriented than practice-oriented (tp 1, 2, and 3), their microteaching duration for tm students is less than for tp 1, 2, and 3 students. moreover, the researcher utilized the existing micro-teaching evaluation form (also observation form) designed by herself and approved by the ef for those teaching-related courses. there are four main areas for assessment on the form, including (1) lesson effectiveness, (2) teacher's delivery, (3) teacher's language use, and (4) teacher's professionalism. meanwhile, the reflection form for volunteer student groups consists of four open-ended questions, including (1) what did you learn? (2) what can you do after the lesson? (in relation to the lesson focus) (3) what do you like and dislike the most about the lesson? and (4) what suggestions/recommendations do you make to help improve the lesson? table 2 gives a more detailed description of omt episodes based on the conceptual framework of the study. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 57 table 2. description of an omt session (conducted by the researcher) 1. characteristics (1) delivery mode: synchronous, via google meet (2) lesson focus (based on the approved lesson plan): grammar, pronunciation, listening, speaking, reading, writing, (+ vocabulary) (3) duration (per group): 45 minutes (tm), 60 minutes (tp 1&2), & 120 minutes (tp3) (4) duration (per student teacher): 9 or 12 minutes (tm), 15 or 20 minutes (tp 1&2), & 30 minutes (tp3) (5) student roles: omt groups, po groups, & vs groups (6) forms: the micro-teaching evaluation form, also used as the observation form (for the teacher-in-charge and observers), & a reflection form (for volunteer students) (7) feedback: feedback based on the given forms (verbally given or typed in the chatbox), directly given at the end of each omt session 2. procedure for an omt episode before omt • omt groups: prepare the materials & equipment for their lesson • po groups: prepare micro-teaching evaluation (po) forms • vs groups: get ready to join the lesson • teacher-in-charge: prepare micro-teaching evaluation (po) forms during omt • omt groups: take turns to teach • po groups: observe student teachers & take notes • vs groups: participate in the lesson • teacher-in-charge: observe and evaluate after omt • omt groups: take notes of feedback • po groups: give feedback on their peers • vs groups: give feedback on the student teachers • teacher-in-charge: give final comments on each student teacher’s strengths & weaknesses, feedback on the demonstration lesson, the lesson plan, & provide suggestions for improvement 3.4 data collection and analysis both quantitative and qualitative data were collected in the survey. a questionnaire designed on google forms was delivered to 142 students who finished at least one of the teaching-related courses, namely tm, tp 1, 2, or 3, which the researcher was in charge of, but only 100 participants submitted their responses. the questionnaire consists of 17 questions. a brief description of 17 questions is given in table 3. for quantitative data from questions 9 to 15, descriptive analysis was employed, focusing on measures of frequency. meanwhile, qualitative data collected from questions 16 and 17 were analyzed using thematic analysis. https://asiacall.info/acoj pham ngoc kim tuyen vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 58 table 3. description of 17 questions in the questionnaire question (q) type of question purpose q1→q5 closed-ended (multiple choice) participants’ background information q6→q8 closed-ended (checkboxes) participants’ omt experience q9→ q13 closed-ended (checkboxes) what participants learned from omt (rq1) q14 closed-ended (ranking) how participants learned from omt (rq1) q15 closed-ended (checkboxes) what difficulties participants faced during omt (rq2) q16→q17 open-ended (short answers) participants’ suggestions on how to improve omt (rq3) the following justifies the statements used in the questionnaire. for questions 10 to 13, the participants were given a list of statements beginning with “i am able to” followed by specific actions they could do during the omt to describe their teaching competencies. the rationale for those statements consists of (1) the course syllabus, (2) the micro-teaching evaluation form, (3) the teacher’s instructions and supervision, and (4) the teaching skills (cooper & allen, 1971; reddy, 2019) and observation criteria (leshem & bar-hama, 2008), reviewed in section 2.1.6. table 4 presents the alignment between the teaching competencies in the questionnaire and those reviewed in the literature. however, though some skills or competencies such as selecting, designing, and using materials, problem-solving, and demonstrating teacher's characteristics such as dressing and appropriate attitude, and teacher preparation do not receive theoretical support from previous studies, they are still worth exploring on the grounds of the course syllabus, the micro-teaching evaluation form, and the teacher’s instructions and supervision. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 59 table 4. alignment between the teaching competencies in the questionnaire and teaching skills (cooper & allen, 1971; reddy, 2019) and observation criteria (leshem & bar-hama, 2008) teaching competencies in the questionnaire reviewed ideas in section 2.1.6 relevant authors (1) lesson planning & teaching techniques lesson planning, sequence of activities, setting clear objectives, & designing activities to achieve lesson objectives leshem & bar-hama (2008) lesson planning skill reddy (2019) proper use of audio-visual aids reddy, 2019 introduction skill (set induction) & skill of achieving closure cooper & allen (1971) reddy (2019) (2) teacher’s delivery & language use clarity of instructions, giving feedback and reinforcement leshem & bar-hama (2008) reinforcement, skill of stimulus variation, skill of probing questions, & silence and nonverbal cues cooper & allen (1971) reddy (2019) presentation and explanation skills reddy (2019) frequency in asking questions, higher-order questions, divergent questions, cueing, lecturing, use of examples, planned repetition, & completeness of communication cooper & allen (1971) oral and written proficiency leshem & bar-hama (2008) (3) teacher’s professionalism recognizing attending behavior cooper & allen (1971) classroom management leshem & bar-hama (2008) classroom management reddy (2019) similarly, a list of "i am able to" statements was included to describe what the participants could do with technology to conduct their omt, labeled as digital competence. the statements were made based on the three main components of an online classroom, including (1) delivery and reception of information content, (2) interaction between, among students and teacher, and (3) student rehearsal and practice (berge, 2000). to better understand how the participants learned what they thought they could learn, question 14 asked the participants to rank the importance of different components of micro-teaching, as discussed in sections 2.1.5 and 2.1.6. finally, the statements for students’ difficulties in question 15 are primarily gleaned from studies by gillettswan (2017), ersin, atay, and mede (2020), yusuf and jihan (2020), nguyen and duong (2021), hoang and le (2021), and le (2021). https://asiacall.info/acoj pham ngoc kim tuyen vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 60 4. results and discussion 4.1 what and how the ef students learned from their omt experience to answer question 9 "what did you learn from your omt experience?", 98% of the respondents selected "teaching competence" and 74% "digital competence." data from the participant's responses to questions 10 to 13 show that all participants claimed they could learn both teaching and digital competencies to varying degrees. for lesson planning & teaching techniques, a high percentage of respondents, between 77% and 93%, said they could design and organize the lesson and select activities. a little more than half of them, from 62% to 73% said they could select and design materials and effectively design and use visual aids. however, a small number of respondents, 46% and 51%, though they could effectively conduct the activities and effectively use the teaching materials, respectively. figure 2 illustrates the data for lesson planning and teaching techniques. figure 2. lesson planning and teaching techniques as regards teacher's delivery and language use, a high proportion of participants, between 76 and 80%, believed they could present adequate and relevant theory and give appropriate instructions during the lesson. around 60% to 70% of the respondents thought they could efficiently employ their presentation skills, including delivery manner, body language, voice quality, background avatar, language use, interaction with their students via examples, ccqs (concept checking questions), explanations, answers, feedback and comments, and student encouragement. finally, approximately less than 50% seemed not to be confident about their abilities to (1) control their speaking rate and amount, teaching pace, tone of voice, (2) promote understanding between teacher-students, (3) relate students to their background knowledge/personal life, (3) promote student-student interaction and collaboration, and (4) draw students' attention to the lesson. table 5 illustrates the data for teacher’s delivery & language use. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 61 table 5. teacher’s delivery & language use “i am able to” statement count/ percenta ge (%) (1) present adequate and relevant theory on the taught subject 78 (2) deliver my lecture smoothly and adequately in terms of speaking rate and teaching pace 54 (3) deliver my lecture in an enthusiastic, communicative, and lively manner 65 (4) appropriately use my body language (e.g., eye contact, facial expressions, hand gestures) 60 (5) select a formal and appropriate background in my avatar (omt) 67 (6) effectively use my voice (e.g., loud, and clear enough, and easy to follow) 68 (7) effectively use my tone of voice (e.g., interesting, engaging, and varied) 49 (8) understand my students well (e.g., what they are saying, what they mean) 57 (9) be well understood by my students (e.g., what i am saying, what i mean) 52 (10) use accurate and easy-to-understand english pronunciation 64 (11) use accurate and easy-to-understand english grammar 72 (12) use schema theory (e.g., asking questions) to activate my students’ prior and existing knowledge about the taught subject 50 (13) give adequate examples to illustrate the theory as well as the exercises in an english lesson 65 (14) balance teacher talking time and student talking time 40 (15) give clear and easy-to-follow instructions 80 (16) relate the lesson (e.g., theory, vocabulary) to students’ personal life (i.e., personalization) 47 (17) provide social/background knowledge related to the lesson topic 42 (18) use icqs (instruction checking questions) to check students’ understanding of the instructions for an activity or a task 76 (19) use ccqs (concept checking questions) to check students’ understanding of new concepts or theory in an english lesson 65 (20) draw students’ attention (e.g., asking checking questions) to the lesson when they show some signs of distraction or boredom 44 (21) give students adequate feedback and comments during the exercise correction 60 (22) give students adequate explanations and answers for their questions 65 (23) encourage students to participate in the class activities 60 (24) promote student-student interaction and collaboration (e.g., by asking them to work in pairs or groups) 50 when it comes to teacher's professionalism, a large number of respondents, from 84% to 90%, believed in their abilities in preparation, showing appropriate attitudes and dressing style during the omt. 60% and 62% of the participants said they could show their confident demeanor and manage their students, while nearly half thought they could manage the class time and deal with unexpected problems. figure 3 illustrates the data for teacher's professionalism. https://asiacall.info/acoj pham ngoc kim tuyen vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 62 figure 3. teacher’s professionalism finally, the participants revealed how they could use technology during their omt episodes. specifically, between 76% and 94% said they could use technology to design and present the lesson content, a little over half can simulate real-life and real-time interaction, while below 50% can provide effective platforms for students' collaboration. the data for digital competence is presented in figure 4. figure 4. digital competence overall, what the participants could learn from omt corroborates the findings yielded in the study by ersin, atay, and mede (2020) in a way that omt helps the student teachers to develop their teaching skills and competencies, which is also one of the key benefits of micro-teaching (ismail, 2011; fernadez, 2012; reddy, 2019; azrai, rini, & suryanda, 2020). further, the student teachers believed they could handle an online classroom, which is aligned with ersin, atay, and mede’s findings (2020), with how they could apply technology to fulfill the three main functions of an online classroom (delivery and reception of information-content, interaction between, among students and teacher, and student rehearsal and practice), put forward by berge (2000). next, question 14, whose results are displayed in table 6, was raised to answer how the participants learned from their omt episodes. as shown in table 6, the most important way that helps the student teachers to learn their teaching and digital competencies is by receiving feedback from the teacher, observers, and volunteer students, one of the biggest strengths of micro-teaching (aligned with cooper & allen, 1971; ralph, 2014; wangchuk, 2019; reddy, 2019). the second most important way is by following the teacher’s instructions and guidelines, acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 63 which is aligned with the emphasis of the instructor/teacher’s role in micro-teaching (aligned with cooper & allen, 1971; grossman 2009; ralph, 2014; reddy, 2019). the next three ways, in a decreasing order of importance, include the experience of micro-teaching itself, another benefit of micro-teaching aligned with remesh (2013) and ralph (2014), self-reflection, and observation and giving feedback (or evaluating on each other’s omt performances), which are believed to be important and useful in micro-teaching by previous authors such as cooper and allen (1971), o’leary (2004, cited in leshem & bar-hama, 2008), saban and çoklar (2013), and ralph (2014). finally, the participants could learn from omt thanks to the criteria for omt provided by the teacher, which resonates with the importance leshem and bar-hama (2008) placed on the criteria for mt evaluation to ensure the quality of micro-teaching sessions. table 6. the levels of importance of how student teachers learned from omt items total frequency levels of importance by observing and giving feedback on the other peers' teaching 300 5 by delivering an online micro-teaching section 383 3 by using the criteria for omt evaluation provided by the teacher 254 6 by receiving feedback from the teacher, observers, & volunteer students 439 1 by following the teacher's instructions & guidelines 390 2 by self-reflecting on my own teaching after omt & during my peer observation 334 4 4.2 what difficulties the ef students encountered during their omt experience the data from question 15, presented in figure 5, reveal two main kinds of difficulties student teachers face during their omt, including mostly online teaching-related and technologyrelated. very few participants (11% to 30%) had difficulties with (1) the student teacher's distracting background, (2) students' background noise and lack of discipline, and (3) their inability to get access to materials. the next group of respondents, occupying from 39% to 49%, had difficulty in dealing with (1) failed activities, (2) teacher's solo talk, (3) too much waittime, (4) their inability to finish the teaching section as scheduled, and (5) their equipment. the largest group of participants, which makes up 59% to 70%, a not so high percentage though, said they faced such challenges as (1) how to check students' progress/attention/concentration, (2) students' unwillingness to work, and students' difficulty with collaboration, and (3) the internet connection. in general, the participants' greatest difficulties during omt can be categorized into three big groups, which are also faced by in-service teachers while teaching online, including (1) checking students' learning progress/attention/concentration (aligned with gillett-swan, 2017; yusuf & jihan, 2020; ersin, atay, & mede, 2020; hoang & le, 2021), (2) promoting students’ participation, engagement, and collaboration (aligned with yusuf & jihan, https://asiacall.info/acoj pham ngoc kim tuyen vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 64 2020; nguyen & duong, 2021), and (3) technical problems (internet connection & teaching equipment) (aligned with yusuf & jihan, 2020; nguyen & duong, 2021). in addition, gillett-swan (2017) believed that digital literacy skills can be a hindrance to the online learning environment; however, the results above might implicate that the student teachers do not have much trouble with those skills. also, the participants' suggestions, presented in section 4.3, may help address the difficulties they encountered during omt. figure 5. difficulties faced by the student teachers during omt 4.3 what suggestions the ef students made on improving omt sessions the participants’ suggestions can be categorized into suggested tools for omt, suggestions on teaching competence (tc) and digital competence (dc). the top ten suggestions on teaching and digital competence from question 16’s data are summarized in table 7. table 7. top ten suggestions on omt suggestion category frequency 1. have backup plans in case of problems tc & dc 15 2. design interesting activities (fun icebreakers, games) tc 13 3. design some activities for students to interact with each other easily tc 12 4. check equipment carefully before start dc 10 5. give rewards/ bonuses for voluntary/correct answers tc 10 6. call students unexpectedly rather than let them volunteer at all times (use wheel of names, let more students speak) tc 10 7. ask students to turn on their camera tc 8 8. ask more icqs and ccqs tc 7 9. familiarize the student teachers with the platforms and tools before omt / rehearse omt with timekeeping tc 5 10. give students quick quizzes (that need to be answered in 3 or 4 minutes) to stimulate their concentration tc 5 the other recommendations mentioned once, twice or three times include: (1) show students where they can get technical support, (2) send materials to students in advance, (3) check all acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 65 the links and sources for materials carefully before getting started, (4) engage students: use videos and varied activities, do not conduct too many activities, use the chatbox, let students lead the activities, create a friendly learning environment, give students time for questions and practice, and improve the quality of teacher talking time (ttt) by giving more hints and prompts to the teacher’s questions, repeating the key points, presenting the theory briefly, and giving detailed and easy-to-follow instructions, and (5) manage the classroom by letting students host the online meeting room, asking students to turn off their microphones, sometimes asking them to share screen to check their attention, selecting an appropriate background, being well-dressed, and giving students more time to fix technical problems. overall, the participants' suggestions, some of which are in line with some previous authors', center around teaching competence, especially in the context of online teaching and learning. all those suggestions can be grouped into: (1) backup plans; (2) preparation (equipment and materials); (3) training and rehearsal with tools and omt (aligned with darling-hammond, 2010, cited in diana, 2013; gillett-swan, 2017; yusuf & jihan, 2020; ngo, 2021); (4) engagement methods: a) activities (interesting, varied, sufficient) and “content beyond lectures” (e.g., games, quizzes, and videos) (aligned with le, 2021), b) collaboration and practice tasks (aligned with le, 2021), c) rewards/bonuses (aligned with le, 2021), d) icqs/ccqs, e) sudden calls/screen check, f) students’ camera on (with teacher’s encouragement and patience) (aligned with le, 2021), g) chatbox, h) improved quality of ttt, i) a friendly and active learning environment (aligned with le, 2021); (5) classroom management and professionalism: a) students’ microphones off, b) allowing students to host the meeting room, c) selecting appropriate background and dressing style, d) giving students more time to fix technical problems. additionally, question 17 explores what online tools (e.g., applications or platforms) the student teachers used and would recommend for future omt episodes, supported by one suggestion made in ersin, atay, and mede’s study (2020). the suggestion is to make use of the virtues of online tools to facilitate the learning process. the top list of tools the participants suggested includes (1) google meet/docs/classroom/slides/powerpoint/hangouts/forms, (2) zoom, (3) microsoft powerpoint/word, (4) kahoot, and (5) canvas, quizizz, and quizlet. those tools serve different purposes in an omt episode based on the teacher's digital competence, as mentioned in section 4.1 (see appendix for the comprehensive list of all suggested tools). overall, the current study confirms one of the key benefits of traditional micro-teaching, which is to help the student teachers develop their teaching skills and competencies through the essential components of traditional micro-teaching such as observation, feedback, and selfreflection, and supervision. more importantly, a contribution of the study is a specification of https://asiacall.info/acoj pham ngoc kim tuyen vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 66 digital competencies the student teachers believed they could learn from their omt experience. this is important in making omt a feasible and useful teacher training technique, given the technological advances in the 4.0 era. in addition, the difficulties, mainly associated with online classroom management and technical problems, faced by the student teachers in the study are similar to those faced by existing students and teachers during online teaching and learning. to address those problems as well as to improve future omt episodes, a list of suggestions was given by the student teachers. this is where another contribution of the study emerges. apart from the already mentioned suggestion of training and rehearsal with tools and omt, the student teachers provided very specific strategies and techniques to deal with online classroom management (e.g., students’ attention, engagement, and participation) and technical problems (e.g., internet connection and teaching equipment), plus recommending online tools for different purposes in an online classroom. 5. conclusion in short, three conclusions were reached in relation to the three research questions earlier put in the paper. first, the student teachers in the study believed they could develop their teaching and digital competencies from their omt experiences. teaching competencies include (1) lesson planning and teaching techniques, (2) teacher's delivery and language use, and (3) teacher's professionalism. meanwhile, digital competencies cover abilities that they could use to serve the three main functions of an online classroom concerning (1) delivery and reception of information content, (2) interaction between, among students and teacher, and (3) student rehearsal and practice. also, the student teachers reflected their thoughts about the different components of micro-teaching, through which they could learn and develop their teaching and digital competencies, by ranking their importance. the decreasing order of importance of their means of learning from omt is: (1) by receiving feedback from the teacher, observers, & volunteer students, (2) by following the teacher's instructions and guidelines, (3) by delivering an online micro-teaching section, (4) by self-reflecting on their own teaching after omt and during their peer observation, (5) by observing and giving feedback on the other peers' teaching, and (6) by using the criteria for omt evaluation provided by the teacher. second, the study results show three main difficulties facing the student teachers during omt, namely (1) checking students’ learning progress/attention/concentration, (2) promoting students’ participation, engagement, and collaboration, and (3) technical problems (internet connection and teaching equipment). last, the student teachers provided suggestions on how to improve omt episodes in the future. the suggestions consist of useful tools for omt such as (1) google meet/docs/classroom/slides/powerpoint/hangouts/forms, (2) zoom, (3) microsoft powerpoint/word, (4) kahoot, and (5) canvas, quizizz, and quizlet (see appendix 1 for the exhaustive list of online tools for omt). as regards the online teaching and learning aspect of omt, the participants recommended five key solutions: (1) backup plans, (2) preparation, (3) training and rehearsal with tools and omt, (4) engagement methods, and (5) classroom management and professionalism (see section 4.3 for more details). acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 67 overall, the study's findings show that from the student teachers’ perspectives, omt offers benefits that traditional micro-teaching does, particularly in helping the student teachers practice and develop their specified teaching skills and competencies. therefore, omt is highly recommended as an alternative teacher training technique in various programs, especially in english language teaching, which the current study focused on. that is also a trend given the continuous outbreaks of covid-19 pandemic as well as the possible needs and demands of online teaching and learning in the 4.0 era. like any other studies, the current one has its own limitations. due to the small scope of the paper, the study did not include in-depth interviews to gain the participants’ deeper insight into their responses as previously planned. also, omt sessions were not video recorded for more thorough analysis because of the student teachers’ shyness and discomfort during their firsttime experience with omt. therefore, further research on omt can take those two factors into consideration. besides, future research can continue delving into how technology integration facilitates and promotes omt, or how omt can be effectively combined with other methods/techniques in english teacher education, especially in the digital era. references allen, d., & eve, a. (1968). microteaching. theory into practice, 7(5), 181-185. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/00405846809542153 azrai, e. p., rini, d. s., & suryanda, a. (2020). micro-teaching in the digital industrial era 4.0: necessary or not. universal journal of educational research, 8(4a), 23-30. berge, z. l. (2000). components of the online classroom. new directions for teaching and learning, 2000(84), 23-28. bodis, a., reed, m., & kharchenko, y. (2020). microteaching in isolation: fostering autonomy and learner engagement through voicethread. international journal of tesol studies, 2(3), 1-12. cohen, l., manion, l., & morrison, k. (2007). research methods in education (6th ed.). routledge. cooper, j. m. & allen, d. w. (1971): microteaching: history and present status. microteaching selected papers. ate research bulletin no 9. diana jr, t. j. (2013). microteaching revisited: using technology to enhance the professional development of preservice teachers. the clearing house: a journal of educational strategies, issues and ideas, 86(4), 150-154. ersin, p., atay, d., & mede, e. (2020). boosting preservice teachers’ competence and online teaching readiness through e-practicum during the covid-19 outbreak. international journal of tesol studies, 2(2), 112-124. fernández, m. l. (2005). learning through microteaching lesson study in teacher preparation. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405846809542153 https://asiacall.info/acoj pham ngoc kim tuyen vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 68 action in teacher education, 26(4), 37-47. gillett-swan, j. (2017). the challenges of online learning: supporting and engaging the isolated learner. journal of learning design, 10(1), 20-30. grossman, p. (2009). research on pedagogical approaches in teacher education. in studying teacher education (pp. 437-488). routledge. hoang, n. t., & le, d. h. (2021). vocational english teachers’ challenges on shifting towards virtual classroom teaching. asiacall online journal, 12(3), 58-73. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/39 ismail, s. a. a. (2011). student teachers’ microteaching experiences in a preservice english teacher education program. journal of language teaching and research, 2(5), 10431051. kelleci, o., kulaksiz, t. & pala, f. k. (2018). the effect of social network-supported microteaching on teachers’ self-efficacy and teaching skills. world journal on educational technology: current issues, 10(2), 115-129. kusmawan, u. (2017). online microteaching: a multifaceted approach to teacher professional development. journal of interactive online learning, 15(1), 42-56. retrieved from https://www.ncolr.org/jiol/issues/pdf/15.1.3.pdf le, t. t. m. (2021). a case study of students’ views on effective online learning. asiacall online journal, 12(5), 24-33. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/73 lee, g. c., & wu, c. c. (2006). enhancing the teaching experience of preservice teachers through the use of videos in web‐based computer‐mediated communication (cmc). innovations in education and teaching international, 43(4), 369-380. ledger, s., & fischetti, j. (2020). micro-teaching 2.0: technology as the classroom. australasian journal of educational technology, 36(1), 37-54. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.4561 leshem, s., & bar-hama, r. (2008). evaluating teaching practice. elt journal, 62(3): 257265. mcknight, p. c. (1980). microteaching: development from 1968-1978. british journal of teacher education, 6(3), 214-227. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/0260747800060305 ngo, d. h. (2021). perceptions of efl tertiary students towards the correlation between elearning and learning engagement during the covid-19 pandemic. international journal of tesol & education, 1(3), 235–259. retrieved from http://ijte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/99 nguyen, h. u. n., & duong, l. n. t. (2021). the challenges of e-learning through microsoft https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/39 https://www.ncolr.org/jiol/issues/pdf/15.1.3.pdf https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/73 https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.4561 https://doi.org/10.1080/0260747800060305 http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/99 http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/99 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 69 teams for efl students at van lang university in covid-19. asiacall online journal, 12(4), 18-29. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/60 park, i. (2021). moving out of the here and now: an examination of frameshifts during microteaching. linguistics and education, 66, 100979. ralph, e. g. (2014). the effectiveness of microteaching: five years’ findings. international journal of humanities, social sciences and education, 1(7), 17-28. reddy, k. r. (2019). teaching how to teach: microteaching (a way to build up teaching skills). journal of gandaki medical college-nepal, 12(1), 65-71. remesh, a. (2013). microteaching, an efficient technique for learning effective teaching. journal of research in medical sciences: the official journal of isfahan university of medical sciences, 18(2), 158. roza, v. (2021, february). incorporating both zoom and youtube in micro teaching class during the covid-19 pandemic: an effectiveness investigation. in journal of physics: conference series (vol. 1779, no. 1, p. 012033). iop publishing. retrieved from https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/1779/1/012033/meta saban, a., & çoklar, a. n. (2013). preservice teachers' opinions about the micro-teaching method in teaching practice classes. turkish online journal of educational technologytojet, 12(2), 234-240. son, j. b. (2011). online tools for language teaching. tesl-ej, 15(1), 1-12. trott, a. (1976). microteaching an overview. educational media international, 13(1), 1-6. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/09523987608549185 wangchuk, s. (2019). effects of microteaching on the pre-service teachers' teaching competence--a case in bhutan. international journal of education and development using information and communication technology, 15(1), n1. yusuf, b. n., & jihan, a. (2020). are we prepared enough? a case study of challenges in online learning in a private higher learning institution during the covid-19 outbreaks. advances in social sciences research journal, 7(5), 205-212. biodata pham ngoc kim tuyen holds a master’s degree in applied linguistics from la trobe university, australia, and that in tesol from the ussh, vnuhcm. throughout her 15 years of experience, she has taught english skills, public speaking, translation and interpreting, intercultural communication, and tesol-related courses. her research interests include teacher education, technology-assisted (language) teaching and learning, leadership in education, and research methodology. https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/60 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/1779/1/012033/meta https://doi.org/10.1080/09523987608549185 https://asiacall.info/acoj pham ngoc kim tuyen vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 70 appendix. the exhaustive list of suggested tools for omt with their specific purposes purposes recommended tools count / percenta ge (%) purposes recommended tools count / percenta ge (%) 1. design lesson content & related visual aids (e.g., slides) 1. microsoft powerpoint 40 8. collect students’ answers, responses , votes, & questions 1. google forms 10 2. google slides 25 2. google meet, google docs 8 3. canvas 9 3. google classroom, zoom 6 4. google docs 8 4. kahoot 3 5. powtoon, quizlet 3 5. poll everywhere, facebook messenger 2 6. kahoot, prezi 2 6. gmail, slido, quizlet microsoft, class dojo, schoology, shub classroom, google hangouts, google sheets, zalo, padlet, google jamboard 1 7. slidego, miro, skype, microsoft word 1 2. share materials with students 1. google meet 24 9. present a more formal & professio nal backgrou nd to students 1. google meet 24 2. zoom 21 2. zoom 9 3. google docs 18 3. canvas 2 4. google classroom 10 4. snapchat, miro, google hangouts, google docs, google slides, microsoft teams 1 5. google slides 4 6. google sheets, google hangouts, google drive, facebook messenger 2 7. pdf file, miro, skype shub classroom, microsoft word, gmail, google jamboard, microsoft teams 1 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 71 3. present the lesson content & related visual aids to students (e.g., slides) 1. google meet 30 10. simulate real-time interactio n (face to face) (e.g., using the camera, micropho ne) 1. google meet 24 2. zoom 22 2. google hangouts 16 3. google slides 12 3. zoom, microsoft teams 1 4. microsoft powerpoint 9 5. google docs, canvas 4 6. powtoon, videos, charts, images, skype, google hangouts, prezi, quizlet, microsoft teams 1 4. use an online learning platform for the class meeting (e.g., google meet) 1. google meet 51 11. design handouts & workshee ts 1. google docs 31 2. zoom 29 2. microsoft word, microsoft powerpoint 7 3. microsoft teams 2 3. google slides 6 4. google docs, miro, facebook messenger, google hangouts 1 4. canvas 5 5. google sheets 3 6. powtoon 2 7. google meet, kahoot, socrative, google classroom, microsoft excel 1 5. provide a platform/sp ace for students’ brainstormi ng ideas 1. google docs 25 12. design games for different purposes 1. kahoot 28 2. zoom 10 2. microsoft powerpoint 9 3. google meet 8 3. quizizz 8 4. google jamboard 6 4. bamboozle 6 5. google slides 5 5. quizlet 4 6. microsoft word, mural 2 6. canvas, wordwall, skribbl, mypuzzle, edmodo, google slides, google jamboard, ixl learning, puzzlemaker, 1 https://asiacall.info/acoj pham ngoc kim tuyen vol. 13; no. 1; 2021 72 mentimeter, my aloha 7. miro, microsoft powerpoint, lucidchart padlet, mindmap, google forms, facebook messenger, microsoft forms, microsoft teams 1 6. provide a platform/sp ace for students’ group/pair discussion & work collaborati on 1. google meet 23 13. design quizzes/t ests to reinforce/ test/chec k students’ knowledg e about the taught subject 1. kahoot 34 2. zoom 22 2. quizizz 18 3. google docs 14 3. quizlet 9 4. facebook messenger 3 4. google forms 8 5. kahoot, google slides, google jamboard 2 5. socrative 5 6. zalo, miro, quizlet, padlet, microsoft teams 1 6. microsoft powerpoint 3 7. google docs, bamboozle, my aloha 2 8. mypuzzle, mentimeter, edmodo, google slides, microsoft word 1 7. provide a platform/sp ace for students’ exchanging ideas 1. google meet 25 2. zoom 21 3. google docs 11 4. padlet, google jamboard 2 5. miro, quizlet, kahoot, schoology, facebook messenger, zalo, google forms, slides, microsoft teams 1 asiacall online journal received: 31/10/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 01/12/2021 vol. 13, no. 1, 2022 accepted: 09/12/2021 pp. 132-149 online: 10/12/2021 citation | bui, t. k. l. (2022). the challenges of online writing learning via microsoft teams. asiacall online journal, 13(1), 132-149. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.008 the challenges of online writing learning via microsoft teams bui thi kim loan faculty of foreign languages, van lang university, vietnam correspondence: bui thi kim loan, van lang university, vietnam. e-mail: loan.btk@vlu.edu.vn eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.008 abstract the purpose of this study is to investigate the challenges that efl learners at van lang university faced when they learned writing in an online course via microsoft teams. 96 thirdyear students from two classes were required to complete a 10-item questionnaire for their online 10-week writing course. the findings revealed that they faced nine kinds of challenges related to technical problems, lack of concentration, lack of interaction, time management, health problems, gaining knowledge, motivation, psychological problems, and collaboration. the study suggests some implications for teaching writing skills to efl learners online through microsoft teams. keywords: writing skills, efl learners, microsoft teams, online, social interaction 1. introduction due to the covid-19 pandemic, students have to take writing courses online via microsoft teams. scholars in the world have studied learners’ taking online courses through microsoft teams and other online platforms. allen and seaman (2017) reported that about six million students enrolled in online classes in 2015 compared to 1.6 million learners in 2002. this means that a growing number of students have been learning online. it is also a case at van lang university where efl students have been enrolling in online writing classes via microsoft teams with numerous challenges. there are some advantages and disadvantages of learning online assisted by technology. dorf (2019) classifies educational technologies into learning tools, educational resources, learning environments, and learning methods. moreover, bentley et al. (2012) and nguyen (2015) support teaching and learning processes through internet connections, and this kind of learning process is regarded as an online/virtual learning system. furthermore, rojabi (2020) shows some differences between online learning and teaching from the conventional face-to-face classroom where students are present physically. he indicates the disadvantages of the face-toface classroom, such as students' lack of chances for communication, self-confidence, and responding, and he also points out the advantages of online learning, including flexibility and http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.008 http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.008 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 133 an engaging learning environment, which are beneficial for students learning. additionally, landrum et al. (2020) assert that virtual interaction in online classes offers convenience and flexibility thanks to unique characteristics of a learning management system, including authoring tools, feedback tools, rubrics, chat discussion, assignment submission, and files sharing. also, zayapragassarazan (2020) observes that online learning improves the learner’s learning autonomy and self-discipline for their learning progress. however, nguyen and duong (2021) conducted their study on challenges of e-learning through microsoft teams for efl students at van lang university in covid-19 and found that the challenges they faced stem from two sources including external essentials and learners' own consciousness. these challenges were related to the internet connection, machine error, software error, and so forth. a great number of researchers (e.g., henderson et al., 2020; tsai, 2018) have agreed that the microsoft teams application supplies better useful features such as chat rooms, collaborative discussion, content sharing, and video conferencing. at van lang university, efl students have shifted from traditional classes to the online classroom due to the covid-19 pandemic. a lot of students have not been familiar with this way of teaching and learning writing. this is the reason why these students have challenges with online writing learning via microsoft teams. this study aimed to investigate the challenges that efl students at van lang university face when they learn writing courses online through microsoft teams. 2. literature review online learning online learning is considered an effective learning method. zayapragassarazan (2020) pinpointed that online learning encourages learners' autonomy and self-discipline for their learning progress. rojabi (2020) mentions that the student's participation, motivation, selfdiscipline, and learners' autonomy are emphasized in online learning. ms teams is considered as one of the effective online learning platforms. microsoft teams is a loud app digital hub that combines conversations, meetings, files, and apps together in a single learning management system (microsoft, 2018). ms teams is used by a great number of learners and teachers because its applications are easily downloaded through desktop and mobile devices, and outstanding features consist of chat rooms, collaborative discussion, screen content sharing, and video conferencing (henderson et al., 2020; ilag, 2020; mcvey et al., 2019). challenges of learning via microsoft teams there are some disadvantages of microsoft teams. first, teachers are unable to see their student’s body language. it means that there is a lack of nonverbal hint expression of confusion on the students' faces which helps the teacher measure their students’ understanding (rojabi, 2020). students cannot communicate with their teachers face-to-face all the time. additionally, https://asiacall.info/acoj bui thi kim loan vol. 13; no. 1, 2022 134 teachers and students have to take more time to assess learners’ online teaching and learning process (bakerson et al., 2015). moreover, sun (2014) points that online learning lacks an organized schedule, repeated studying, and self-motivation. also, previous studies have examined the level of learner’s satisfaction towards interaction and learning environment. fortune et al. (2011) observe that dimensions of online learning comprise face-to-face communication, learning environment, technology, preferences, and collaboration. these factors have impacts on teaching and learning writing online via microsoft teams. previous studies some researchers have investigated online learning via microsoft teams. rojabi (2020) conducted his study to explore efl students' attitudes towards online learning via microsoft teams. his study involved 28 university students who completed questionnaires through google forms after the course. the findings indicated that online learning through microsoft teams optimally enhanced the students' online learning environment. they had positive attitudes towards student-student interaction and student-teacher one when they experienced online learning via microsoft teams. the study suggested that future studies investigate students' satisfaction with taking online classes and the benefits of online classes via microsoft teams. similarly, lin and lin (2015) maintain that student-student and student-teacher interaction should be constructed to enhance communication and discussion in the process of teaching and learning. besides, radovan and makovec (2015) assert that a learning environment is essential to create enthusiasm for students' learning. this motivates them to study better. tran (2021) carried out her study to examine the effectiveness of using microsoft teams for efl learning of freshmen at van lang university. eighty first-year students completed the fifteen-item questionnaire. her findings indicated that utilizing microsoft teams effectively taught and learned efl at van lang university and that the students had positive attitudes towards the advantages of using microsoft teams for their online study. however, she also pointed out some disadvantages of microsoft teams in online teaching and learning. in addition, ha and ngo (2021) investigated the challenges of listening comprehension faced by english majors at van lang university when they studied listening skills via microsoft teams. 135 students participated in the study, and they had to complete questionnaires and answer for a semi-structured interview. the findings revealed that the students faced some challenges such as psychology, technology using skills, english competence, listening activities, and study environment when they studied listening skills online through microsoft teams. they also gave some suggestions for teaching and learning listening skills online via microsoft teams. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 135 research gap there has been a great number of research on the benefits of online learning via microsoft teams; however, only a few research studies have been carried out to study the challenges of learning writing courses online through microsoft teams in vietnam and at van lang university. this study aimed to fill this gap to investigate the challenges encountered by efl students at van lang university in their online writing course via microsoft teams. research question to fulfill the purpose of the study, the study was designed to address the following research question: what challenges did the students at van lang university face in online writing courses via microsoft teams? 3. methodology this study was conducted in two online writing classes at van lang university. ninety-six students from these two writing classes participated in the study. they were third-year students, and they took this course as a compulsory subject in their learning process via microsoft teams. after finishing the ten-week writing course, the students completed the 10-item questionnaire about their challenges in online writing class. this study employed a mixed-method to collect the data. the questionnaire consisted of 10 items in which there were nine items in the form of 5-point likert (1: strongly disagree; 2: disagree; 3: neutral; 4: agree; and 5: strongly agree), and one item for the opened-ended question. the questionnaire survey was delivered and collected to examine the students' challenges in their online writing via microsoft teams. all the responses to the questionnaire were collected online through google forms. additionally, the data obtained from the questionnaire were presented in the form of tables and figures to indicate the challenges that the students at van lang university faced in their online writing course through microsoft teams. 4. results/findings and discussion the challenges that the students at van lang university faced in online writing course via microsoft teams the 10-item questionnaire was designed to collect data for quantitative and qualitative analysis, as shown in table 1. the data analysis provided the percentages of the student's answers to the first nine questions of the questionnaire. https://asiacall.info/acoj bui thi kim loan vol. 13; no. 1, 2022 136 table 1: questionnaire for challenges of online writing learning challenges of online writing learning strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree 1. i have technical problems when i take this online writing course via microsoft teams. 1.0% 8.3% 27.1% 40.6% 22.9% 2. i am unable to concentrate on my learning when i take this online writing course via microsoft teams. 4.2% 18.8% 38.5% 34.4% 4.2% 3. there is a lack of student-student and student-teacher interaction when i take this online writing course via microsoft teams. 1.0% 13.5% 39.6% 37.5% 8.3% 4. i am not good at managing time when i take this online writing course via microsoft teams. 2.1% 27.1% 38.5% 27.1% 5.2% 5. i have some health problems when i take this online writing course via microsoft teams. 2.1% 20.8% 44.8% 25.0% 7.3% 6. it is difficult for me to gain knowledge when i take this online writing course via microsoft teams. 1.0% 12.5% 45.8% 31.3% 9.4% 7. i am not motivated when i take this online writing course via microsoft teams. 3.1% 16.7% 43.8% 29.2% 7.3% 8. i have some psychological problems when i take this online writing course via microsoft teams. 0% 5.2% 35.4% 41.7% 16.7% 9. i find it difficult to collaborate with my classmates when i take this online writing course via microsoft teams. 3.2% 31.6% 40.0% 17.9% 7.4% 10. what challenges did you face when you took this online writing course via microsoft teams? the qualitative analysis for the 10th item of the questionnaire revealed that the students at van lang university faced numerous challenges when they learned their writing courses online via microsoft teams. technical problems the students reported that they faced some technical problems. the slow internet transmission or wi-fi had impacts on their online writing learning. also, they lacked digital devices and equipment to study online. even their laptop or cell phone microphone was out of work, so they could not answer the teacher’s questions. besides, they were annoyed with the redundant noise from their online classmate’s microphone and cell phone and the structure of files on microsoft teams because they thought that the file structure was confusing for users to use and some tools acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 137 on microsoft teams were similar and redundant. table 2: technical problems student comments 1 the disadvantage is that i have already clicked submit when submitting the article but haven't turned it in, so i haven't submitted it yet. 6 the connection sometimes is weak 8 wi-fi connection sometimes is not stable. my laptop also has some mistakes after a long time of using. 9 slow transmission 11 disconnected with the internet or cannot join the class. 12 sometimes i lost my internet connection 13 the wi-fi connection made me feel difficult to listen to the lecturers. 14 sometimes my internet isn’t good 16 slow internet 17 technology issues 18 network problem 29 sometimes i have trouble when microsoft teams doesn't show assignment reminders or teacher notifications 31 app does not have high security 34 slow internet is a problem that makes me disconnected to the teacher 35 no equipment, no facilities make me difficult to study 37 i usually lost connection 39 disadvantages : feel disconnected 40 my challenge is that i must listen to the lesson, but the microphone of teacher is not loud enough. 42 perhaps it is a technological problem. 45 i face a lot of difficulties when i study online because i don't have a laptop. the network can be lost at any time because i use 3g and have to register every day which costs a lot of money. 59 sometimes the connection is lost. 63 slow internet connectivity 64 the internet at my home sometimes disrupted the lesson 65 sometimes the internet connection is slow and i get kicked out of class. 68 slow internet connection. 69 no mic; teacher do not usually check the chatbox (big disadvantage). 77 sometimes when the wi-fi connection was slow, it affected the learning process 83 when i try to understand the lecture, i have to listen carefully to what the teacher said, but a low internet connection is obstructed that i cannot hear at all. and sometimes, people get distracted by many things around them while learning online. 86 file structure confuses users, similar and redundant tools. the percentages of the participants who strongly agreed and agreed that they had some technical problems were 22.9% and 40.6%, respectively. only 9.3% of the participants answered that they faced no technical challenges. https://asiacall.info/acoj bui thi kim loan vol. 13; no. 1, 2022 138 figure 1: technical problems lack of concentration the findings revealed that the students lost their concentration during their online writing class. they answered that they did not have a private place for learning, and they sometimes did not know exactly what they were studying and did not understand teachers' online lectures. additionally, they feel distracted during their online writing class because of certain inconveniences. table 3: lack of concentration student comments 2 i can't completely focus on the lesson. in terms of the inconvenience, i don't think microsoft teams has one. 4 hard to know exactly that students are studying or not 10 online learning often causes us to lose more focused because things around like phones, drowsiness, ... 19 hard to concentrate on professor's lecture 27 you will have to carefully pay attention to the lesson or you won’t understand anything, because i think online teaching would be hard for us if you are neglecting 30 may not be able to fully concentrate on the lecture 32 i'm easily distracted, hard to concentrate, less interaction. 33 although i was a bit stuck with housework, i managed to arrange it. 45 i am easily distracted because the school environment at home has a lot of distractions such as sounds, food, ... 88 i don't have the personal space for learning, the noise around is so loudly 18.8% and 34.4% of the participants strongly agreed and agreed, respectively. so, over half of the students felt distracted in their online writing class via microsoft teams. 38.5% of them had neutral answers, which means they neither agreed nor disagreed. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 139 figure 2: lack of concentration lack of interaction the findings indicated that there was less interaction with their teachers and classmates in the online classroom than that in traditional one. not interacting with teachers face-to-face had an influence on their understanding of what they learned. also, they reported that the class became less fun because of the lack of face-to-face interaction with their teachers and peers. table 4: lack of interaction student comments 15 lack of interactions 18 less interaction with teachers 22 online student feedback is limited 26 the disadvantage is not being able to communicate directly like in real life 45 students also do not interact directly with teachers, so they often do not know clearly what they are learning 50 teacher cannot see my reactions in the class 52 i think without direct interaction, the class is less fun 53 too many things distract me 76 can't interact face to face the findings revealed that 37.5% of the students agreed that they needed more interaction with teachers and classmates, and 8.3% of them strongly agreed that they faced communicative problems with teachers and classmates when they studied writing online. they thought that the online, face-to-face interaction was not like direct face-to-face communication in real life. https://asiacall.info/acoj bui thi kim loan vol. 13; no. 1, 2022 140 figure 3: lack of interaction time management as seen from table 5, the students had a challenge of deadline duration. they also believed that online courses required more time than on-campus classes, which asked them to study independently much more. the students were found to lack time management skills, so they could not remember when to submit their online assignments on time. table 5: time management student comments 75 deadline duration 84 online courses require more time than on-campus classes, allow you to be more independent 22 time management skills the findings revealed that 27.1% and 5.25 of the students respectively agreed and strongly agreed that they lacked time management skills. they did not arrange their time properly. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 141 figure 4: time management health problems the findings showed that the students had some health problems. their eyes got tired because they spent too many hours looking at the screen. they found that their eyesight and vision got worse. therefore, studying writing online via ms teams had impact on the students' health. table 6: health problems student comments 3 tired eyes 45 i feel tired, blurred vision. 51 sitting too much will affect eyesight 57 i get tired looking at the screen 60 studying online has a lot of impacts on my health the results showed that 27.1% of the participants strongly agreed and agreed on health problems brought by online writing learning. 20.8% of them disagreed that online learning caused some health problems. https://asiacall.info/acoj bui thi kim loan vol. 13; no. 1, 2022 142 figure 5: health problems gaining knowledge the students commented that their ability to absorb lessons was limited in comparison with their gaining knowledge at school. this leads to a lack of understanding of lectures, which impacts their academic performance. they reported that their knowledge from online writing classes never showed real understanding. this can be explained that they cut/copied and pasted online materials to submit their assignments in the online writing course. table 7: gaining knowledge student comments 18 the ability to absorb lessons is more limited than in school 45 whether the student understands the lesson or not, the exercises never show real understanding. 47 lack of understanding the lecture 60 i can't understand the lesson as i do at school the percentages of 9.4% and 31.3% showed the number of the students who respectively strongly agreed and agreed on their inadequate knowledge gained from the online writing course. 46.8% of the students had neutral answers. however, 13.5% of the students disagreed on not gaining knowledge from online writing courses. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 143 figure 6: gaining knowledge motivation the findings indicated that the participants lacked motivation in the online writing course. they did not have enough motivation to study as much as they did at school. they believed that online writing learning required strong self-motivation of efl learners. table 8: lack of motivation student comments 57 i lack motivation 60 i don't have the motivation to study as much as i do at school 22 requires strong self-motivation 7.3% and 29.2% of the students strongly agreed and agreed on their lack of motivation when they learn writing courses online. 43.8% of the participant answered neutrally. only 19.8% of the students were found to have enough motivation for their online writing course. https://asiacall.info/acoj bui thi kim loan vol. 13; no. 1, 2022 144 figure 7: lack of motivation psychological problems the findings also indicated that the students had some psychological problems when they studied writing courses online. they thought that staying away from school made them uncomfortable. they felt drowsy and lazy. also, they believed that learning writing courses online via ms teams caused their social isolation. it means that they were not comfortable and motivated for their online writing learning. table 9: psychological problems student comments 22 staying away from one place makes me not comfortable 22 ms team can cause social isolation 75 sloth, drowsy feeling the number of the students who agreed that they had some psychological problems related to their online writing learning was 58.4%. only 5.2% of the participants disagreed that they had psychological problems. however, 35.4% of the participants answered neutrally. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 145 figure 8: psychological problems collaboration the students commented that they could not collaborate with their classmates in the online writing course. additionally, the feedback from their teacher and peers was slow. moreover, they reported that there was a lack of communication skill development in online writing classes. table 10: collaboration student comments 74 less connect and slow feedback 22 lack of communicational skill development in the online class 73 i can't exchange with others because while online learning. i can't make friends and contact them if i need to ask about the lesson. the findings revealed that the students could not collaborate with their friends well in their online writing courses, with the percentages of 7.4% of the students who strongly agreed and 17.9% of the students who agreed. 40.0% of the participants answered neutrally. 33.8% disagreed that they could not cooperate with their friends when they studied writing online. in general, the students could not exchange ideas with other classmates during online learning. https://asiacall.info/acoj bui thi kim loan vol. 13; no. 1, 2022 146 figure 9: lack of collaboration 5. discussion from the findings of the study, it can be said that the challenges that the efl students at van lang university faced were synthesized in the following table. table 11: the challenges encountered by efl students in their online writing learning the findings of this study were not in line with poston et al. (2020) that microsoft teams would be beneficial when there were group work and collaborative assignments. additionally, the findings of this study were not completely similar to rojabi's (2020) findings indicating that the students felt comfortable in discussing collaboratively and actively engaged in learning online because this online learning was new and challenging. number challenges of learning writing online 1 technical problems 2 lack of concentration 3 lack of interaction 4 time management 5 health problems 6 gaining knowledge 7 lack of motivation 8 psychological problems 9 lack of collaboration acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 147 this study's findings were aligned with nguyen and duong's (2021) findings that the challenges the students at van lang university faced were related to external factors and learners' perceptions. it is suggested that efl writing teachers should consider these challenges to facilitate their students’ online writing learning. from these challenges of online learning via microsoft teams, rojabi (2020) suggests that teachers should supply learners with non-linguistic expressions (i.e., facial expressions or body language), useful learning materials and online learning instruction to encourage to actively engage in online learning classroom. the results of this study was partly similar to fortune et al. (2011)’ study on some dimensions of online learning such as face-to-face communication, learning environment, technology, and collaboration. 6. conclusion the study found a great number of challenges that efl students at van lang university faced. the challenges were related to (1) technical problems, (2) lack of concentration, (3) lack of interaction, (4) time management, (5) health problems, (6) gaining knowledge, (7) motivation, (8) psychological problems, and (9) collaboration. the study results will help the efl teachers and learners recognize the challenges and find ways to overcome them in the process of learning and teaching writing online via microsoft teams. this study bears some limitations. the size of the participants was small, so the findings of the study could be overgeneralized. additionally, the study failed to use other instruments such as tests and interviews to examine the influences of the above challenges on students' academic achievements in the online writing course. future research should explore strategies that students use to overcome the above challenges in their online writing class via microsoft teams and should use a diversity of research instruments to investigate the topic of this study more deeply. references allen, i. e., & seaman, j. (2017). distance education enrollment report 2017. digital learning compass, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijem-02-2014-0018 bakerson, m., trottier, t., & mansfield, m. (2015). assessment in online and blended learning environments (s. koc, x. liu, & p. wachira, (eds.)). information age publishing inc. https://mafiadoc.com/assessment-in-online-and-blended-learning_597c73591723ddb28e0735fb.html bentley, y., selassie, h., & shegunshi, a. (2012). design and evaluation of student-focused elearning. electronic journal of e-learning, 10(1), 1–12. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267262478_design_and_evaluation_of_stude nt_focused_elearning https://doi.org/10.1108/ijem-02-2014-0018 https://mafiadoc.com/assessment-in-online-and-blended-learning-_597c73591723ddb28e0735fb.html https://mafiadoc.com/assessment-in-online-and-blended-learning-_597c73591723ddb28e0735fb.html https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267262478_design_and_evaluation_of_student_focused_elearning https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267262478_design_and_evaluation_of_student_focused_elearning https://asiacall.info/acoj bui thi kim loan vol. 13; no. 1, 2022 148 dorf, r. c. (2019). educational technology. ieee transactions on education, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.1109/te.1969.4320439 nguyen, h. u. n., & duong, l. n. t. (2021). the challenges of e-learning through microsoft teams for efl students at van lang university in covid-19. asiacall online journal, 12(4), 18-29. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/60 fortune, m. f., spielman, m., & pangelinan, d. t. (2011). students’ perceptions of online or face-to-face learning and social media in hospitality, recreation and tourism. merlot journal of online learning and teaching, 7(1), 1–16. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/students%27-perceptions-of-online-or-face-toface-and-fortune-spielman/69ec10415eb160338c5398ea0556ce427d601930 ha, l. g., & ngo, t. c. t. (2021). challenges in learning listening comprehension via microsoft teams among english máo at van lang university. international journal of tesol & education, 1(3), 142-175. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11250/ijte.01.03.009 henderson, d., woodcock, h., mehta, j., khan, n., shivji, v., richardson, c., aya, h., ziser, s., pollara, g., & burns, a. (2020). keep calm and carry on learning: using microsoft teams to deliver a medical education programme during the covid-19 pandemic. future healthcare journal, 7(3), 1–4. https://doi.org/doi:10.7861/fhj.2020-0071 ilag, b. n. (2020). organization readiness for microsoft teams. apress, berkeley, ca. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5875-0_3 landrum, b., bannister, j., garza, g., & rhame, s. (2020). a class of one: students’ satisfaction with online learning. journal of education for business, 0(0), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1080/08832323.2020.1757592 lin, e., & lin, c. h. (2015). the effect of teacher-student interaction on students' learning achievement in online tutoring environment. international journal of technical research and applications, 22(22), 19–22. mcvey, m., edmond, a., & montgomery, d. (2019). supporting students to develop their digital literacies using microsoft teams. alt winter conference 2019, 11-12 dec 2019. http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/206468/ nguyen, t. (2015). the effectiveness of online learning: beyond no significant difference and future horizons. merlot journal of online learning and teaching, 11(2), 309– 329. https://jolt.merlot.org/vol11no2/nguyen_0615.pdf poston, j., apostel, s., & richardson, k. (2020). using microsoft teams to enhance engagement and learning with any class: it ’ s fun and easy. pedagogical conference proceedings, 6, 1–7. https://encompass.eku.edu/pedagogicon radovan, m., & makovec, d. (2015). adult learners’ learning environment perceptions and satisfaction in formal education-case study of four east-european countries. https://doi.org/10.1109/te.1969.4320439 https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/60 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/students%27-perceptions-of-online-or-face-to-face-and-fortune-spielman/69ec10415eb160338c5398ea0556ce427d601930 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/students%27-perceptions-of-online-or-face-to-face-and-fortune-spielman/69ec10415eb160338c5398ea0556ce427d601930 http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11250/ijte.01.03.009 https://doi.org/doi:10.7861/fhj.2020-0071 https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5875-0_3 https://doi.org/10.1080/08832323.2020.1757592 https://jolt.merlot.org/vol11no2/nguyen_0615.pdf acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 149 international education studies, 8(2), 101–112. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.5539/ies.v8n2p101 rojabi, a. r. exploring efl studnets’s perception of online learning via microsoft teams: university level in indonesia. english language teaching educational journal, 3(2), 2020, 163-173 sun, s. (2014). learner perspectives on fully online language learning. distance education, 35(1), 18–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 01587919.2014.891428 tran, t. t. m. (2021). microsoft teams in the context of freshmen elf learning. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 12-23. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/22 tsai, p. (2018). business chat apps in 2018: top players and adoption plans. the spiceworks community. [online]. https://community.spiceworks.com/blog/3157-business-chatapps-in-2018-topplayers-and-adoption-plans%0a zayapragassarazan, z. (2020). covid-19 : strategies for online engagement of remote learners. jawaharlal institute of postgraduate medical education and research (jipmer), 9(246), 1–11. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.7490/f1000research.1117835.1 biodata bui thi kim loan has been a lecturer of english at van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam. she has taught english skills, esp, translation, academic writing, sociolinguistics and so forth. her research interests are discourse analysis, genre analysis, tesol, call, clil, and sfl. https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/22 https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.7490/f1000research.1117835.1 citation asiacall online journal received: 28/10/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 27/12/2021 vol. 13, no.1, 2022 accepted: 29/12/2021 pp. 166-179 online: 03/01/2022 citation | dinh, d. p. (2022). on the shift of parts of speech in prepositional meaning in english-vietnamese translation. asiacall online journal, 13(1), 166-179. doi: https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.2213110 on the shift of parts of speech in prepositional meaning in english-vietnamese translation phat dinh dac1* 1 saigon university, ho chi minh city, vietnam * correspondence: phat dinh dac, saigon university, vietnam. e-mail: dinhdacphat98@yahoo.com.vn: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1388-3992 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.2213110 abstract exploring the shift in meanings of translating prepositions from english to vietnamese, the study, besides analyzing the cases of the changes in meanings of prepositions, aims to discuss a general variety of meanings of english prepositions. the methods of analysis and synthesis of theories from the available data on prepositions as well as the methods of classifying and systematizing prepositions were applied to english-vietnamese translation. from the collected data, this study has revealed 6 cases of the shift in meanings of prepositions and the characteristics of multiple meanings of prepositions. in the course of translation, contextual meanings are used in order to convey the meanings appropriately in the vietnamese style. the research paper can make some contribution to the teaching of translation and make it a reference material for english learners. keywords: prepositions, translation, english, vietnamese, the shift in meanings, multimeaning 1. introduction prepositions in english have some similarities with those in vietnamese. however, there are cases where prepositions are used differently between two languages, especially in different contexts, leading to different meanings in translation. the phenomenon of changing the meaning of prepositions when translating from english to vietnamese sometimes confuses translators due to the habit of translating from vietnamese to english in a single sense, making language expressions unnatural and difficult to understand. flexibility when translating prepositions will help translators convey the content of the translation accurately, avoiding translation errors about prepositions. therefore, the correct use of prepositions is very important because people use them to indicate the action and details of what people are going to convey. understanding prepositions not only helps to use english naturally but also helps to translate documents and texts correctly (the key to english prepositions 1, collier-macmillan international, 1964). however, many learners in vietnam find it difficult to translate prepositions correctly in many different contexts. in addition, english learners often tend to translate languages according to their mother tongue. therefore, they need to realize that there is no such thing as translating an exact preposition in https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.2213110 mailto:dinhdacphat98@yahoo.com.vn https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1388-3992 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.2213110 https://asiacall.info/acoj phat dinh dac vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 167 a single sense from english to vietnamese and vice versa. we know that sometimes we have to add or subtract prepositions when translating a sentence from one language to another. moreover, vietnamese prepositions would have some meanings similar to english, so the translation of prepositions needs to be carefully guided for learners so that they can recognize this problem and know the appropriate prepositions to use in different situations to avoid errors when using. in short, to use english prepositions when translating from english to vietnamese correctly, learners need to know the phenomena of prepositional meaning change when translating from english to vietnamese, as well as the phenomenon of multiple meanings of a preposition in different contexts. there are no universal rules for using prepositions, and learners should not directly translate prepositions into their native language since prepositions are used differently in different languages. as mentioned above, it is very necessary to study the phenomenon of prepositions when translating from english to vietnamese. 2. literature review a) domestic research in vietnam, there are topics related to prepositions such as: tran, v. d. (1997). cách dùng giới từ anh ngữ, nhà xuất bản thành phố hồ chí minh. tran, q. h. (2001). nghiên cứu giới từ định vị theo hướng ngữ dụng trên cứ liệu tiếng anh và tiếng việt, master thesis of science in literature, university of social sciences and humanities – hanoi national university. nguyen, c. h. (2001), nghiên cứu ngữ pháp và ngữ nghĩa của giới từ tiếng anh đối chiếu với tiếng việt, doctoral thesis, university of social sciences and humanities – hanoi national university. nguyen, t. t. h. (2020), giới từ định vị tiếng anh (at, in, on) và các đơn vị tương đương trong tiếng việt, doctoral thesis, university of social sciences and humanities – ho chi minh city national university. b) international research in countries around the world, there are materials related to prepositions such as: collier-macmillan international (1964) – the key to english prepositions 1, colliermacmillan limited, london, v. seth lindstromberg (2010) – english prepositions explained, amsterdam: john benjamins publishing company. tom hutch (2015) 150 everyday uses of prepositions in english, learning express. jean yates (2020) barron’s esl proficiency series: prepositions, kaplan, inc., barron’s educational series. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 168 researches and works related to prepositions mentioned above, whether in the domestic or foreign scope, have partly provided useful content and materials for students who want to learn about prepositions. as tran (1997) showed that prepositions could follow verbs, adjectives, and nouns and would perform different functions, and at the same time shows the general pattern of prepositional meaning in english – vietnamese translation. the ph.d. thesis of tran (2001) identified the pragmatic factors affecting the choice of locative prepositions. the ph.d. thesis of nguyen (2001) has shown the comparison of english and vietnamese prepositions in terms of grammatical characteristics so that it can be applied to the analysis of errors of vietnamese people when learning english prepositions. the ph.d. thesis of nguyen (2020) analyzed the phenomenon of multi-meaning of the english preposition “in” from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. the ph.d. thesis of nguyen (2020) showed the locating prepositions of "at, in, on" in english and equivalent meanings in vietnamese in terms of grammar and semantics. there are also documents and books that focus on the use of prepositions. collier-macmillan international (1964) – the key to english prepositions 1 also classified each group of prepositions used for different functions such as time, position, measure, number, etc. thereby, each preposition, when going with nouns, will give different meanings. seth lindstromberg (2010) – english prepositions explained classified prepositions used in different meanings and functions in each specific case. at the same time, he also grouped prepositions that have the same meaning but will be different in each context. tom hutch (2015) 150 everyday uses of prepositions in english listed common prepositions used in everyday life and jean yates (2020) barron's esl proficiency series: prepositions listed each prepositions’ meaning in contexts. however, the above studies and documents are only generalizations, or they provide research results in certain aspects. there has not been any in-depth research on the phenomenon of prepositions in english to vietnamese translation. in other words, there have not been any deep studies of how an english preposition will have different meanings in different contexts. therefore, this study would analyze the phenomenon of transfer meaning between englishvietnamese prepositions with the desire to clarify the phenomenon of meaning transference of prepositions in sentences, one of the difficulties for english learners. 2.1 research questions to fulfil the purpose of the study, the survey was to answer the following research questions: a. how many transitions of prepositions are there when translating from english to vietnamese? b. does the phenomenon of polysemy appear in the same preposition in addition to its original meaning in different contexts? https://asiacall.info/acoj phat dinh dac vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 169 3. methods 3.1 data researching prepositions in english (focusing on common prepositions that learners often think of first when asked about prepositions in english such as at, in, on, for, from, to, above, before, without, and so on) and comparing equivalent meanings in vietnamese such as ở, trong, trên, cho, từ, tới, trên, trước, mà không, …) 3.2 design of the study the study used the following methods. firstly, the writer uses the comparative and contrastive method to research the similarities and differences between english and vietnamese prepositions. secondly, the writer uses the analyzing and synthesizing theory method to study documents about prepositions in english and look for examples of sentences using prepositions in texts to serve as illustrative examples. finally, the writer uses the classification and systematization of theory method to distinguish each phenomenon of prepositional meaning transition when translating from english to vietnamese. this study would examine and analyze each phenomenon of prepositional meaning change when translating from english to vietnamese. in translated sentences, the author will try to convey the exact meaning of the sentences in certain contexts. 3.3 data collection & analysis the study focused on english-vietnamese prepositions and the phenomenon of prepositional meaning change when translating from english to vietnamese. data and examples were taken from 5 sources, including 150 everyday uses of prepositions in english by tom hutch, barron's esl proficiency series: prepositions by jean yates, cách dùng giới từ anh ngữ by tran van dien, english prepositions explained by seth lindstromberg and the key to english preopistions 1 by collier-macmillan international. all documents are original, and the author would select a few examples that use prepositions used in everyday language to show the difference in meaning in each language when translated. 4. results 4.1 prepositions are present in english but not in vietnamese take the verb wait, in english, if we use this verb with the purpose of waiting for someone, it would be: (1) i will wait for you till 5 o’clock. (tran, 1997, 10) (2) i have waited for you from the morning till now. (tran, 1997, 13) however, if translated into vietnamese according to the vietnamese speaking style, the two sentences above will give the following meaning: acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 170 (1) tôi sẽ chờ bạn tới 5 giờ. (2) tôi đã chờ bạn từ sáng cho tới bây giờ. next is the verb arrive, in english if we use this verb to talk about going somewhere, it will be: (3) he arrives at dallat. (tran, 1997, 12) (4) we arrive in saigon. (tran, 1997, 22) when translated into vietnamese according to the vietnamese style, the two sentences above will give the following meaning: (3) anh ta tới đà lạt. (4) chúng tôi tới saigon. we will not translate that: (3) anh ta tới ở đà lạt. (4) chúng tôi tới trong saigon. 4.2 prepositions are not present in english but are present in vietnamese. take the case of the verb contact, in english, if we use this verb for the purpose of communicating between people, it would be: (5) they contacted me about my trip. (yates, 2020, 20) (6) you can contact him by e-mail. (yates, 2020, 48) however, if translated into vietnamese according to the vietnamese speaking style, the two sentences above will give the following meaning: (5) họ liên lạc với tôi về chuyến đi. (6) bạn có thể liên lạc với anh ta qua địa chỉ e-mail. take another case of the verb enter, in english, we use this verb to talk about where to go inside, then we will use: (7) when the president entered the room, everyone stood up. (yates, 2020, 215) (8) he enters my room. (tran, 1997, 12) when translated into vietnamese, the two sentences above will give the following meaning: (7) khi chủ tịch vào trong căn phòng, mọi người đều đứng dậy. (8) anh ta vào trong phòng tôi. the most common causes of this change of meaning are often in the form of sentences of ditransitive verbs: s + ditransitive verbs + indirect object + direct object (9) she bought him a present. (10) cong phuong passed quang hai the ball. https://asiacall.info/acoj phat dinh dac vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 171 with the above sentences, we will often translate as: (9) cô ta mua cho anh ấy một món quà. (10) công phượng chuyền banh cho quang hải. 4.3 prepositions are present in both english and vietnamese take the verb disagree, in english, if we use this verb for the purpose of expressing an opinion, it would be: (11) whatever i say, she always disagrees with me. (hutch, 2015, 43) (12) … i sort of disagreeing with them. (hutch, 2015, 57) if translated into vietnamese according to the vietnamese speaking style, the two sentences above will give the following meaning: (11) tôi có nói gì, cô ấy luôn luôn không đồng ý với tôi. (12) … tôi kiểu như không đồng tình với họ. take the verb phrase talk about, in english, when we use it to express what we mean about something, we will use: (13) he often talks about his job. (yates, 2020, 19) (14) he talked about you. (tran, 1997, 15) if translated according to the vietnamese style, we would say: (13) anh ta thường nói về công việc của mình. (14) anh ta đã nói về bạn. 4.4 prepositions are present in both english and vietnamese but different prepositions are used take the phrase be famous for, in english, we use to refer to a thing/situation that is famous, then we will have the following sentences: (15) da lat is a city famous for its climate. (tran, 1997, 145) (16) she is famous for giving great parties. (yates, 2020, 91) if translated according to the vietnamese style, we would say: (15) đà lạt là một thành phố nổi tiếng về khí hậu tốt. (16) cô ấy nổi tiếng về việc tổ chức các bữa tiệc tuyệt vời. when translating into vietnamese, english will still use the preposition for. meanwhile, the vietnamese will use the preposition about (về). therefore, we will use the wrong preposition if translating in normal vietnamese: (15) da lat is a city famous for its climate. (16) she is famous about giving great parties. next is the verb remind, in english, if we use it to talk about reminding someone of/about something, we will use it with the preposition of according to the structure: acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 172 to remind somebody of someone/something (17) she reminds me of my sister. (yates, 2020, 260) (18) the purple color reminds me of her. (tran, 1997, 92) in this case, when translating into vietnamese, we will translate it as: (17) cô ấy làm tôi nhớ tới/về chị gái của tôi. (18) màu tím làm tôi nhớ tới/về cô ấy. therefore, we will use the wrong preposition if translating in normal vietnamese: (17) she reminds me to/about my sister. (18)the purple color reminds me to/about her. 4.5 prepositions are not present in both english and vietnamese in this case of translation, in english and vietnamese sentences, they both describe common actions. (19) i am awaiting your visit with pleasure. (yates, 2020, 199) (20) i was inspired by that film to become a fireman. (hutch, 2015, 2020) (21) after reading this article three times, i still don’t understand it. (yates, 2020, 30) translated into vietnamese, the above sentences will give the meaning: (19) tôi đang trông đợi chyến thăm của bạn với niềm vui mừng. (20) bộ phim truyền cảm hứng cho tôi để trở thành lính cứu hỏa. (21) sau khi đọc bài báo này ba lần, tôi vẫn không hiểu nó. with become and read, there will never be a preposition followed if translated into vietnamese: (20) i was inspired by that film to become into a fireman. (21) after reading about this article three times, i still don’t understand it. 4.6 prepositions are present in english, when translated into vietnamese, they act as conjunctions or verbs in some cases, when translating an english to vietnamese preposition in a sentence, we will see that the meaning of the preposition now has the meaning of conjunction or verb. examples of the following sentences with the preposition with: a) with in the meaning of conjunction: (22) with (in case of) problems of this sort, you have got to think in terms of fiveor ten-year periods. (lindstromberg, 2010, 219) (22) trong trường hợp của những vấn thuộc loại này, bạn phải nghĩ vê khoảng thời gian năm hoặc mười năm (23) the flower is wet with (because of) dew. (tran, 1997, 16) https://asiacall.info/acoj phat dinh dac vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 173 (23) những bông hoa bị ướt bởi sương sớm. (24) the girl's face is wet with (because of) tears. (yates, 2020, 224) (24) khuôn mặt của cô gái ướt vì nước mắt. (25) i love him with (despite) all his faults. (yates, 2020, 225) (25) tôi yêu anh ấy bất chấp tất cả những lỗi lầm của ảnh. (26) with (despite) all her problems, she is quite serene. (yates, 2020, 225) (26) bất chấp mọi vấn đề của mình, cô ấy vẫn khá thanh thản. b) with in the meaning of verb: (27) the man with (who has) brown eyes is my father. (tran, 1997, 15) (27) người đàn ông có đôi mắt màu nâu là cha tôi. (28) i am with (agree) you on that point. (tran, 1997, 15) (28) tôi đồng ý với bạn ở điểm đó. (29) i have an article with (that contains) pictures for my presentation. (30) (yates, 2020, 219) (29) tôi có một bài báo chứa những bức ảnh cho bài thuyết trình của mình. another case of the preposition against, in the meaning of verb: (30) they held the mirror against (touch) the wall. (yates, 2020, 33) (30) họ giữ gương dựa vào tường. (31) he is always against (disagree) me. (tran, 1997, 16) (31) anh ta luôn chống đối tôi. (tran, 1997, 16) when placed in different contexts, the original meaning will be lost and give different meanings similar to vietnamese. this phenomenon occurs due to elements of vietnamese culture. at this point, the meaning of the two sides will no longer be equivalent to each other in the original sense. there will be many other meanings in the same preposition, and the study will only generalize to show that the phenomenon of multiple meanings of prepositions in the context is present. now, the study will focus on the preposition on, one of the most commonly used prepositions in both english and vietnamese prepositions to show the phenomenon of multi-meaning of prepositions when translating from english to vietnamese. (1) on, in its original sense, is often translated by vietnamese as trên: (32) the newspaper is on the table. (yates, 2020, 149) (32) tờ báo ở trên bàn. (33) there are a lot of movies on television. (yates, 2020, 159) (33) có rất nhiều bộ phim trên tv. (2) on can be translated as ở in vietnamese: (34) please open your book on page one (yates, 2020, 150) (34) hãy mở sách của bạn ra ở trang một. (35) i live on the fourth floor … (tran, 1997, 23) acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 174 (35) tôi sống ở tầng bốn … (36) i am with you on that point. (tran, 1997, 15) (36) tôi đồng ý với bạn ở điểm đó. (3) on can be translated as vào in vietnamese: (37) come and see me on mondays. (tran, 1997, 10) (37) hãy đến và gặp tôi vào thứ hai. (38) he vistis twice a month on weekends. (yates, 2020, 153) (38) anh ta viếng thăm hai lần một tháng vào các ngày cuối tuần. (4) on can be translated as bằng in vietnamese: (39) he came over on his bike. (yates, 2020, 151) (39) anh ta ghé chơi bằng xe đẹp. (40) george usually goes to work on the bus. (macmilland, 1968, 15) (40) george thường đi làm bằng xe buýt … (41) that car runs on diesel fuel. (yates, 2020, 153) (41) chiếc xe hơi đó chạy bằng dầu đi-e-zel. (42) he wrote his paper on the computer. (yates, 2020, 154) (42) anh ta viết bài bằng máy tính. (5) on can be translated as về in vietnamese: (43) he gave me a lecture on science. (tran, 1997, 15) (43) anh ấy giảng cho tôi về khoa học. (44) we have a good book on gardening. (yates, 2020, 155) (44) chúng tôi có một cuốn sách về làm vườn. (6) on can be translated as bên in vietnamese: (45) the porch is on the side of the house. (yates, 2020, 150) (45) mái hiên bên hông nhà. (46) did you notice the twin oak trees on the left hand side of the path? (lindstromberg, 2010: 58) (46) bạn có để ý thấy đôi cây sồi bên tay trái của lối đi không? (7) on can be translated as đối diện in vietnamese: (47) their house is on the beach. (yates, 2020, 150) (47) nhà của họ đối diện bãi biển. (48) both of these campgrounds are right on the ocean. (lindstrormberg, 2010, 52) (48) cả hai khu cắm trại đều đối diện ngay bãi biển. (8) on can be translated as trong in vietnamese: (49) she is on the basketball team … (yates, 2020, 156) (49) cô ta trong đội bóng rổ … https://asiacall.info/acoj phat dinh dac vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 175 (9) on can be translated as lên in vietnamese: (50) she poured water on the plant. (yates, 2020, 151) (51) cô ta tưới nước lên cái cây. (52) he sprinkled salt on the meat. (yates, 2020, 151) (51) anh ấy rắc muối lên miếng thịt. (10) on can be translated as khi in vietnamese: (52) she fainted on hearing the news. (yates, 2020, 159) (52) cô ấy ngất khi nghe thông tin. (53) on hearing the victory, people were transported with joy. (tran, 1997, 180) (53) khi nghe tin chiến thắng, dân chúng xiết nỗi vui mừng. (11) on can be translated as với in vietnamese: (54) the teacher is much too easy on the boys. (yates, 2020, 160) (54) người giáo viên quá dễ dãi với những học sinh nam. (55) i think i was too rough on her yesterday. (yates, 2020, 160) (55) tôi nghĩ tôi đã quá khắt khe với cô ta ngày hôm qua. in addition to the above cases, the preposition on has other meanings in english expressions but does not carry the prepositional meaning when translated into vietnamese. in this case, the translator will use vietnamese expressions with similar meanings to express the meaning of on in the sentence. for example: (56) they were on the road for two days during their trip. (macmillan, 1964, 3) (56) họ đã đi được 2 ngày trong suốt chuyến đi. (57) the light’s on. (lindstromberg, 2010, 65) (57) đèn đang bật (58) the meeting’s on. (vs off) (lindstromberg, 2010, 65) (58) cuộc họp đang diễn ra. (59) he is always on hand to help us. (yates, 2020, 158) (59) anh ta luôn có mặt để giúp chúng tôi. (60) she is on a diet. ( yates, 2020, 158) (60) cô ta đang ăn kiêng. through analyzing the preposition on in the above contexts, the author has pointed out 11 different meanings of the preposition “on” when placed in different contexts and the exception when it is a fixed phrase, resulting in similar meanings to vietnamese when translated. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 176 5. conclusion and discussion summarising the research has answered two questions raised by referencing documents on english and vietnamese prepositions as a basis for research and surveying cases of prepositional transitions when translating from english to vietnamese. specifically, how many phenomena will occur when we translate english prepositions into vietnamese and whether an english preposition can have many meanings other than the original meaning when placed in different contexts. the study shows that there are 6 cases of transition of prepositions when translating from english to vietnamese. cases showing the similarities and differences of prepositions in each different language will have different usage, thereby drawing the conclusion that prepositions are arbitrary and do not have a prepositional using method. there will be cases where prepositions are present in both english and vietnamese, and they have the same meaning when translated. there will be cases where prepositions are added or omitted, or both have the same meaning, but the preposition is used differently, and there are cases where there are no prepositions in sentences to describe actions. the study also shows that in translation, learners or translators need to look closely at the phenomena of translation in order to be able to convey the correct meaning and use the correct prepositions. moreover, the study also shows that when considering the cultural factor of the language to be translated, it will give different meanings in one preposition. to clarify, the preposition on can be translated in many meanings similar to other prepositions in vietnamese and other expressions in addition to the original meaning trên, including other 10 meanings: ở, vào, bằng, về, bên, đối diện, trong, lên, khi, với. the findings in this paper provide the basis for people to see that prepositions are one of the important aspects of english. understanding and using correct prepositions will help us express our ideas through language and express it naturally. according to tran (1997), “learning the form and meaning of prepositions is not enough. what matters is learning how to use prepositions in different situations.” the study also shows that the proficient use of english prepositions does not have a uniform rule, but it takes practice and habits to become proficient. prepositions are diverse and always change meaning when placed in different contexts. therefore, there is no method of using prepositions. according to nguyen (2001), in both english and vietnamese, linguists classify prepositions into functional words, linking words, empty words, etc. prepositions have an important position in the word system. type, it has the ability to connect, showing the relationship between the elements in the sentence that they link. moreover, it is necessary to distinguish prepositions from conjunctions in both english and vietnamese. conjunctions are words that show an equality relationship, and prepositions represent a main-subordinate relationship. in english, prepositions also need to be distinguished from minor adverbs. sub-adverbs differ from prepositions in terms of syntactic and grammatical features. https://asiacall.info/acoj phat dinh dac vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 177 in both english and vietnamese sentences, a preposition always precedes the noun or pronoun that it governs to form a prepositional phrase (preposition). prepositions in both languages can be used at the beginning of a complex sentence with a clause to indicate different meanings in translation, such as purpose, cause, and effect. in conclusion, the study hopes to have partly contributed to the identification of the meaning of english prepositions in learning and translation. therefore, the research paper hopes to be useful to english learners and individuals who are passionate about teaching aspects of the language, especially prepositions. limitations the study is only a small contribution to the study of english prepositions by analyzing some transitional phenomena and briefly mentioning that a preposition can have many meanings and play different roles in the english language. in other words, there will be many phenomena that change the meaning of prepositions and the phenomenon of multiple meanings of each preposition that within the scope of this research paper will not be able to cover all of them. according to nguyen (2001), from the analysis of the prepositional systems of english and vietnamese, we can see that the prepositional systems in both languages have diversity and rich activities. the english preposition system is considered difficult to use for vietnamese learners because of the habit of translating the language directly from the mother tongue, and the meaning and usage of the preposition system are sometimes different from that of vietnamese. moreover, the differences in respective structures and spatial and temporal perception of the british and vietnamese are often not the same. the author also agrees with the point of view of nguyen (2001), that teaching and learning english prepositions should not be separated from each other but should be taught and integrated into the process of grammar teaching and communication knowledge. in addition to the theory in class, learners need to practice in class to be able to remember the taught prepositions and use them correctly. first, they need to understand the nature of prepositions between english and vietnamese, then gradually apply them through small exercises, then progress to the exercises of compounding sentences and completing sentences. in addition, the role of the mother tongue needs to go hand in hand with learning english. secba (1979), in the book "on foreign language teaching methods," said: "experience has shown that it is impossible to give up the mother tongue in the process of learning a foreign language, but it is impossible to remove the mother tongue from the students' minds obtainable” (213). discussion in addition, the study suggests that in teaching translation, especially prepositions, teachers should pay attention to making learners understand that preposition translation should not be translated directly in their own language. they must rely on context and semantics in linguistics. teachers also need to help learners limit the habit of translating everything into their native language, especially prepositions, because the case of a preposition with multiple meanings acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 178 does occur. furthermore, based on cultural differences and habits of using prepositions in different languages, teachers should also understand clearly so that they can help learners reduce mistakes when using prepositions. during the teaching process, the teacher should: analyzing the phenomenon of meaning change of prepositions when translating from english to vietnamese in translation so that learners can accurately translate the meaning of sentences. analyzing the case of multiple meanings of prepositions in translation that, in addition to common meanings, can have other meanings in different contexts. analyzing other roles of prepositions in sentences, which can be verbs or conjunctions. references bui, d. t. (2003), ngữ pháp việt nam giản dị và thực dụng, nhà xuất bản văn hoá thông tin, hà nội. collins, c. (nguyễn thành yến dịch và chú giải) (2004), giới từ tiếng anh, nhà xuất bản thành phố hồ chí minh. cao, x. h. (1991), tiếng việt – sơ thảo ngữ pháp chức năng, q1, nhà xuất bản khoa học xã hội, hà nội. cao, x. h. (2005), ngữ pháp chức năng tiếng việt, q2, nhà xuất bản giáo dục, hà nội. hutch, t. (2015) 150 everyday uses of prepositions in english, learning express. lindstrormberg, s. (2010). english prepositions explained, amsterdam: john benjamins publishing company. nguyen, b. v., & ngo, t. c. t. (2021). using the internet for self-study to improve translation for english-majored seniors at van lang university . international journal of tesol & education, 1(2), 110–147. retrieved from http://ijte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/43 nguyen, c. h. (2001), nghiên cứu ngữ pháp và ngữ nghĩa của giới từ tiếng anh đối chiếu với tiếng việt, doctoral thesis, university of social sciences and humanities – ho chi minh city national university. nguyen, h. p. (2010), chức năng của giới từ tiếng việt xét trên bình diện ngữ pháp và ngữ nghĩa, tạp chí đại học sư phạm thành phố hồ chí minh. nguyen, k. t. (1963), nghiên cứu về ngữ pháp tiếng việt, nhà xuất bản khoa học xã hội, hà nội. nguyen, t. t. h. (2020), giới từ định vị tiếng anh (at, in, on) và các đơn vị tương đương trong tiếng việt, doctoral thesis, university of social sciences and humanities – ho chi minh city national university. http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/43 http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/43 https://asiacall.info/acoj phat dinh dac vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 179 nguyen, t. v. k. (2001), nghiên cứu các nghĩa của giới từ “in” trong tiếng anh và các nghĩa tương đương trong tiếng việt dưới góc độ ngôn ngữ học tri nhận, mater thesis, university of foreign languages hanoi national university. nguyen, x. m. (2021). strategies for translating english passive sentences into vietnamese. international journal of tesol & education, 2(1), 81–104. https://doi.org/10.54855/ijte22216 phan, k. (1955), việt ngữ nghiên cứu, nhà xuát bản đà nẵng, đà nẵng. secba (1979), on foreign language teaching methods tran, l. h. n. v. t. (2021). an analysis of negative verbs’ equivalents in a vietnamese translation of ‘the call of the wild’. international journal of tesol & education, 2(1), 105–116. https://doi.org/10.54855/ijte.22217 the macmillan company (1964), the key to english prepositions 1, fourth printing 1968, collier-macmillan international, collier-macmillan limited, london, v. tran, q. h. (2001). nghiên cứu giới từ định vị theo hướng ngữ dụng trên cứ liệu tiếng anh và tiếng việt, master thesis, university of social sciences and humanities – ho chi minh city national university. tran, t. k. (1940), việt nam văn phạm, sài gòn. tran, v. d. (1997). cách dùng giới từ anh ngữ, nhà xuất bản thành phố hồ chí minh. yates, j. (2020). barron’s esl proficiency series: prepositions, kaplan, inc., barron’s educational series, 2020 edition, 750 third avenue, new york, ny 10017. biodata as an excellent student at sai gon university, phat dinh dac has won a championship in an annual contest "the winner" and conducted a scientific research at the university level. he will be able to get more achievements when he has been exposed to scholarly atmosphere like the one created by this conference. https://doi.org/10.54855/ijte22216 https://doi.org/10.54855/ijte.22217 citation asiacall online journal received: 10/01/2022 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 01/06/2022 vol. 13, no. 3, 2022 accepted: 05/06/2022 pp. 9-21 online: 22/06/2022 citation | esparrago-kalidas, a. j., manla, e., halibas, s. j., armeñon, m., vuelban, a. m., & aporillo, j. m. (2022). using flipgrid as an interactive application to improve filipino students’ engagement in language flexi-learning. asiacall online journal, 13(3), 9-21. doi: https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221332 using flipgrid as an interactive application to improve filipino students’ engagement in language flexi-learning adeva jane esparrago-kalidas1*, edralin manla2, shein jay halibas2, mailyn armeñon2, alexis marie vuelban2, jean mika aporillo2 1 xavier university junior high school, philippines 2 xavier university, philippines *corresponding author’s email: aesparrago@xu.edu.ph * https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2937-6522 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221332 abstract the pandemic's massive impact on schools has pushed teachers and students to migrate online and affected students' class engagement. with this, the action research aimed to 1) analyze the previous experiences of the students with other interactive applications, 2) determine if flipgrid interactive options are an intervention for improving students' engagement, and 3) evaluate the experiences of the students in using flipgrid interactive options in asynchronous learning. the research used a practical action research design that utilizes mixed methods to address the study's problem and was conducted at xavier university – junior high school in the philippines. to achieve the desired results, the researchers first gave the interactive questionnaire, followed by a survey questionnaire before and after the implementation of the proposed intervention, and conducted a focus group discussion to gather more in-depth information. twenty respondents took the pre-test, and 17 took the post-test. the results of the data from the statistics and information gathered during the focus group discussion show that students are favorable of the features of flipgrid. there is also a highly significant difference between the pre-test and post-test results, which means that the proposed intervention, comment section, and view counts effectively alleviate the challenge of students' engagement in asynchronous learning. based on the perceived response from the participants, flipgrid, in general, is a great tool to boost students' engagement. thus, the researchers recommend that teachers maximize the use of flipgrid for asynchronous sessions. keywords: flipgrid, students’ engagement, asynchronous learning, online learning, interactive applications introduction in the philippines, the proliferation of covid-19 cases shoots up day by day. this pandemic has brought massive changes not just to the healthcare system and the economy but to academic institutions as well. students and teachers were forced to resort to online learning as the faceto-face setting was strongly prohibited. online learning has become the new norm, with a vast number of students taking advantage of it. however, as it has become the mainstream of https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221332 mailto:aesparrago@xu.edu.ph https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2937-6522 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221332 https://asiacall.info/acoj esparrago-kalidas, a. j. et al. vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 10 learning, a lot of loopholes have been found. one of them is the lack of students' engagement, specifically in asynchronous learning. students' engagement in asynchronous classes tends to be low because synchronous learning is more effective than asynchronous learning. a study presented by alhih et al. (2017) claims that there is an increase of interaction in synchronous sessions rather than in asynchronous sessions that enables students to be present simultaneously with the teacher, just like conventional classrooms, which have student-teacher interaction— bringing alarm to the teachers as they need to ensure that learners are still learning despite the new setup. teachers are required to stay connected with their students through the use of technology. however, one downside of this is the students' engagement in class on how much they are involved in asynchronous sessions. students’ engagement can be limited only to submissions of tasks and assignments. there is hope, however, that this can be upended if the teacher constantly encourages students to interact with their peers' work. although there are many benefits of providing learning content online, online classes are often met with skepticism. the question of how to involve students successfully in online courses generates more questions than responses. there is a need to find relevant studies on the key topic of students’ engagement strategies in online courses and determine which methods work based on empirical studies (chakraborty, 2017). students must actively participate for the sake of creating a potent learning environment. hence, they must reciprocate the learning process by reacting, commenting, and providing feedback on peers' work — leading to student-to-student engagement and not just teacher-to-student engagement in asynchronous learning. one of the ways that teachers can improve student engagement is through the use of interactive applications like flipgrid. flipgrid allows students to interact and engage with each other in ways not possible before, which can, in turn, help increase social presence in online courses. the first specific objective of this research was to analyze the students' previous experiences with other interactive applications. the second specific objective was to determine if flipgrid interactive options are an intervention for improving students' engagement. furthermore, the researchers evaluated the effectiveness of flipgrid interactive options as an intervention for improving students' engagement. in sum, their usage of this app leads to classroom engagement that is being studied in this research. literature review following the deped order no. 21, s. 2019 and no.12, s. 2020, implementing online learning as the new learning mode has been observed in the academic year 2020-2021. with this, the delivery of lessons is made through two types of classes: synchronous and asynchronous classes. in an asynchronous class, the students will not meet with their teacher. however, the students are still required to complete tasks that will have to be submitted on a specific date, such as assignments, group, and individual works, reflective essays, short video responses, and quizzes to be taken after class. the good thing about asynchronous learning is that students will acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 11 have to work at their own time and pace within the confines of their own homes. this is supported by a study conducted by hoang and tran (2022), which found that students had a positive attitude about online education as they found it to be beneficial since it provided them with flexibility and convenience. similarly, dau (2022) also mentions how teachers and students had opportunities to be exposed to the abundant teaching and learning resources online and how, through asynchronous activities, students could learn at their own pace and time, so they understand the lessons better. one such tool that aids in online learning is flipgrid. flipgrid is a video-based tool that allows conversations and connections across digital devices, but enjoyably and engagingly that makes it ideal for use in education. it is structured to help with group discussions but in a way that doesn't leave any student on the spot. it is very helpful as it allows less socially able students to express their ideas and emotions with their classmates. the ability to re-record responses helps alleviate students' pressure when communicating, making this a very enabling tool for education (edwards, 2022), especially for language learning, where the pressure to perform is high. as edwards (2022) mentions, one of the best things about flipgrid is the capability to interact using different media like video, such as face-to-face in the real world, but without the pressure of a live classroom. since students are given the space and time to respond when they're ready, it makes educational engagement possible for even more anxious students who might feel left out in class. the app allows students to add rich media and encourages them to be creative and, potentially more importantly, expressive. using emoji, text, and stickers, students can participate in class as they might interact with friends using social media platforms. this aspect can help students feel less hesitant and more confident to express themselves openly, engaging more deeply with the task, which ultimately results in deeper understanding and better recalling of lessons and content. research conducted by lowenthal and moore (2020) states that if students can interact and communicate better with each other, they can develop a stronger sense of social presence and classroom community, which can help them persist and be more successful in their online courses. flipgrid has several features and options for students’ engagement. one feature would allow students to view and comment (view counts and comment section) on their peers' work (video) posted in the interactive tool under the activity set by the teacher. pillai (2019) started a study about how one comment can lead to a cascade of comments. the study showed that if one's content has one comment, it is 54% more likely to be followed by another comment. thus, engagement among students gradually increases like a domino effect. through these conversations, comment sections lead to the formation of a virtual learning community. moreover, flipgrid allows students to interact and engage with each other in ways not possible before, which can, in turn, help increase social presence in online courses. in addition, holbeck and hartman (2018), as cited by lowenthal and moore (2020), found flipgrid to be an effective and relevant educational tool. furthermore, a study by delmas and moore (2019), as cited in https://asiacall.info/acoj esparrago-kalidas, a. j. et al. vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 12 lowenthal and moore (2020), explored the use of flipgrid in undergraduate and graduate classes and students reported that they felt that their feelings of community and connection were made stronger using flipgrid. they reported that it helped increase students’ engagement and communication in a secondary classroom. research suggests that instructors can use flipgrid to support the type of collaboration and engagement they seek in their online courses (gurjar, 2020; mejia, 2020; moore, 2016). students in their study found flipgrid to be a valuable tool for promoting social presence through asynchronous video discussions. nowadays, students are digitally literate regarding how technological devices work. during synchronous and asynchronous classes, students show how tech-savvy they are in manipulating and navigating their learning management system (lms) and how interactive applications are utilized in the classroom. students manifest this skill of being digital experts and require no teacher supervision. that said, they are ready to participate in this action research using the intervention that the researchers will propose. although there has not been much research done about flipgrid, this action research will help teachers and students in different institutions by subsequently adapting the proposed intervention. this contribution would be a huge steppingstone to a new era of learning. research objectives this research is designed to aim the following objectives: general objective: to utilize flipgrid as an interactive application to improve students' engagement in language asynchronous classes. specific objectives: 1. to analyze the previous experiences of the students with other interactive applications; 2. to determine if flipgrid interactive options are an intervention for improving students' language learning engagement; and 3. to evaluate the students' experiences in using flipgrid interactive options in asynchronous learning. methods pedagogical setting and participants the study was conducted in xavier university junior high school or xujhs for the school year 2020-2021 through online asynchronous connections. xavier university junior high school (xujhs) is a jesuit school located in cagayan de oro, misamis orientala city from mindanao, philippines. from the year 2020 up to the present, acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 13 xujhs was temporarily shut down due to pandemics and covid-19 health protocols. thus, the learning was continued using the new method of education — flexible learning/online learning. currently, xujhs uses microsoft teams (ms teams) as the school's main learning management system (lms), where teachers and students communicate and collaborate in learning during synchronous sessions. ms teams was also the official learning platform for teachers where they post announcements, activities, and assignments for students during asynchronous sessions. in this action research, the researchers used the purposive sampling method in conducting the study. purposive sampling can provide reliable and robust data. an english class from the grade 10 level was chosen to participate in the study. each section has 20-25 students under the age range of 15 to 17. these students were selected as they were the most suitable respondents for answering the action research's objectives — providing as rich data as possible. the whole class used flipgrid in their classroom activities. out of the 25, 20 participated in the pre-test, while only 17 participated in the post-test. design of the study this paper follows a practical action research design that utilizes a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods that address the problem of the study. the data collected sought to understand and determine whether the utilization of the interactive application (flipgrid) and its features (such as comment section and view counts) are the intervention in improving students’ engagement in flexilearning. the study has utilized three research tools: inventory questionnaire, students’ engagement evaluation (known as the pre-and post-test survey questionnaires), and focus group discussion (fgd). data collection and analysis the researchers fully observed ethical procedures in all aspects of the study. resnik (2020) highlighted the idea that the researchers should follow ethical norms because they promote the goals of the study; knowledge, truth, and avoidance of error. ethical norms also promote the important values of collaborative work; trust, accountability, mutual respect, and fairness. the data gathering procedures were all done on an online platform. it was made sure that no class hours were taken and/or conflicted by the researchers in the process. the implementation of the study was all done during asynchronous sessions of the students. in the first procedure of data gathering, the researchers asked permission from the moderator of the class. the distribution of the consent and assent forms followed. a week was given to the respondents and parents to comply so that they would have ample time to decide whether or not they would participate in the study. the respondents who submitted the consent and assent forms were the only ones who could wholeheartedly participate in the study. in the second step, the researchers distributed the inventory questionnaire to assess students' knowledge and use of digital tools. along with the inventory, a questionnaire was a pre-test survey questionnaire. these two survey questionnaires were distributed online using google https://asiacall.info/acoj esparrago-kalidas, a. j. et al. vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 14 forms with the help of the respondents' moderating teacher. it was made sure that the respondents answered the inventory and pre-test without experiencing the intervention first. when the intervention phase was over, the respondents then answered the post-test students’ engagement evaluation survey questionnaire. the inventory questionnaire and pre-and post-test were all floated in the first week. in the second week of the action research implementation, the researchers conducted a focus group discussion to strengthen the respondents' experiences with the interactive application and its features as an intervention. in conducting fgd, proper preliminaries were observed, and the respondents were assured about the confidentiality of their identities. the questions were asked conversationally so that the respondents would not find the researchers intimidating. overall, the whole duration of the data gathering procedure lasted two weeks. the researchers analyzed the students' experiences using flipgrid interactive options in asynchronous learning by conducting an fgd (focus group discussion). it gave the learners an avenue to answer various questions that encapsulates their experiences while utilizing flipgrid. and also, the effectiveness of flipgrid as an intervention for improving students' engagement was calculated through the data gathered in the pre-test and post-test. in analyzing the data gathered, the researchers will utilize t-test (unpaired) inferential statistics to see a significant difference in the pre-test and the post-test results. it is used to determine whether there is a significant difference between the means of the two groups. to interpret the mean scores before and after the intervention, the following scoring guidelines were used: table 1. interpretation of score range 1.00 1.74 not engaged 1.75 2.40 somewhat engaged. 2.50 3.24 engaged 3.25 – 4.00 highly engaged results/findings and discussion specific objective no. 1: to analyze the previous experiences of the students with other interactive applications. in gathering the data, the researchers provided an inventory questionnaire to know the learner's prior background regarding what tools they utilized in an online class and whether it helped them be more engaged. a total of 20 students out of 30 took the inventory questionnaire for interactive application. students were asked about the digital tools they have used in the online classroom, and the results show that 90.5% of the learners responded that they use microsoft teams in their online classroom, while 9.5 % answered flipgrid. when asked about the learners' feelings about utilizing digital tools to improve their engagement in online learning, 85.7% answered "yes" when asked if they feel digital tools acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 15 would help them to be more engaged in online learning, while 14.3% of respondents answered "maybe." when asked what kind of digital tools will help increase their engagement and communication, 66.7% of the respondents answered flipgrid, 95.2% to microsoft teams, 14.3% to google classroom, and 4.8% said edmodo. next, learners were asked to rate how comfortable they were with creating a digital portfolio. 28.6% of the learners gave a perfect 10 when asked if they were comfortable creating digital portfolios, 14.3% gave 8 and 9, about 19% responded with 7, 14.3% gave 6, and 9.5% answered 5. lastly, learners were asked to rate how comfortable they were in using flipgrid for online classes. 14.3% of the learners responded 8, 9, and 10 as their ratings when asked if they are comfortable utilizing flipgrid. 28.6% answered 7, 9.5% 6, 4.8% 5 and 14.3% gave 4. overall, most of the learners actively answered the inventory questionnaire, which lets the researchers know what digital tools they use in their online learning and whether it motivates them to be more engaged in class. the results show that 90.5% of the learners use microsoft teams, and 85.7% positively responded: “yes” when asked if the digital tools help them be more engaged in class. 66.7% of the respondents chose flipgrid as a tool that would enhance their communication skills. when asked about their comfortableness in creating a digital portfolio, 28.6% gave a perfect rating. and only 14.3% of the learners gave an excellent rating of “10” when asked if they are comfortable using flipgrid. this data will be used to support the study of the effectiveness of flipgrid in improving students’ engagement in asynchronous learning. specific objective no. 2: to determine if flipgrid interactive options is an intervention for improving students' language learning engagement. table 2. test of significant difference between pre-test and post-test scores n m sd p pre-test 20 2.82 0.432 0.0045 post-test 17 3.28 0.495 the pre-test and post-test questionnaires measure the respondent’s attitude during asynchronous sessions using flipgrid. with the data presented above, the overall mean of the pre-test for 20 students is 2.82. it means that most of the students agree on the effectiveness of flipgrid in enhancing students’ engagement. on the other hand, the post-test has an overall mean of 3.28 for 17 students. this means that after the intervention was conducted, students now strongly agree on how effectively flipgrid boosts their engagement during asynchronous sessions. https://asiacall.info/acoj esparrago-kalidas, a. j. et al. vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 16 to determine the significance level of the data, the researchers calculated the p-value. hence, the p-value is 0.0045, which means a highly significant difference between the two tests (pretest and post-test). if the p-value is greater than 0.5, flipgrid and its features, as the researchers claim to improve students’ engagement in asynchronous sessions, will be nullified. the evidence of this significant difference can be seen in both the pre-test and post-test. the results of the pre-test show that they have not yet established a relationship with their peers. students responded that they have less interaction with their peers during asynchronous sessions. they are passive and just comply with their tasks without going the extra mile to interact with their classmates using the available features in flipgrid. what (lowenthal and moore 2020) claim that if students are able to interact and communicate better with each other, they can then develop a stronger sense of social presence and classroom community, which can help them persist and be more successful in their online courses. in addition, (lowenthal and moore 2020) reported that flipgrid could be utilized in secondary classrooms, as flipgrid helps increase students’ engagement and communication during asynchronous sessions. furthermore, after implementing the intervention, and based on the information gathered in the post-test, students made a stronger connection with their peers using flipgrid and its features. overall, the data presented above pertains to the effectiveness of the intervention that contributed to students’ engagement during asynchronous sessions. specific objective no. 3: to evaluate the experiences of the students in using flipgrid interactive options in asynchronous learning. the researchers conducted a focus group discussion (fgd) to gather more information and gain an in-depth understanding of using flipgrid as an interactive application to improve students’ engagement in flexilearning. due to the current situation, the fgd was conducted through google meet with 15 participants from the class. when asked about their experiences in using flipgrid during english language learning, one student replied that flipgrid was already introduced to them in the previous school year and that it is a fun application because it is an excellent way to know the opinions of their classmates. another responded that flipgrid is a fun application because of the features students can add text and background music, while another mentioned that flipgrid is easy to use, flexible, and fun to participate in class. when asked what the things they do in flipgrid are, they answered process questions, shared their opinions and ideas, shared information about their assignments, and were encouraged to comment on another's video. students were also asked about how they feel when they see that their work has a lot of views on flipgrid and whether this motivates them to view and engage with other students' work as well. one student shared that they feel accomplished and realized they had done something worthwhile, while another said that it is an excellent way to increase motivation and work harder. students were also asked if getting feedback from their peers helped them to be more engaged in creating videos. to which they answered that they are happy when their classmates watch and leave comments on their videos and that the comment feature allows students to be more united and an avenue to know more about their personalities. students also mentioned that they would be more encouraged to exchange one's opinions with acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 17 those who leave a comment on their videos, and they believe that it would be best if they interact with their peers so that they will be closer with their classmates like never before. when asked about the features that they look into in using applications like flipgrid and what features did you like the most, students responded that they like the fact that flipgrid is a user-friendly application. students can add pictures and emojis and even create thumbnails to attract more viewers. lastly, when asked whether they see flipgrid as an effective tool that the teachers can utilize in class, students mentioned that flipgrid is an effective tool because they are allowed to relay their thoughts. they also admit that they rarely participate during the synchronous session. thus, flipgrid can bridge the gap to interact with their peers and teacher. they also mention that flipgrid can help teachers gain knowledge and understand their students' personalities while affirming that flipgrid is effective because of its convenience, where learners can access the application through their mobile devices, taking videos and uploading them directly. these findings confirm the study of pillai (2019), which mentions that engagement among students gradually increases like a domino effect. through these conversations, comment sections lead to the formation of a virtual learning community. this also supports the findings of gurjar (2020), mejia (2020), and moore (2016), which suggest that instructors can use flipgrid as a tool to support the type of collaboration and engagement that they are seeking in their online courses. overall, the participants' responses showed that flipgrid is an interactive application that can improve students’ engagement in flexilearning. flipgrid is an effective tool for students to participate in asynchronous sessions by answering processing questions given by the teacher. through creating videos, students can share their thoughts and ideas and exchange opinions with their classmates. in this way, students will also be able to gain new knowledge or perspective from their classmates. the application's features also affect the overall students’ engagement. furthermore, the participants mentioned that this application is easy to use, flexible and convenient. overall, flipgrid is an effective application that teachers can utilize in class to improve students’ engagement. during the focus group discussion (fgd), 15 participants joined the google meet, where the discussion was conducted. overall, the participants agreed that commenting and viewing videos on flipgrid improves students’ engagement in asynchronous learning. in correlation to the preceding statement, delmas and moore (2019) explored the use of flipgrid in undergraduate and graduate classes, and students reported that they felt that their feelings of community and connection were made stronger using flipgrid. the study conducted by delmas and moore will be further elaborated in the information gathered during the focus group discussion. as supported by the participants' response, seeing that the video they posted on flipgrid has views and comments from their peers, they become more accomplished and motivated to do the same thing (about commenting and viewing). in this way, students mentioned that they could be closer to their classmates, and they become more encouraged to exchange opinions with the person who commented on their video. furthermore, students emphasized that the comment https://asiacall.info/acoj esparrago-kalidas, a. j. et al. vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 18 feature on flipgrid allows students to be more united, especially after synchronous classes, and it is an avenue for them to know more about their peers’ personalities and thoughts. the majority of the participants in the focus group discussion shared the same sentiments that they do feel happy that their peers leave comments on their work and that they feel glad that their work is being viewed ― leading to a realization that they created something worthwhile, making them want to work harder. thus, this answers the flipgrid features such as the comment section and view count as an effective intervention to improve students’ engagement in asynchronous learning. the effectiveness of flipgrid and the intervention in improving students’ engagement was certified by the students in the results of the focus group discussion (fgd) and survey questionnaire. students saw how helpful flipgrid was both in asynchronous and synchronous sessions. despite this learning setup, they still find flipgrid as an avenue of learning even without the supervision of their teacher in asynchronous sessions. with the results, it has been hugely affirmed by the students that it is not only effective during synchronous sessions but also in asynchronous sessions as well. the efficacy of the intervention conducted boosted their self-confidence, strengthened student connectivity, and most especially enhanced their engagement. students also highlighted that flipgrid as an interactive application is student-friendly, very flexible, convenient, and most especially easy-to-use. in correlation with the results shown in the focus group discussion (fgd), survey questionnaires, students are satisfied with the overall feature that flipgrid has. in addition, with the use of flipgrid features such as the comment section and view counts, students are more productive, motivated, accomplished, and confident if these two specific features are utilized in the activities. as seen in the results of the survey questionnaire, both overall means have a huge difference, and the p-value is 0.0045. this means the data is highly significant. overall, the students' perceived effectiveness of the interactive application was up to their standards. students are genuinely happy with flipgrid; they enjoy using it even when used and integrated into the face-to-face sessions in the future. they also recommend flipgrid for lower batches and visualize the impact of flipgrid for future use. conclusion interactions with content, peers, and instructors help online learners become active and more engaged in their courses. in achieving a potent learning environment, student interaction is best paired with high-quality instruction and effective learning outcomes. however, students’ engagement in flipgrid would not be possible without the supervision of teachers. the teacher also plays a vital role in activating students’ engagement in asynchronous learning. hence, giving clear instructions for activities and constant reminders to students are key factors that would encourage students to participate in both synchronous and asynchronous learning. the volume of videos and engagement hours and the favorable survey findings and group discussion acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 19 from the research project demonstrate that flipgrid increases students’ engagement in asynchronous learning. as previously mentioned, one of the factors for flipgrid evaluation was determining its effectiveness in an asynchronous setup. upon having a group discussion, learners regard flipgrid as a fun and effective tool that allows them to freely communicate ideas with their classmates by viewing and leaving comments on their videos. it also motivates them to make an effort in creating their videos as they feel accomplished and have done something worthwhile if it gets many views. they also considered it student friendly as it is easy to navigate and offers a variety of features that learners can explore. based on their feedback and the survey results, the researchers discovered that using flipgrid enables them to be more engaged by interacting with their classmates. in addition, the pre-test and post-test findings indicate that learners' perception of whether the flipgrid is an effective tool for engagement has improved after experiencing it firsthand. the findings imply that flipgrid is a useful tool that teachers can use in their online classes if they have problems increasing their students' engagement in an asynchronous setting. from the findings and implications stated above, flipgrid is a tool that teachers can employ with their online classes to support collaboration and engagement between students. with this, the researchers conclude that flipgrid is an effective interactive tool that teachers can use to improve students’ engagement during asynchronous learning further and recommend its use, especially during online asynchronous learning. as the action research is only limited to one section of xavier university junior high school's grade 10 students currently taking the english subject was only pursued in two weeks during the participants' scheduled asynchronous class in a said subject through the online platform; future researchers are recommended to consider a longer time for study and observation, as well as considering other similar platforms. references alhih, m. (2017). levels of interaction provided by online distance education models. retrieved from https://www.ejmste.com/download/levels-of-interaction-provided-byonline-distance-education-models4795.pdf dau, t. t. l. (2022).remote teaching amid the covid-19 pandemic in vietnam: primary school efl teachers’ practices and perceptions. asiacall online journal, 13(1), 1-21.eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.001/ delmas, p. and moore, p. (2019). student perceptions of video-based discussions in online and blended learning. in s. carliner (ed.), proceedings of e-learn: world conference on e-learning in corporate, government, healthcare, and higher education (pp. 1280-1286). new orleans, louisiana, united states: association for the advancement of computing in education (aace). retrieved january 10, 2022, from https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/211213/. chakraborty, m. (2017). learner engagement strategies in online class environment. https://www.ejmste.com/download/levels-of-interaction-provided-by-online-distance-education-models4795.pdf https://www.ejmste.com/download/levels-of-interaction-provided-by-online-distance-education-models4795.pdf https://asiacall.info/acoj esparrago-kalidas, a. j. et al. vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 20 retrieved from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/147255355.pdf gurjar, n. (2020). reducing transactional distance with synchronous and asynchronous videobased discussions in distance learning. proceedings of the site 2020: society for information technology and teacher education international conference (pp. 268–272). association for the advancement of computing in education. hoang, t. t. d., & tran, q. h. (2022). changes in students' experiences and perceptions towards e-learning at hoa sen university during covid-19 pandemic. asiacall online journal, 13(1), 22-39.eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.002. holbeck, r. and hartman, j. (2018). efficient strategies for maximizing online student satisfaction: applying technologies to increase cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence. retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1199226 edwards, l. (2022, may 23). what is flipgrid and how does it work for teachers and students? tips and tricks. techlearningmagazine. https://www.techlearning.com/how-to/what-is-flipgrid-and-how-does-it-work-forteachers-and-students. lowenthal, p.r., and moore., r.l. (2020). exploring student perceptions of flipgrid in online courses. online learning, 24(4), 28-41. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v24i4.2335 mejia, c. (2020). using voicethread as a discussion platform to enhance student engagement in a hospitality management online course. journal of hospitality, leisure, sport and tourism education, 26, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhlste.2019.100236 moore, r. l. (2016). interacting at a distance: creating engagement in online learning environments. in l. kyei-blankson, j. blankson, e. ntuli, and c. agyeman (eds.), handbook of research on strategic management of interaction, presence, and participation in online courses (pp. 401–425). igi global. http://doi.org/10.4018/9781-4666-9582-5.ch016 pillai, s. (2019). the domino effect a hike in engagement and visibility through comments. quintype technologies. retrieved from https://www.quintype.com/blog/product/thedomino-effect-a-hike-in-engagement-and-visibility-through-comments. biodata adeva jane esparrago-kalidas has been an english teacher for 9 years at xavier university– ateneo de cagayan junior high school in the philippines where she also serves as the alumni coordinator. her master of arts in education paper discussed the importance of asking different categories of questions in developing students’ critical thinking skills. she is currently a student taking masters in culture and arts studies in mindanao state university – iligan institute of technology, philippines. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1199226 https://www.techlearning.com/how-to/what-is-flipgrid-and-how-does-it-work-for-teachers-and-students https://www.techlearning.com/how-to/what-is-flipgrid-and-how-does-it-work-for-teachers-and-students https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v24i4.2335 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhlste.2019.100236 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 21 edralin manla is currently the dean of the school of education in xavier university – ateneo de cagayan, philippines. she finished her doctor of philosophy in education (field of specialization – school management) from capitol university, philippines in 2012. a number of her research include implementing the k to 12 principles in teaching english (2021), assessment literacy of madrasah educators (2019) developing teachers’ identity in the context of k to 12 reform (2018) and research self-efficacy, interest in research and research knowledge of graduate students (2017). shein jay halibas, mailyn armeñon, alexis marie vuelban and jean mika aporillo are currently graduating students from xavier university – ateneo de cagayan, philippines where there are taking their bachelor’s degree in secondary education – major in english. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nguyen thi thu the webquest – an effective web-based tool for teaching esp to english non-major students nguyen thi thu the people’s police university, vietnam autumnwind20012002@yahoo.com abstract the need to enhance technical literacy among students and the focus on content-based instruction as the most appropriate method to learn and construct knowledge have resulted in the development of activities to corporate the internet into the classroom. webquests are activities designed to serve that purpose making full use of the resources on the internet. whereas webquests have been applied for educational purposes for a past few years; there exists little empirical research which demonstrates how to make full use of it in esp instruction in a sound pedagogical way. this article describes how effective the integration of webquest in the esp reading course to second-year students at the people’s police university (ppu) was in enhancing the students’ reading competence. an action research which utilizes both quantitative and qualitative was used to fulfill the aims of the study. data from questionnaires, pre-test, post-test and teacher’s observation sheet were analyzed and discussed. it would be suggested by the findings that webquest is such an effective way to improve students’ reading competence that should be integrated in the teaching of esp at the ppu. thus, this study would be useful for those who are interested in utilizing web-based tools for their teaching of english in general and the teaching of esp in particular. keywords: esp, webquest, reading competence rationale the current globalization of trade and economy and the continuing increase in international communication in various fields have resulted in greater demand for english for specific purposes (esp). among all the four skills and knowledge integrated in esp curriculum, reading skill is often the priority in the esp curricula at universities throughout the country. besides, reading authentic materials is of great importance for those who have the desire for further study and for their future careers as it is one of the best ways to improve their english, understand and use the information in up-to-date sources in their respective fields of study. in reality, to develop reading, one of the most useful resources is the internet, with a large amount of varied authentic materials and easily accessible. furthermore, the internet-based activities can take advantage of integrated teaching approaches. to illustrate, collaborative and cooperative learning occurs when computerassisted language learning (call) is used in language teaching and learning, (mccabe, 1998). learners use websites on the internet to perform cooperative tasks with their peers to complete work assigned by the instructor. it is the learning and teaching on the internet that enables the learner-centred approach (kumari, 1998). alexander & elana (2005:129) also claimed, “the internet helps to make esp lessons more rewarding and encourages opening the new way to bring about creativity and enthusiasm for learning”. additionally, the previous esp-related studies in the context of vietnam revolve mainly around paper-based syllabus designs, course designs, or syllabus valuation, etc. there has been a lack of researches on the integration of reading approaches and the web to facilitate esp learning. as an instructor of esp for several years, the author is fully aware of the problems hindering the success of esp teaching at the ppu which include lack of updated authentic materials, unsuitable teaching method, low-motivated learners, and teachers’ insufficient utilization of web-based resources and available teaching facilities in their teaching. this has challenged the quality of teaching esp in general and reading skills in particular. mailto:autumnwind20012002@yahoo.com asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nguyen thi thu thus, she feels the need and has the desire to integrate internet-based projects in her esp teaching. by integrating webquest in the esp intensive and extensive reading course, the researcher’s ambition is to make some renovation in her teaching in order to solve the prevailing problems of less effective teaching of esp reading and low motivation of the students at the ppu. brief overview of related literature the internet and second language learning over the past few years, the internet has been widespread in numerous fields and domains. it has carried out great potentials for educational use, especially second language education. in this sub-division, the author wishes to focus on the benefits of employing the internet in the second language learning. among the benefits of internet use in the second and foreign language classroom, the most important are:  increased motivation and participation by students (warschauer, 1996).  more opportunities to interact with the target language and content area because students spend more time on task (kasper, 2000a).  greater integration of reading and writing skills and opportunities to practice them in meaningful contexts.  the possibility to implement pedagogy based on problem solving and critical thinking (warschauer, 1999).  more self-paced autonomous learning that is learner-controlled rather than teacher-controlled (mak, 1995). in addition to the benefits just cited, the internet provides the resources necessary to carry out authentic projects and analysis, and thus develop the communicative competence of esp students. such resources allow teachers to design simulation activities and role-playing using authentic material. in this manner, the internet facilitates the use of a specific language in an authentic setting. the internet can also be used to acquire information from language resources for a variety of purposes. for example, students can access current information from countries around the world. they can obtain geographical, historical, social/cultural, economic, and political information from the countries in which the target language is spoken. such resources allow teachers to design simulation activities and role-playing using authentic material. kimball (1997) pointed out that “internet-generated materials can be flexibly arrayed to engage students with topics and cognitive tasks relevant to students’ professional futures.” in short, the internet not only helps students widen knowledge and outlook, strengthens experience but also enables them to live in a real world in which they are the creators rather than the receivers only. with the above mentioned advantages of the internet, it can be concluded that the internet is an appropriate learning tool in a content-based esp syllabus. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nguyen thi thu webquest definition bernie dodge an american professor of educational technology at san diego state university focused on the design, implementation and evaluation of computer-based learning environments since 1995 and created a learning model which has been widely used as an effective internet-based educational tool at schools, colleges and universities for over a decade and is now one of the most popular and most effective internet–based project models/ approaches. this approach clearly describes the process of the partly online learning experience which challenges, motivates and engages learners. in an early article about this method, bernie dodge defined a webquest as follows: “an inquiry-oriented activity in which most of all of the information used by learners is drawn from the web. webquests are designed to use learners’ time well, to focus on using information rather than looking for it, and to support learners’ thinking and levels of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation ” (dodge, 2001). educators thought that the original definition was not enough to cover the meaning and theoretical underpinnings of the webquest concept. march (2008), a co-creator of webquest, therefore conceptualized and expanded the definition of webquest as follows: “a webquest is a scaffold learning structure that uses links to essential resources on the world wide web and an authentic task to motivate students‘ investigation of a central, open-ended question, development of individual expertise and participation in a final group process that attempts to transform newly acquired information into a more sophisticated understanding. the best webquests do this in a way that inspires students to see richer thematic relationships, facilitate a contribution to the real world of learning and reflect on their own metacognitive processes.” in a webquest, learners work in groups, where members have to analyze and master a particular aspect of an issue. each member becomes an ‘expert’ in their role, later contributing to an in-depth understanding of the given aspect of the final group task. structures of a webquest model webquest should be designed with a purpose in mind for students to perform when surfing the net. for this reason, a typical webquest usually follows a structural pattern: introduction. this stage is used to give a brief introduction of the webquest. it involves background information on the topic of the webquest and in the language context, often introduces key vocabulary and concepts which learners will need to understand in order to complete the task involved. task. the task sectiojn explains clearly and accurately what the learners will have to do as they work their way through the web quest. process: this part guides the learners through a set of activities and research tasks, using a set of internetbased resources. resources: the resource stage lists useful web sites that will help learners to complete the task as well as widen their knowledge in the field of concern. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nguyen thi thu evaluation: this part explains clearly how the final outcome will be graded and evaluated. it can involve learners in self-evaluation, comparing and contrasting what they have produced with other learners, and giving feedback on what they feel they have learnt and achieved. conclusion: this section helps to close the quest. it reminds the students about what they have learned, and perhaps encourages them to extend the experience into other fields (gavin dudeney & nicky hockly, 2007). the structure of a webquest is flexible depending on the topic, the content, the subjects of the webquest and the author’s purposes in designing the webquest. webquests – a pedagogical perspective a webquest combines the benefits of the constructivist approach, inquiry-based learning approach, projectbased approach and cooperative learning. constructivist approach a webquest is in fact a constructivist lesson format. constructivism has been regarded as both a philosophy and a theory of learning. by changing the focus of the classroom from teacher dominated to student-centered using a constructivist approach we could yield positive results. using webquest, learners have to activate the mental processing which results in understanding and the creation of meaning from their own experiences. it is the constructivist learning approach and the profound influence of technology on education that require the utilization of authentic activities to give the learning situation a purpose and meaning. inquiry-based learning torres (2005) believed: “a webquest for teaching and learning a second language is an inquiry oriented activity placed in a relevant thematic context, in which the development of the task implies using web resources and developing high order thinking processes in a collaborative environment. at the same time, it provides the students the opportunity to learn and put into practice some linguistic skills, supported by a set of linguistic and procedural scaffolding. project-based learning (pbl) pbl is an instructional student-centered educational approach in which students work in teams to explore real-world problems and create presentations to share what they have learned. (warschauer., 2000). the following can be seen as reasons for using internet-based projects in the classroom: 1. there are a structured way for teachers to incorporate the internet into the language classroom, on both a short-term and a long-term basis. no specialist technical knowledge is needed either to produce or to use internet-based projects. however, it is certainly looking around on the internet to see if something appropriate already exists before sitting down to create your own project. 2. more often than not, they are group activities and, as a result, lend themselves to communication and the sharing of knowledge, two principal goals of language teaching itself. the use of projects encourages cooperative learning and therefore stimulates interaction. 3. they can be used simply for language learning purposes, but can also be interdisciplinary, allowing for cross-over into other departments and subject areas. this can often give them a more ‘real-world’ look and feel, and provide greater motivation for the learner. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nguyen thi thu 4. they encourage critical thinking skills. learners are not required to simply regurgitate information they find, but have to transform that information in order to achieve a given task. (gavin dudenney & nicky hockly, 2007: 44) webquest for content-based language learning webquests are activities specially suited to content-based language learning; students perform a real world task using authentic materials related to a topic within their academic discipline (marco, 2002). according to torres (2005), webquests are activities that meet the requirements of the three essential conditions for language learning “exposure, use and motivation”. march (1997) supported the point as saying that “the pedagogical principles of a webquest are to assign small groups of students with a challenging inquiry, provide access to an abundance of online resources, and scaffold the learning process to promote higher order thinking”. webquests can meet the four criteria for content-based activities below: 1. learning activities should provide more than one perspective on the content area. this is met by webquests, which offer a large number of web pages with information on different aspects of a topic (marco, 2002). 2. activities should present authentic content without oversimplifying it (spiro and jehng, 1990). 3. activities should incorporate visuals and other aids for making associations, since that facilitates deeper thinking (craik and lockhart, 1972). the web pages used in webquests contain not only text, but also pictures, sound, and even animation. 4. activities should encourage the sq3r formula: surveying, questioning, reading, recalling, and reviewing materials under study (schmeck, 1986). webquest design the process of designing a webquest is a thoughtful endeavour that does not require much computing skills or much detailed technical knowledge as numerous templates are provided. also, it is relatively easy to produce a professional-looking and workable design using any modern word processor. the skillset for making a webquest is similar to that for planning internet-based lessons, and might be defined as: research skills, analytical skill and word processing skills. (gavin dudeney & nicky hockly, 2007). mastering the above necessary skills, a webquest designer need to follow the basic steps in webquest design and creation: first, planning beforehand: it may be of great value for those who want to design a webquest to visit some already designed pages. webquest creation should start with the decision on a topic based on the students’ needs or interests or just because it fits with their curriculum. teachers should also be aware of the consistency of the online resources, indiscriminately gathering and organizing this raw material in a kind of inventory. additionally, before beginning the webquest, the main question – the quest in itself that lies behind the webquest must be posed. second, the first draft is produced in order to give the webquest a shape. at this stage, all the possible cognitive transformation tasks that could be involved in the quest are brainstormed even though the first step in the quest is simple information gathering. it may be highly useful to classify the web resources by means of asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nguyen thi thu a definite criterion (i.e. information classification into topics, job-roles, perspectives, levels, etc.) and rigorously examine them for educational purposes. it would be useful at this stage to revisit the web for better resources or to change the webquest topic in itself. special attention should be paid to establish a basic knowledge of the subject so that students can engage third, the last step is actually writing the webquest. an html editor like frontpage or dreamweaver can be used. creating a web page may be much easier when using a template that guides the teacher into the creation of the webquest. the most challenging aspect of this part is to ensure a really engaging introduction that catches students’ attention and drives them naturally into the task/question. a general introduction should be clearly stated at the very beginning so that later on it may derive into more specific roles for students to develop. transformative thinking tasks are better introduced after students have completed their assigned roles, that is, when students are prepared to share different knowledge. the conclusion also needs to pose a semantic sense that returns to the initial reasoning and engages learners into critical thinking of the skills developed through the activities they undertook. finally, once the webquest has been implemented and revised, a server needs to be found to deliver the final version of the quest. alternatively, some web pages offer free space where the quest can be published or even saved in the hard disk of a central computer as a kind of intranet, when access to the net is inadequate or inexistent. research questions in order to fulfill the research aims, this study is conducted based on the following questions: 1. does the utilization of webquest help improve reading skills of second-year students at the ppu? 2. what is the students’ attitude towards the webquest-based learning and teaching of esp reading? 3. what are the difficulties of the students and teacher at the ppu in the employment of webquest in the reading course? research method the action research in this study was guided by the combination of kemmis’s model and beatty’s model which will be shown in the figure below. the model of action research in this study asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nguyen thi thu in the research, the author played the role as the practitioner who designed the webquest, guided carried out the esp program, observed and reflected it. the action research was carried out at the ppu involving the use of webquest in the teaching of esp reading to second year students. the pre-questionnaire was delivered among 398 second-year students four months before the course. 44 students in class b2c1-d18 among these 398 students were randomly chosen for the research. based on the students’ background, internet and computer experience and skills as well as their needs and expectations concerning esp obtained from the pre-questionnaire, the webquest-based reading syllabus was designed using intensive and extensive reading approaches. all 44 students involved in the study took the pre-test before the course. these students are equally divided into two groups: control group and treatment group. after 75 periods (6 weeks) of employing the web-based course, the post-test and online survey was administered to 22 students in the treatment group to collect information for data analysis in order to answer the research questions. the action research, especially the process of designing and implementing the esp reading program with the integration of webquest was a hard job as it required great time and efforts on different steps. hence, it is necessary to give a brief description of all the instruments and participants in each step of the study. instruments participants number of participants steps in the action research pre-questionnaire 2 nd year students in the academic year of 2009-2010 398 planning pre-test treatment group 22 planning post-test treatment group 22 reflecting observation sheet teacher/ researcher 1 acting/ observing post-questionnaire treatment group 22 reflecting a summary of all instruments and participants used in the action research step 1: planning in this sub-part, students’ learning goals and objectives together with their needs and expectations were taken into consideration based on the pre-questionnaire. the pre-questionnaire was administered four months before the web-based course to all 398 second year students at the ppu in the preliminary research. the questions revolve around the students’ background of english, learning habits and hobbies, computer and internet experience, etc. it was also essential for the teacher to discover possible problems in the class and find out the remedy to these problems beforehand. in short, the job of planning involves preparing materials and methods the students’ needs and expectations were taken into consideration in order to have a practical and applicable web-based reading program. the findings from the pre-questionnaire, therefore, helped to ensure the validity and reliability of the program. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nguyen thi thu step 2: acting the design of the webquest named english for police in the reading course with full awareness of students’ learning goals and objectives together with their needs and expectations for the esp reading program based on the information from the pre-questionnaire, the researcher designed and a web-based reading course in which was integrated. designing the webquest-based course, the author’s ambitions are to: (1) improve their reading competence both intensively and extensively as well as the understanding police-related terms; and (2) have students get used to the use of webquest with the availability of authentic materials. in this research, the webquest was considered as the teacher’s website, which consisted of five components: introduction; task; process; resources; and conclusion. a brief overview of the course was presented in page introduction; reading tasks were given in page task. step-to-step directions for each task were shown in page process and the links needed to refer to read both intensively and extensively were suggested in page resources. page conclusion closed down the reading program and asked students to do the onlinequestionnaire. there were totally six units in the reading course corresponding to the six specialized topics: (1) the police; (2) crime prevention and protection; (3) criminal procedures; (4) criminal investigation and (5) traffic policing. with each unit, the students could link the above five components in the webquest to see what and how they had to do their tasks. the screenshot of the webquest’ homepage intensive reading (ir) and extensive reading (er) program in the course ir and er were incorporated in this course to improve students’ ir skills, not only in-class activities but also out-of-class ones were carried out on the hope of having students work in teams to fulfill the tasks. the students, as team members, downloaded the worksheet of each topic’s instruction from the webquest. reading the worksheet, students individually identified the purposes of the reading by highlighting the key words and phrases needed searching for in the texts. after that, they began to survey the texts to find out their organizations, headings, sub-headings, etc so that they could skim the texts for main ideas and scanned the texts for answers to the questions in the worksheet. the students could easily find out the definitions and methods of surveying, skimming and scanning which were hyperlinked in the webquest. after finishing individual work, students worked in teams asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nguyen thi thu to compare the answers with other team members to finally decide on the team’s worksheet before sending to the teacher’s email by the deadline. to practice er, as a home assignment, each team chose a topic that they were interested in from the lists of topics for extensive reading in the webquest. the team could visit relevant websites in page resources in the webquest or surf the internet to read about the topic. the team members then worked together to make a powerpoint presentation on the chosen topic and prepared for the in-class presentation in the next meeting. step 3: observing the job of observation in this research was done during the employment of the reading course. participant observation was used in the study by the teacher/researcher to record impressions and reflections on the ways in which the students were related to the webquest in their esp learning. the teacher’s observation focused on finding out the students and the teacher’s difficulties in this web-based course. the researcher also took field notes on the attitude, feelings, participation, activities, and possible problems of each individual and the five teams in the treatment group. step 4: reflecting in this action research, while observing the implementation of the web-based course, the teacher reflected on the student’s participation and attitude towards the program, the difficulties and obstacles hindering the teacher and the students, the level of effectiveness of the program and the outcomes. these were recorded in the observation sheet. it was then followed by the revising steps in which the teachers found out solutions to the difficulties and obstacles so as to have better preparation for the next circle of the action research. findings and discussion summary of the findings from the pre-test and post-test the data of the pre-test and post-test analyzed by spss software reveal that the students who were employed in the web-based esp reading course made much improvement in their reading competence. this proves that the integration of the webquest in the teaching of esp reading at the ppu was effective. from the post online questionnaire the findings were also enhanced by the positive feedback of the students towards the use of webquest through the online survey carried out after the course. the responses to the post-questionnaire show that the majority of students had positive attitude towards the newly-designed reading program and were satisfied with it as: the course was useful and interesting; the webquest was rich in content and well-designed; the webbased course helped the students improve their reading competence and internet skills, enriching their vocabulary and specialized knowledge, and motivating the students to read extensively. in addition, they also gave some suggestions for a better integration of webquest in the esp teaching of reading at the ppu such as: the time for the course should be longer. they also revealed that that would continue to use webquest after the course and tell others about it and expected to have more webquest-based programs for learning other subjects at the ppu. the responses also indicate certain difficulties encountered by the students during the course. these can be listed as: difficulty in reading long texts online; lack of time in fulfilling all the tasks; and problems with internet access asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nguyen thi thu from the observation the difficulties found out from the teacher’s observation sheet were generally in accordance with those discovered from the students’ responses to the online questionnaire. these difficulties were described more specifically in different stages of the course because the observation and reflections on the students, the program and the role of the teacher were recorded weekly. the observation sheet and the online survey also helped the researcher to investigate possible problems facing the teachers during the employment of the webbased reading course. however, these problems are not so serious and can be avoided in the future research in the field. discussion during the acting step, the researcher/ teacher made great efforts in playing different roles at the same time as an observer, a facilitator, and an advisor while keeping an eye towards the students’ participation, encouraging students by giving them complements on their efforts or reminding them to finish the tasks on time, or giving them support or suggestions involving their difficulties in their learning of esp reading. however, there exist some weaknesses revolving the job of the participants, the design and the employment of the course during the four previous stages in cycle 1 of the action research. these can be the lack of support from colleagues in designing the webquest and difficulties in dealing with the students’ problems and managing the whole course. in fact, the students were sometimes overwhelmed by the burden of work they had to finish each weak; in reality, the reading texts were sometimes too long. several students who are not used to reading long texts online felt hard to concentrate on their reading. the researcher/ teacher could not foresee the possible problems which would happen to the quality of the internet. thus, in order to have a better cycle of future action research, importance should be attached to the cooperation among colleagues in designing and implementing the webquest-based course, the length of the reading texts, time budget, the quality of the wifi system at the ppu in all the stages of the second circle of the action research, especially the planning stage. conclusion the integration of webquest in the teaching of esp reading helped to increase students’ motivation and participation; improve students’ internet skills; provide students with more opportunities to expose authentic materials, interact with the target language and content area; enhance students’ problem solving and critical thinking; and develop students’ self-paced autonomous. and most importantly, the web-based reading course, as a result, improves students’ reading competence, enriches their vocabulary and specialized knowledge, and motivates them to read extensively. webquest, thus, appear as a very suitable integration to immerse the students in the teaching and learning of esp reading and in a real professional in which a whole project involving technology is done. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, nguyen thi thu references alexander, i. c. & elena a. d. (2005). the breakthrough of the internet to empower esp teaching and learning at tomsk polytechnic university. global journal of english. education. australia. craik, f.i.m & lockhart, r.s. (1972). level of processing: a framework for memory research. journal of verbal learning and verbal behavior. dodge, b (2001). focus: five rules for writing a great webquest.” learning & leading with technology. retrieved july 5, 2009 from: www.webquest.futuro.usp.br/artigos/texos_outros-bernie1.html dudeney, g. & hockly, n. (2007). how to teach english with technology. educational technology & society. pearson. english teaching forum, 2002. kasper, l. (2000a). content-based college esl instruction. mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates. kimball, j (1997). concept-acquisition: tapping the internet for ideas. retrieved november 15th, 2008 from: http://www.fauxpress.com/kimball/res/concept.htm. kumari, s. (1998). teaching with the internet. journal of information technology for teacher education.7 (3), (pp. 363-377). mak, l. (1995). language learning of a new kind. retrieved august 3, 2002 from: www.hku.hk/ssrc/newlearn.htmlambrose, d., finding new messages in television commercials. march, t. (2008). what webquests are (really). retrieved november 16, 2008 from http://bestwebquests.com/what_webquests_are.asp. marco, m. (2002). internet content-based activities for esp. english teaching forum magazine, january 2002, volume 40, number 3. (pp.20-25). mccabe, m. (1998). lesson from the field: computer conferencing in higher education. journal of information technology for teacher education. 7 (1), (pp.71-84). schmeck, r. r. (1986). learning styles and learning strategies. new york: plenum. spiro & jehng. (1990). cognitive flexibility and hypertext: theory and technology for the nonlinear and multidimensional traversal of complex subject matter. d. nix & r. spiro (eds), cognition, education, and multimedia. hillsdale, nj: erlbaum. torres (2005). a model of webquest for teaching and learning an l2. eurocall 2005. retrieved august 5, 2007 from: http://www.isabelperez.com/webquest/taller/l2/english/model2.htm warschauer, m. (1996a). virtual connection. online activities and projects for networking language teachers. university of hawaii press. warschauer, m., & healey, d. (1998). computers and language learning: an overview. language teaching, 31, (pp. 57-71). http://www.webquest.futuro.usp.br/artigos/texos_outros-bernie1.html http://www.fauxpress.com/kimball/res/concept.htm http://www.hku.hk/ssrc/newlearn.htmlambrose http://bestwebquests.com/what_webquests_are.asp http://www.isabelperez.com/webquest/taller/l2/english/model2.htm citation asiacall online journal received: 20/10/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 26/02/2022 vol. 13, no. 2, 2022 accepted: 09/03/2022 pp. 1-20 online: 13/03/2022 citation | tran, t. p., & nguyen, t. t. a. (2022). online education at saigon university during the covid-19 pandemic: a survey on non-english major college students’ attitudes towards learning english. asiacall online journal, 13(2), 1-20. doi: https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221321 online education at saigon university during the covid-19 pandemic: a survey on non-english major college students’ attitudes towards learning english tran the phi1*, nguyen trinh to anh2 1 department of foreign languages, saigon university, vietnam 2 department of foreign languages, saigon university, vietnam *correspondence: tran the phi, saigon university, vietnam. e-mail: tranthephi@sgu.edu.vn * https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6608-5594 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221321 abstract the outbreak of covid-19 has forced educational institutions to initiate online teaching to maintain the process of student learning at all levels. this paper focuses on online education at saigon university, during which the local government has been mandating social distancing in most of the regions. this paper aims to investigate the students' attitudes towards using online learning tools, which are comprised of learning management systems (moodle and digital support for core materials) via virtual classrooms (google meet). a survey questionnaire was designed to evaluate attitudes towards using the above online teaching and learning package from 222 non-english major undergraduates who took part in general english courses at saigon university in july 2021. the results indicate that a majority of students show favorable attitudes towards online education; in the meantime, health and social issues also concern their learning process. some recommendations are also offered for improving the efficiency of the online education process at saigon university. since the study focused on non-english major college students, it is hoped to have particular relevance to other institutions of higher education. keywords: online education, non-english major college students, attitudes, learning management systems, higher education, saigon university 1. introduction the outbreak of coronavirus disease (covid-19) and its rapid spread into a worldwide pandemic has greatly affected people in any job field. there existed a substantial infrastructure for online education in many countries before the pandemic (mishra et al., 2020). however, no university was ready for a complete shift to online education. students missed the help they received from their peers in classrooms and laboratories and access to the library (patricia, 2020). nevertheless, students felt that online education helped them to continue their studies during the pandemic (mishra et al., 2020). universities were now using innovative strategies to ensure continuity of education for their students (zhu & liu, 2020). https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221321 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6608-5594 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221321 https://asiacall.info/acoj tran the phi & nguyen trinh to anh vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 2 the government has strongly supported the use of information technology (it) in schools and universities through initiatives ranging from primary schools to higher education that has encouraged the acquisition of laptop computers for students and teachers under favorable conditions and secured broadband connections in all public establishments. lecturers are now delivering course content through various platforms. they were using online educational platforms, videoconferencing software, and social media to teach their courses (patricia, 2020). online educational platforms, like google classroom and blackboard, allow lecturers to share notes and multimedia resources related to their courses with students. the online educational platforms also allow students to turn in their assignments and teachers to keep track of the progress of the students. videoconferencing tools, like google meet, zoom, and microsoft teams, help in organizing online lectures and discussion sessions. some universities are also disseminating course material through their websites and their own learning management system (mishra et al., 2020). moodle can be considered an open-source platform that 'educators can use to create effective online learning sites' (moodle, n.d.). in order to deal with the outbreak, ho chi minh city authorities have imposed social distancing measures since the end of may 2021 due to a dramatic rise in the number of infection cases. at saigon university (sgu), the summer semester from mid-june to august 2021 was taught online, using online educational platforms including moodle, e-zone for textbooks, and video conferencing tools, namely google meets. however, students were able to encounter some challenges or difficulties when learning online english classes in sgu. according to octaberlina and muslimin's findings (2020), students faced three difficulties during online learning: unfamiliarity with e-learning, slow internet connection, and physical condition, such as eye strain. similarly, students believed that online education was difficult and had a negative impact on their health and social lives (chakraborty et al., 2020). accordingly, when the implementation of online learning was too urgent, and there was not sufficient training, non-english major students of sgu might have more concerns and unfavorable attitudes toward online educational platforms when taking part in english classes. research questions considering the present situation and previous research, our study intends to uncover the efl students' attitudes and the challenges towards the implementation of english online education. to fulfill the purpose of the study, the survey sought to answer the following research questions: 1. what are non-english major learners' attitudes toward online education in sgu in terms of content delivery, interaction, and testing and assessment? 2. what are their difficulties or challenges when taking part in online education in sgu? acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 3 2. literature review the covid-19 pandemic has forced various educational institutes and schools to suddenly modify their workflow strategies and adopt new technologies. in most cases, these organizations did not get enough time to reflect upon how the new strategies and the corresponded technology should be introduced and integrated into their existing setup (carroll & conboy, 2020). bao (2020) described how universities were moving from classroom-based education to online education because of the raging pandemic. in particular, blended learning is regarded as an innovative way of teaching and learning english in which teaching and learning activities have been completely supported by information technology (david, 2014). siirak (2008) argues that blended learning with computer-based learning in the moodle e-learning environment, based on social constructivist learning theory, is an effective tool for teaching and learning in the occupational health and safety discipline. in fact, using moodle in teaching develops learners' communicative skills in language and requires social interaction between the teacher and students and among the students themselves (al-ani, 2013). a large number of studies on using moodle in teaching and learning english were implemented in the past few years (brandle, 2005; irina & laura, 2007; stewart, 2007; al-ani, 2013; tang, 2013); however, there has been little research on using moodle in teaching translation modules thus far. for those reasons, researchers have tried to understand the viewpoint of students on online education during the covid-19 pandemic using empirical studies in india (mishra et al., 2020) and the usa (patricia, 2020). students in this research had good opinions regarding online english learning using the lms moodle, despite it being their first time using moodle. overall, one survey conducted by carvalho et al. (2011) revealed that students appeared to value the contribution of an lms to their learning, seeing it as a supplement rather than a replacement for traditional classroom activities. another study (cinkara & bagceci, 2013) investigated learners who took part in the online course using moodle at a state university in south-eastern turkey indicated a relatively positive attitude toward the course in accordance with the learners' scores from the uniquelydesigned online language learning attitude test (ollat). this study pointed out how the differences of male and female learners and their self-perception of computer literacy skills impacted their learning attitudes. sinaga and pustika (2021) explored the attitude of smk yadika bandar lampung students in turkey towards learning an english subject via moodle, considering the characteristics of their thoughts, feelings, and behavior. it was a nice result that students showed a positive attitude to implement moodle as a learning platform during the period of the learning from home program. here are certain studies conducted in vietnam concerning learners' attitudes towards online learning of english. at ueh in vietnam (duong, 2020), some students even expressed their https://asiacall.info/acoj tran the phi & nguyen trinh to anh vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 4 enthusiasm for this method of teaching and learning because of the benefits it provides, among which concerned non-education related factors (e.g., transport cost-saving, timesaving). duong also noted that one of the initial impressions english professors had of teaching online was that the students were more engaged in-class participation. the researcher in ulsa2 (nguyen, 2022) found that non-english major students generally had a positive attitude about learning through video conferencing, with significant differences in attitude across gender, technical proficiency, and competencies. nguyen concluded with high confidence that undergraduate students are eager to study a variety of courses online. although online learning is welcomed, the encounter of difficulties is inevitable. those were indicated in the studies of nguyen et al. (2021) and ngo (2021). 3. methods 3.1 pedagogical setting & participants saigon university (sgu) first pioneered learning management systems sgu moodle in 2019. since then, it has steadily been promoted among 19 faculties, providing training for basic technical practices. alongside, teachers are required to attend real-time meetings with students via google meets, which also allows teachers to save recorded meetings directly to google drive and share with students to help them stay up to date on lessons. furthermore, the core textbook (i.e., helbling material) provides students with digital support from the online educational platform. this study has examined the adoption of these three platforms, hereby called online education platforms, in sgu during the summer semester. this study selected samples by a convenient sampling method. the participants were 222 non-english major efl students of saigon university, vietnam, recruited from all faculties (excluding english majors). the vast majority of students (50.5%) were between the ages of 18 and 19, which was typical of first-year undergraduate students who were required to enroll in this course. yet, this course also attracts a high percentage of sophomores (39.7%), equivalent to the group of 20 21 (42.7%). in terms of gender, the percentage of female students is superior to the proportion of male students (63.9% and 39.1%, respectively). despite the fact that all areas of study were covered (figure 2), over half of the participants majored in business management and commerce (37.3%) and information technology (18.9%), whereas about 20 percent enrolled in pedagogical studies and education. details of the participants' backgrounds are presented in figure 1. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 5 figure 1: participants’ demographic information 3.2 design of the study based on qualitative research and referring to previous studies, we synthesized, analyzed, and quantified attribute factors in designing a quantitative questionnaire for participants. this questionnaire presented respondents with a series of questions or statements to which they were to react either by writing out their answers or selecting from among existing (brown, 2001). it employed attitudinal questions, which are used to find out what people think. this instrument was appropriate to the research purpose (i.e., attitudes) while it was cost-effective and versatile. in addition, questionnaires enabled researchers to collect data from a large number of correspondents, and instrument homogeneity is frequently associated with higher reliability (mackey & gass, 2005). the questionnaire was based on the model which was used to examine the influence of various aspects of online education on social issues related to online education suggested by chakraborty et al. (2020) when they conducted a survey in an indian university. however, for this study focused on learning and teaching-related factors, we ignored the impact of health issues and social issues. we surveyed the students who had completed the general english course module i in the summer semester of 2021. the survey was categorized into 3 groups of questions concerning (1) students' demographic information, (2) students' evaluation of the effectiveness of the online education platforms, and (3) their challenges/difficulties of online education. 3.3 data collection and analysis the questionnaire was distributed online using the google forms tool, and the respondents were collected two weeks after. the google forms tool was used to administer the survey electronically. email invitations to respond were sent out during the following two weeks when the course had finished. we received 222 respondents, which is equivalent to a response rate of about 50%. cattell (1978), gorsuch (1983), and tanaka (1987) suggested that in behavioral analysis, the sample size should be chosen from 4 to 10 times as many as the number of variables in the questionnaire to ensure representativeness. accordingly, the size of our sample is satisfactory. in the first section, biographical data was collected and the level and major of studies. especially, the last items of this part identified the participants' level of english proficiency, https://asiacall.info/acoj tran the phi & nguyen trinh to anh vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 6 continuing with their needs for learning english, preferences for different contents of english, and expectations of taking the course. necessities and expectations of learning english contribute to the evaluation of students' attitudes toward the learning process and methods. belcher (2009) notes that needs analysis can exploit diverse, infrequently conflicting views of a large number of stakeholders. in the second part, we asked the students to evaluate the effectiveness of online education based on their experience during the course. there were 18 positive statements related to content delivery, interaction and testing, and assessment employed by each tool of the package. a student had to respond to each survey item on a 5-point likert scale, and their responses are coded as: strongly agree = 5, agree = 4, neutral = 3, disagree = 2, strongly disagree = 1. the third section required the students to score their satisfaction with the whole course, ranging from favorable to disappointed. they were asked to give feedback on how online learning benefits their proficiency of english in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar use, and 4 major skills. they were also asked to identify the problems or challenges they faced during the online sessions concerning teacher and student-related factors. therefore, in the final part, the students were encouraged to make recommendations for a better online learning experience. 4. findings and discussion 4.1. demographic analysis the demographic variables of students presented in this section include age groups, gender characteristics, areas of study, self-assessment of english proficiency levels, their preferences in learning english, and their expectations for the course. understanding how they have facilitated their online learning, regarding where they were studying and which technological devices were used, is important. learning english background their level of english proficiency also fluctuated from beginners to advanced, as shown in figure 2. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 7 figure 2: participants’ self-assessment level of english proficiency gladly, more than 90% found learning english necessary and showed positive attitudes towards expectations for the course, which aim to serve their communicative competence (figure 3). most of the respondents (85.5%) expected to improve knowledge (of vocabulary and grammar) and macro skills of using english which is helpful for their future career, although 78.7% aimed to pass course tests and exams according to the curriculum's assessment. goal setting has both motivating and informational effects on learning and selfevaluation. students who set goals are more likely to pay attention in class, put forth the effort, and persevere. these motivational effects result in increased on-task behavior and learning speed. specifically, the number of students (more than 60%) who aimed at listening and speaking skills were slightly higher than those (around 50%) whose aim was reading and writing. accordingly, figure 4 presented the students' preferences for certain main english learning components. the results indicated that a majority of respondents expressed preferences with all components. figure 3: participants’ needs of learning english 60% https://asiacall.info/acoj tran the phi & nguyen trinh to anh vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 8 figure 4. participants’ expectations of taking the egp course studying facilities figure 5. technological equipment used for studying online 80% of them had been participating in online learning while they were at their permanent residence, of which 46.6% were living in ho chi minh city (hcmc), and 33.4% were in their hometown outside hcmc. however, due to the pandemic, few of the students (2.8%) had to study while they were staying in the quarantined areas. wherever they were, each of the participants equipped themselves with at least one piece of technological device to access the course, and their favorite ones are laptops and smartphones or both at one time. figure 6. location of studying online acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 9 4.2. descriptive results of the effectiveness of online education in general, as can be seen in figure 7, 23.1% of students found the online course highly recommended, and more than half found the course fairly good, while 21.3% agreed that the course was satisfactory. nevertheless, only a few of them (less than 5%) showed disappointment with the course. the effectiveness of online education regarding content delivery, interaction, and testing and assessment will be discussed in detail. figure 7. participants’ general evaluation of the online course 4.2.1. in relation to content delivery the teacher's use of moodle to share available core course materials timely was well-received by nearly 90% of the students. a high proportion of 85% agreed that the course was a userfriendly design in which the summary of the course enriched the classes. 81% expressed how they thought lectures could be made more informative. during the online sessions via google meets, slideshows were also deemed effective in distributing knowledge to the students. also, the students (86%) also appreciated the meeting-recording functions of google meets, which helped them keep up when they had missed a session. in addition, more than half of the participants had experienced e-zone learning provided by the core textbook. over 80% agreed or strongly agreed that the cloud book and e-book had a friendly-user design and that they were interested in a variety of exercises. the students received the teachers' use of reference resources and technologies to convey knowledge well. the students believe that there is currently sufficient study material available online. online tools for problem-solving, programming, and design, according to the students, can enhance classes. https://asiacall.info/acoj tran the phi & nguyen trinh to anh vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 10 table 1 effectiveness of online education in relation to content delivery 4.2.2. in relation to interaction google meets was served as a substitute for traditional classrooms, and interestingly, the students expressed favorable opinions to such an interactive platform in which the students were allowed to contribute to the sessions. a large number of students (90%) found the online sessions more interactive thanks to posting comments in the chatbox and raising hands to converse with the teacher directly. table 2 effectiveness of online education in relation to interaction acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 11 the activities of moodle were also effectively exploited to improve the interaction between the teacher and students and among students. students were asked to take their own attendance via moodle at any time of an online session, and this practice was favored by 85% of the students. in addition, 82% showed strong agreement with the idea that interaction took place better through online forums. beyond the class, 83% received the course announcements in a good time manner. 4.2.3. in relation to testing and assessment according to more than 80% of the students, regular online quizzes and exercises on moodle or e-zone could add certain value to their learning process. we discovered that 80 percent of students believed weekly moodle-designed assignments effectively evaluated their competence, and timely-assigned cyber homework also assisted their learning process. almost 80% agreed that testing and assessment were conducted objectively and effectively. 78% of e-zone users found the cloud book and e-book enhancing self-study and learner autonomy. table 3 effectiveness of online education in relation to testing and assessment https://asiacall.info/acoj tran the phi & nguyen trinh to anh vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 12 4.3. descriptive results of challenges of online education figure 11. challenges of online education with respect to teacher-related factors the survey aimed to find out challenges derived from teacher-related and student-related factors. as for teacher-related factors, there were 99 out of 222 responses, equivalent to 45% of the population. although more than half of the students found no problems concerning their teacher, the rest’s suggestions are worth considering. the findings disclosed that these efl students' (56 responses) were mainly concerned with the teacher’s online teaching methodology, which was not interesting enough. some of them (21 responses) complained that the lesson content was not clear enough or the teacher was not able to apply online teaching tools well, while a few of them (11 responses) claimed that the teacher did not well design the lesson. we received 205 out of 222 responses regarding the student-related factors, which means about 92% of participants experienced certain challenges in attending online courses. in general, their main difficulties were technological problems such as the unstable internet connection during online sessions via google meets (171 responses) or using phones/computers with low configuration (109 responses). one hundred thirty-one students also confided that they experienced some external distractions, namely social networks, household members, or neighborhoods. eighty-eight of them confessed that they were not autonomous enough. a few of them (66 responses) had difficulties while using moodle. some students also stated that social communication and interactions between the teacher and students and among students were lacking in online sessions. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 13 figure 12. challenges of online education with respect to students-related factors discussion students appreciated that the course materials and content were always available, and they could review a recorded session at all times. this was a nice result while the students showed positive exposure to the course material. additionally, they seemed to participate and engage more in the online classroom thanks to certain functions such as self-checked attendance, posting any comments in the chatbox, or sharing ideas via forums. assigning quizzes or tasks online via moodle or cyber homework assisted their learning autonomy and learning process. beyond-classroom activities were welcomed by the students who were able to access these online activities, which helped revise and consolidate their learning progress and was rewarded by the teachers. nevertheless, the students acknowledged certain problems concerning the teacher’s methodology of teaching online, including lesson design and the ability to use technological tools. switching to online education was also a challenge to teachers, for which reasonable adjustments and adaption of teaching in online sessions should have been well-prepared. the participants were also aware of learners' attitudes towards learning which had a major influence on their learning during the online sessions, whereas technological impairment was also the main problem. the unstable network connection was also the biggest problem found in other recent studies conducted by adnan and anwar (2020), nartiningrum and nugroho (2020). https://asiacall.info/acoj tran the phi & nguyen trinh to anh vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 14 5. conclusion due to the covid-19 epidemic, schools and institutions are currently looking for ways to constantly improve the teaching and learning process in order to adapt to the circumstance. thousands of further educational institutions, including those in vietnam, believed that students or professors might conveniently access online learning without the need for face-toface interactions (sari, 2020). the study focused on clarifying 2 main issues in the context of social distancing due to the covid-19 pandemic: (1) students' attitudes towards the use of three platforms for online education of english; and (2) challenges or difficulties they faced while learning online. the findings of this study indicated that the students held moderately favorable attitudes towards online education during the period. most of the students found learning english necessary and set a goal(s) of taking the english course, which also motivated their learning attitudes. the students chose to use assistive technology devices for mobility to join online classes. however, they were still struggling with some interruption of technological impairment. it is required a wide coverage of network infrastructure across the country. they also looked forward to adapting the teacher's online teaching methodology more appropriately. limitation the above results show that the study has contributed to strengthening the understanding of the attitude of students for the use of cross-platform online applications in online education. despite favorable attitudes, the students' achievement regarding final grades was not discussed in this study. likewise, the discussion of how their difficulties impacted their study results was also limited. references adnan, m. & anwar, k. (2020). online learning amid the covid-19 pandemic: students perspectives. journal of pedagogical sociology and psychology, 2(1), 45-51. https://doi.org/10.33902/jpsp.202020261309 bao, w. (2020). covid-19 and online teaching in higher education: a case study of peking university. human behavior and emerging technologies, 2(2), 113–115. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.191 belcher, d. (2009). what esp is and can be: an introduction. in d. belcher (ed.), english for specific purposes in theory and practice (pp. 1–20). ann arbor, mi: the university of michigan press. brown, j. d. (2001). using surveys in language programs. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. carroll, n., & conboy, k. (2020). normalising the “new normal”: changing tech-driven work https://doi.org/10.33902/jpsp.202020261309 https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.191 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 15 practices under pandemic time pressure. international journal of information management, 55, 102186. carvalho, a., areal, n., & silva, j. (2011). students' perceptions of blackboard and moodle in a portuguese university. british journal of educational technology, 42(5), 824-841. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2010.01097.x cattell r. b. (1978). scientific use of factor analysis in behavioral and life sciences. new york: plenum. cinkara, e., & bagceci, b. (2013). learners’ attitudes towards online language learning; and corresponding success rates. turkish online journal of distance education, 14(2), 118130. duong, t. t. u. (2020). students’ participation in online english classes. retrieved from http://nnkt.ueh.edu.vn/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/students-participation.pdf, dated 23 feb 2022. gorsuch r. l. (1983). factor analysis (2nd ed.). hillsdale, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates. mackey, a., & gass, s. m. (2005). second language research: methodology and design. new jersey: lawrence erlbaum associates. mishra, l., gupta, t., & shree, a. (2020). online teaching-learning in higher education during lockdown period of covid-19 pandemic. international journal of educational research open, 1, 100012. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.ijedro.2020.100012 nartiningrum, n., & nugroho, a. (2020). online learning amidst global pandemic: efl students’ challenges, suggestions, and needed materials. english franca: academic journal of english language and education, 4(2), 115-140. http://dx.doi.org/10.29240/ef.v4i2.1494 ngo, d. h. (2021). perceptions of efl tertiary students towards the correlation between elearning and learning engagement during the covid-19 pandemic. international journal of tesol & education, 1(3), 235–259. retrieved from http://ijte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/99 nguyen, t. n. m., tra, v. d., & nguyen, p. h. (2021). difficulties and some suggested solutions in studying online of the students in van lang university during the covid-19 pandemic.asiacall online journal,12(4), 9-17.retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/58 nguyen, t. h. (2022). non-english-major students’ attitudes toward english learning and teaching via video conferencing. international journal of tesol & education, 2(1), 296-309. https://doi.org/10.54855/ijte.222118 octaberlina, l. r., & muslimin, a. i. (2020). efl students perspective towards online learning barriers and alternatives using moodle/google classroom during covid-19 pandemic. international journal of higher education, 9(6), 1-9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2010.01097.x http://nnkt.ueh.edu.vn/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/students-participation-.pdf, http://nnkt.ueh.edu.vn/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/students-participation-.pdf, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/26663740/1/supp/c https://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.ijedro.2020.100012 http://dx.doi.org/10.29240/ef.v4i2.1494 http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/99 http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/99 https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/58 https://doi.org/10.54855/ijte.222118 https://asiacall.info/acoj tran the phi & nguyen trinh to anh vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 16 https://doi.org/10.5430/ijhe.v9n6p1 patricia, a. (2020). college students' use and acceptance of emergency online learning due to covid-19. international journal of educational research open, 1, 100011. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedro.2020.100011 schunk, d. h., & gaa, j. p. (1981). goal-setting influence on learning and selfevaluation. journal of classroom interaction, 16 (2), 38-44. sinaga, r. r. f. & pustika, r. (2021). exploring students’ attitude towards english online learning using moodle during covid-19 pandemic at smk yadika bandarlampung. journal of english language teaching and learning, 2(1), 8-15. https://doi.org/10.33365/jeltl.v2i1.850 tanaka, j. s. (1987). “how big is big enough?”: sample size and goodness of fit in structural equation models with latent variables. child development, 134-146. zhu, x., & liu, j. (2020). education in and after covid-19: immediate responses and longterm visions. postdigital science and education, 2(3), 695–699. https://dx.doi.org/10.1007%/s42438-020-00126-3 biodata dr. tran the phi is the dean of foreign languages faculty, saigon university, vietnam. he has been teaching english linguistics, teaching methodology, reading and writing skills, research writing skill for 20 years. his research interests include english teaching methodology and cognitive linguistics, especially cognitive semantics. nguyen trinh to anh has been an efl instructor at sai gon university, vietnam since 2015. she is currently in charge of teaching english for general purpose as well as english for specific purposes namely accounting, banking and business management. her research interests include teaching methodology for esp and blended learning. https://doi.org/10.5430/ijhe.v9n6p1 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/26663740/1/supp/c https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedro.2020.100011 https://doi.org/10.33365/jeltl.v2i1.850 https://dx.doi.org/10.1007%25/s42438-020-00126-3 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 17 appendix questionnaire of effectiveness and challenges of online education (english version) this questionnaire consists of three sections. for questions 10 27, please select the appropriate response (strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, or strongly disagree) to indicate how much you agree or disagree with each statement. section 1: background information q1. gender (select one) female male other q2. year of age (select one) 18-19 20-21 22-23 other q3. major (select one) natural science pedagogical studies social science pedagogical studies pre-school /primary school education fine art / art business and finance information technology law others q4. technological equipment used for studying online (select one or more) laptop smartphone tablet desktop https://asiacall.info/acoj tran the phi & nguyen trinh to anh vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 18 q5. location of studying online (select one) hcmc permanent residence hcmc temporary residence outside hcmc residence inner hcmc quarantined area outside hcmc quarantined area q6. self-assessment level of english proficiency (select one) proficiency advanced upper-intermediate intermediate elementary beginner q8. needs of learning english (select one) extremely necessary necessary neutral not necessary needed unnecessary q9. participants’ expectations or objectives of taking the egp courses (select one or more) pass the english proficiency tests according to the curriculum improve knowledge and macro skills of using english helpful for future career read english newspapers and magazines listen to daily english conversations converse with foreigners in fluent english write personal basic information acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 19 section 2: evaluation of effectiveness of online education learning management systems moodle q10. lecturers timely share available core course materials to students. q11. reference resources such as videos are provided adequately. q12. course summary is designed with friendly-user layout. q13. use of attendance check makes an online session more effective. q14. lecturer-student interaction takes place better through online forums. q15. course announcements are delivered in a good time manner. q16. online quizzes and exercises effectively help in the learning process. q17. weekly assignments effectively evaluate the competence of students. q18. testing and assessment is conducted objectively and effectively. online meeting platformgoogle meets q19. slideshows make a lecture more informative. q20. the use of meeting recordings helps students keep up when they miss a session. q21. students are allowed to post comments or answers in the chatbox during a session, then it becomes interactive. q22. students are allowed to raise their hands to ask and answer during a session, then it becomes interactive. digital material support e-zone q23. cloud book and e-book has friendly-user design. q24. a variety of exercises interests students. q25. cyber homework effectively helps in the learning process. q26. cyber homework is assigned timely to assist the learning process. q27. cloud book and e-book enhance self-study and learner autonomy. general evaluation q28. feedback about online sessions during the covid-19 pandemic(select one) highly recommended fairly good satisfactory unsatisfactory https://asiacall.info/acoj tran the phi & nguyen trinh to anh vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 20 disappointed section 3: challenges of online education q29. teacher-related factors (select one or more) the teacher cannot apply online teaching tools well. the lesson is not well designed. the lesson content is not clear enough. the teacher’s methodology is not interesting. q30. teacher-related factors (select one or more) students is not autonomous. students have difficulties while using moodle. students have difficulty using phones/computers with low configuration. students experience some difficulties in interaction with lecturers during online sessions via gms. students experience some difficulties in interaction with other students during online sessions via gms. students experience some technical problems during online sessions via gms. students experience some external distractions. q31. your recommendations for a better online learning experience. answer: … asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, maria victoria pineda personal learning networks (plns) as an approach to understanding the rhizomatic learning connections of 21 st century students maria victoria pineda de la salle university, philippines mavic.pineda@delasalle.ph abstract personal learning networks (plns) define how learners seek knowledge, pull the knowledge and allow this knowledge be used in a suitable context. plns further exhibit that formal and informal interactions and usage of various technologies attribute to the many instances of learning. the learner given a great degree of freedom can mold and control her learning. the pln is modeled on the concept of a rhizome, an underground plant stem capable of producing the shoot and new root systems of a plant. this capability of producing new shoots, roots and stems is now simulated in the idea of a rhizomatic learning model taking place in personal learning spaces. cormier posited that persons finding new knowledge realize the many changes and progress through “participatory, negotiated experiences in rhizomatic engagement.” (cormier, 2008) this study aimed to uncover the many web and social sources of information and knowledge of the students through the use of personal learning networks (plns). the study covers fifty sophomore university students who have defined their current plns through pln diagrams. the study disintegrated these plns to categorize the shoots, roots and stems of the students’ learning, classify them to school-related or personal interests and identify how these complement each other. this study also analyzed the students’ learning priorities through the variety of ways that students drew their diagrams. it is the desire of this study to contribute to new ways of doing research, analyzing studentdefined learning networks and charts, and to open the doors to fresh forms of learning studies. the study came to the conclusion that rhizomatic knowledge-creation in this era of web and information, is the new direction for lifelong learning and requires more in-depth scrutiny and openness. keywords: personal learning environment, personal learning networks, rhizomatic education, learning connections, rhizome introduction “there is no beginning or end for the rhizome, it is process as cultural code, multiple and fractal in nature”. (bussey, bjurstrom and sannum, 2010) learning creates a web of multiplicity about how learning is acquired, pulled or absorbed. in this era, information and communication technologies make it possible for many learners to have convenient access to rich content, major works and information that have not been conveniently available before. in this context, there is a need to reexamine how knowledge is viewed, created or recreated. (cormier, 2008) more than the formal settings of the classroom or the university alone, there are limitless ways of generating knowledge because of emerging technologies. (attwell, 2007) the students themselves become producers of knowledge as technologies become ambient. and learning becomes multi-episodic, taking place in concurrence, in multiplicities, different facets, transforming and expanding. it is because of these instances of metamorphosis in the way individuals acquire information and knowledge that the concept of personal learning environments has surfaced. attwell noted that personal learning environments mailto:mavic.pineda@delasalle.ph (ples) are intended to provide support tools to learning and recognizes the meaningful role of the individual in her personal learning environment. (ibid.) learning now occurs in countless contexts as technologies have become pervasive as well. technologies have encouraged, empowered and have made it second nature for learners to pull and acquire any information to be translated into knowledge for her personal consumption. as learning is continual and interminable, so the opportunities to learn become multitudinous and open-ended. personal learning networks (pln) as a new way of understanding the learning process fiedler and väljataga (2011) define a personal learning environment (ple) as “all the resources (artefacts, natural objects, people) that an individual is aware of and has access to at a given point in time and that s/he can turn into instruments to mediate her actions” for “a particular learning activity”. for any learner, a ple represents the individual’s learning process, and is indicative of that learner’s personal learning preferences, networking skills and information-gathering abilities. it is important to note that a personal learning environment is not something owned by the learner but, rather, is something constructed out of a set of learning preferences and a network of connections (väljataga, 2010). attwell (2008) further explained that ples may provide individualized support tools to learning and that, by making them a visible and explicit part of learning, one recognizes the central role of the individual in the development of the network. there is an abundance of representations that can be created to illustrate a personal learning environment. this could be achieved through a map, a web, a chart or even a table. also available are mapping tools or software that can be used but whatever context or subject is there in the map, it is primarily defined by the learner herself. in this study, the personal learning environment is pictured as a rhizome, represented by a network of nodes, with shoots and stems labeled as a personal learning network (pln) diagram. two examples were used as base diagrams. the first one is a pln work of an information science professional (sitchensis, 2010) and the other one is the pln of the class adviser (pineda, 2010). a personal learning network is modeled on a rhizome, an underground plant stem capable of producing the shoot and new root systems of a plant. the shoots may grow rapidly, create multiple stems, shoots and stems may intertwine, stay longer or get entangled, and many entry points are available for nutrients to be transfused back to the rhizome. (rhizome, 2011) the rhizomatic representation of the personal learning environment further presuppose that all the contributions are “constructed and negotiated in real-time” by the learner herself. (cormier, 2008) the pln diagram is meaningful in itself because it is constructed, defined and designed by the learner herself. hence, the pln provides a plethora of intimate ways for what the learner pulls, captures, uses or recognizes as key sources of her learning experiences. it could also exhibit a student’s continued, or rich, interests on specific subject matters, be they academic or personal or professional in nature. why use pln diagrams? while there are many strong and proactive discussions on personal learning environments, new light will be shed on research if data could be constructed or extracted from the students themselves. in most traditional studies, surveys are used to determine students’ profile, access to ict and perceptions of learning. it is the teacher or researcher who defines the choices of answers for the students. pineda’s (2009) study for example, garnered substantial data for analysis and showed the high degree of technology exposure the students had at that time and how they utilized technology with their time. the students responded to a set of questions in a survey. the set of questions was defined based on the perceived activities of the researcher. the results exhibited that students from dlsu, co-situated in urban settings construct a new form of learning behavior, an offshoot of the natural cohesion of learning and technology among individuals. this scenario commonly takes place in urban settings where there is wide and easy access to technology resources. (ibid.) while this study may be grounded on data it essentially talked about the perception of the students based on the parameters set by the researcher. a detailed and extensive study by lieberman (2008) explained that reflective cognition has contributions that cannot be duplicated by the non-reflective side of the human brain. this meant that data that have gone through a longer reflection time would become more meaningful, such as how the students constructed their plns. hence, data in a survey while it may be factual in nature, might consist of non-reflexive answers, very much dependent on the recent activity recollection of the responder rather than on longer-term reflection. so the approach in the present study was to extract the learning interests from the students themselves. the students were oriented and taught about personal learning environments. some examples were shown to the students such as a diagram of social connections, a personal learning network diagram and some relevant readings on the topic. the students were given time to create their pln diagrams. this meant more reflection time for the students to spell out and lay out their shoots and stems of learning interests. they were also in control of grouping or categorizing their knowledge cultivations. diagram 1 exhibits an example created by a student from dlsu. diagram 1. example of a pln as a rhizome with shoots and stems the pln diagram mapped not only the web of useful and creative information but also the terminologies that the students used, the types of combined people and online sources of knowledge that they had, and how their shoots and stems of learning complemented each other. methodology of the study the various informal and social learning theories were discussed in class. lectures and interactions were delivered in the classroom to further provide the students with a wider perspective of what personal learning networks were. the class adviser provided her own personal learning network as an example and two other references in the class blog. the emphasis was to have a reflective awareness of their sources of learning. the students who were tasked to draw the pln diagrams were sophomore students taking a degree in information systems. these students were greatly immersed in various web applications and tools, exposed to social networks and with a regular access to wireless internet connectivity in the campus. the students were then tasked with drawing and creating their own pln, pointing to the complementing links of the various sources of information, knowledge and learning. the students were given a non-restrictive way of grouping or combining their interests. they were not constrained by strict structures or learning elements to be placed like academic or personal interests. the pln was designed be posted in a publicly accessible web page with its link submitted in the class blog. this task was not difficult to the students as these students were content creators themselves. downes (2005) pointed out that one major change in the ways education had been moving was that while there used to be a model of single providers of learning content, there are now many producers of learning content. the students today are not just consumers but active producers of learning content. there were around one hundred diagrams or charts submitted in the blog. but only fifty diagrams were used in the study. most of the excluded blogs were posted in a private facebook or tumblr page or photo page that had prevented the open access to the diagrams. the diagrams were analyzed in three ways. first, the diagrams were studied by disintegrating the shoots and stems of the diagrams to have a wider picture of how a typical sophomore university student allocated her energies and time to different learning interests. the labels of interests and connections made by the students were listed and recorded as tags. the tags were also categorized under three labels-academic, social and others. academic refers to any learning interests that have direct involvement on formal interaction as defined by the student in her diagram. social refers to informal interactions, maybe online or face-to-face as again defined by the student including the tools and social networks she uses. finally, general interests would refer to the self-view of learning interests like sports or cooking including the online support she gets. the second technique was to quantitatively examine the labels and categorization frequency set by the students. a tag cloud was the primary tool used here through the visual word frequency application tagcrowd (steinbock, 2008). third is the observation of how the pln diagrams were drawn and expressed in rather creative and myriad ways. the core of the diagram is imagined as a rhizome capable of producing different shoots. the shoots are the learning sets of the student as she had classified or grouped them. the shoots produced different stems and each stem corresponded to a specific learning contributor. there were many learning contributors based on the diagrams created by the students. results of the analysis 1. disintegrating the shoots and stems of the rhizomes the shoots representing the major knowledge cultivations or categories of the students were counted and tagged. the stems that serve as learning contributor were also counted. the learning contributor is an entity representing the source of information or knowledge. examples are web tools or sites, social groups or connections, educational materials and others. the analysis showed that a dlsu sophomore student would have an average of five (5) shoots and eighteen (18) stems of constructed learning interests and learning contributors. these results further deepen the understanding of ples. the students went through a reflective process of building their plns and express them in a form and terminology of their choice. the pln has also become an exuberance of the learning style of the students as some have great dependencies on tools, some would have rich social circles and some creating a balance between their active offline and online engagements. figure 1 presents in graph form the popular shoots and stems of the students. it generally shows that most of their activities are tied up at home, in school or online. it is evident that most of the students have close relationships with their families. aside from facebooktwitter, tumblr, youtube and yahoo are the favored alternate communication venues. the students likewise have a great sense of group and collaboration preferences whether these are web tools and/or social networks. figure 1. graph of the instances of the popular shoots and stems in the plns 2. tag cloud results a. under the academic category, the tag cloud result was quite interesting. the example given to the students did not cite or suggest individuals in schools that may have strong impact on the present learning. but in the academic category tag cloud, it showed that students value individuals such as professors (40%); friends (38%); family, siblings and parents (34%); classmates, colleagues and schoolmates (32%). dlsu which refers to the university, including the school, was also significant to 30% of the students. b. the tag cloud shows that facebook, twitter, blogs, youtube, yahoogroups, yahoo messengers, forums are the mostly sought and used social arenas for interactions. this includes group work and collaboration. c. there is a high level of variety of general interests. d. facebook, yahoogroups, twitter and tumblr were some of the popular social network tools used by the students. in miller’s (2009) thesis, it was concluded that high use of social networks for public communication and interactions led to increased learning participation and “development of collaborative and research skills”. e. youtube and blogs have been arbitrary learning systems, moving from academic to social to general interests. on some occasions, these have appeared as shoots in the plns. generally, the students identify these two as very handy and useful support tools for learning. f. the students made use of tumblr, blogger, mindmeister, photobucket, wordpress and facebook to host their plns. access to facebook was an issue whenever it had privacy settings. this issue was an oversight on the part of the students. figures 2, 3, and 4 show the tag cloud results for academic, social, and general interests. figure 5 shows the overall tag cloud results. the tag cloud was used to show the frequency of the shoots and stems of the students’ rhizome. figure 2. tag cloud of academic interests figure 3. tag cloud of social interests figure 4. tag cloud of general interests asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, maria victoria pineda figure 5. tag cloud of the combined interests 3. variations in the pln diagrams as part of the orientation on plns, an example was provided. the example showed a chart and the yellow core is considered as the rhizome. the rhizome had several shoots, pertaining to the learning interest sets. and each shoot had different stems extracting the knowledge, information and processes to make learning happen. the roots are seen connecting from one stem or shoot to another shoot. the root shows how a learning set has been capable of complementing another learning set enabling more stems to come. the students were permitted to draw their own plns with minor restrictions such as the pln should be accessible in the web. the pln must be reflective of their ecosystem of learning. it is also part of the result of this study to see the dynamism of plns such that the pln is a reflection of the way students organize their learning. below are some examples: diagram 2. an example of a typical pln asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, maria victoria pineda diagram 3. an example of a pln prioritizing japanese modern culture diagram 4. an example of a dynamic pln the first example (diagram 2) demonstrates the typical pln among the students that consists of academic interests, her social group and other interests. the second example (diagram 3) illustrates priorities being given to modern japanese culture. the third example (diagram 4) shows the dynamic interests of the students with nine (9) shoots and many stems. some have used dominant colors like pink or green as if the pln had a persona. some have huge webs of interests. some have numerous stems of social connections. some have obviously more personal or hobby interests than academic interests. students with a high level of interest in knowledge acquisition would exhibit many fractals of shoots and stems. diversity is very evident. surowiecki (2005) asserts that diversity is valuable and must be encouraged because differences in perspectives actually contribute to creative solutions. this kind of diversity must be enhanced among students who are constantly immersed in technology and the web while they learn. some limitations of the study-the details of the stems, which serve as learning contributors, particularly the web tools and other not so popular sites were not verified. the rhizome stems wherein the students also contribute their work and other useful information were not captured by the study. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, maria victoria pineda conclusions the study resulted in many revelations. the pln may be considered as the blueprint of a student’s preferred learning connections and learning support tools. it is an effective way of knowing if a student does not have balanced academic and social interests; if a student does heavily prioritizes her social connections; if a student is building on her academic interests through the tools she is using; or if a student is able to use her personal interests to complement her academic/professional interests. interventions may be need if the result of the student’s pln appear to be alarming. on the other hand, school administrators may be concerned as to what kind of online tools or support mechanisms student seek, what social networks they subscribe to and what e-resources they find as most useful and practical. this investigation has been successful in contributing new ways of doing research, analyzing studentdefined learning networks and charts, and opening the doors to fresh forms of learning studies. the study was creatively unique in many ways, qualitatively and quantitatively—it combined the use of statistics, tag clouds, pln illustrations to comprehend how a learner shapes and controls her learning in a rhizomatic engagement. the better the learner is able to define and construct her personal learning environment, the more she is capable of increasing the shoots and stems of her learning. the present challenge to curriculum design in the university is to realize how to accommodate for the rhizomatic model of learning happening beyond the classroom walls, in the students’ social spaces and through informal interactions. school systems will have to change their rules and develop ways of facilitating guidance so that students could exercise prudence, know-how, and wisdom in the knowledge that they pull, develop better informational skills, and engage astutely in online or offline activities. it is also recommended that teachers create their own plns and allow their interests to complement their teaching. teachers with a deeper awareness of their own learning environment are more likely to be able to support students effectively as they navigate through the endless possibilities of learning. acknowledgment the author would like to express gratitude to the social media class of the college of computer studies of de la salle university in the first trimester of sy 2011-2012, for sharing their pln diagrams in this study. references attwell, g. (2007). personal learning environments: the future of e-learning. elearning papers , 4-8. bussey, m., bjurstrom, a., & and sannum, m. (2010). explorations in intercultural work integrated learning:educational process for a topsy-turvy world. futures , 39-47. cormier, d. (2008). rhizomatic education: community as curriculum. innovateonline [online]. available: http://innovateonline. downes, s. (2005, october). e-learning 2.0. elearn magazine , 2005 (10), pp. 1-5. fiedler, s. and väljataga, t. (2011). personal learning environments: concept or technology. international journal of virtual and personal learning environments, 2(4) 1-11, p. 8 lieberman, m. (2008). what zombies can’t do: a social cognitive neuroscience approach to the irreducibility of reflective consciousness. chap. 13 pp. 293-316 [online]. available: http://commonsenseatheism. com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/lieberman-what-zombies-cant-do.pdf asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, maria victoria pineda miller, r. (2009). developing 21 st century skills through the use of student personal learning networks. doctoral thesis/dissertation, 191 pages. grin publishing. pineda, m. v. (2011, may 18). understanding contexts of collaboration [powerpoint slides]. retrieved july 29, 2011, from slideshare/mobilemartha: http://www.slideshare.net/mobilemartha/ understanding-contexts-of-inter-cultural-collaboration-ver2c pineda, m. v. (2009). urban class computing in higher education: promising or perilous. readings in technology and education proceedings of icicte 2009 (pp. 336-346). university of the fraser valley press. rhizome. (2011). in encyclopædia britannica. retrieved may 9, 2011, from "http://www.britannica.com/ ebchecked/topic/501483/rhizome" . sitchensis. (2010, september 15) [online]. communit-elearning: please ples me. available: communitelearning: http://sitchensis.wordpress. com/2010/09/15/please-ples-me/ steinbock, d. (2008). what is tagcrowd? tagcrowd. retrieved july 22, 2011, from tagcrowd: http://www.tagcrowd.com/blog/about/ surowiecki, j. (2005). the wisdom of crowds. new york: anchor books. väljataga, t. (2010, july 27). an insight to the ple 2010 conference in barcelona. terje's musings on educational research. http://terjevaljataga.eu/2010/07/27/insight-to-the-ple-2010-conference-inbarcelona/ [viewed 21 september 2011]. http://terjevaljataga.eu/2010/07/27/insight-to-the-ple-2010-conference-in-barcelona/ http://terjevaljataga.eu/2010/07/27/insight-to-the-ple-2010-conference-in-barcelona/ citation asiacall online journal received: 15/10/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 22/11/2021 vol. 13, no. 1, 2022 accepted: 05/12/2021 pp. 93-121 online: 06/12/2021 citation | le, p. n., vu, h. m. l., & tran, m. n. (2022). improving efl students’ intonation in text using shadowing technique with the implementation of google text-to-speech. asiacall online journal, 13(1), 93121. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.006 improving efl students' intonation in-text using shadowing technique with the implementation of google text-to-speech nhi le phuong1, linh vu hoang mai1*, nhat tran minh1 1hoa sen university, vietnam correspondence: linh vu hoang mai, hoa sen university, vietnam. e-mail: linhvuhoang1908@gmail.com eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.006 abstract intonation, a feature of pronunciation that embarks on how an utterance is produced with respect to the notion of accent, stress and the rising/falling pitch, has always been considered troublesome to second language learners due to its connection to personal emotion. recently, greater attention has been drawn from academia to the investigation of the potential solution. in contribution to the existing research, this paper is to shed light on the impact of shadowing technique with the aid of spoken text features by google text-to-speech on removing learner's flat tone as well as achieving basic english intonation in text, provided that the tool is adopted intensively throughout a pre-designed training course. in the study, a pretest-posttest method is employed in one same sample, with the pre-scheduled experimental period being the control group and post-training being the treatment group. after ten weeks of intensive training program following a detailed syllabus, the posttest results, which are computerized using speech analyzer, indicates that the participants benefit from the training in terms of intonation in the text as there is a positive difference in scores achieved by the treatment group, benchmarked against the control group. however, due to the rather small size of the population, the study failed to generalize its findings. the implementation of spoken texts in google text-to-speech tool and speech analyzer software will be further discussed in this study. keywords: intonation in text, default tone, google text-to-speech, text-to-speech, shadowing techniques 1. introduction it is indisputable that the english language has become a lingua franca with globally widespread use. the demands for language learners, thus, have increased accordingly. besides mastering grammatical structures and patterns as well as conquering a wide range of lexical items, learners are now required to learn how to use a language in their own way. together with other features of the english language that form productive competence like speaking, intonation starts to be considered personal prominence. assuredly, intonation is deemed one of the most crucial attributes a child perceives at the beginning of his first language (cruttenden, 1997; crystal, 1986; lieberman, 1986; mehler et al., 1988; snow & balog, 2002). unlike vietnamese, mandarin, thai or japanese, which deal with prosodic characteristics of lexical tones, the https://asiacall.info/acoj http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.006 http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.006 https://asiacall.info/acoj le, p. n., vu, h. m. l., & tran, m. n. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 94 english language uses tone partly as a medium of intonation to convey information. in terms of english language use, the tonal choices of individual words or sentences do not alter the lexical meaning of sentences but their non-lexical meaning (wells, 2006). as a matter of fact, the english intonation system poses a number of complicated issues to its users, yet it plays a pivotal role in the language's prosody. for other branches of pronunciation, such as phonetically pronouncing an individual sound or word, the drill method, which requires students to say the words aloud repeatedly, seems effective. however, it is virtually unreasonable to expect that the ability to intone properly can be shaped using a similar approach, for intonation involves the speaker's feeling at the moment the utterance is produced. recently, prosodic characteristics of intonation have drawn great attention from academia to look for possible solutions to the problem mentioned above. in contribution to the existing research, this paper is to shed light on the impact of shadowing technique with the aid of spoken text features by google translation tool, particularly google text-to-speech, on removing learners' inappropriate use of english intonation, provided that the tool is adopted intensively throughout a pre-designed training course. in the study, a pretest-posttest method is employed in one same sample, with the pre-scheduled experimental period being the control group and post-training being the treatment group. after six weeks of intensive training program following a detailed syllabus, the posttest results, which are computerized using speech analyzer, indicates that the participants benefit from the training in terms of intonation in the text as there is a positive difference in scores achieved by the treatment group, benchmarked against the control group. besides, the implementation of spoken texts in google translation tool and speech analyzer software will be further discussed in this study. 2. literature review 2.1. defining key terms: 2.1.1. intonation: in this paper, intonation is strikingly marked as the rhythm of speech that effectively supports the organization and transmission of messages. it is also one of the most broadly used aspects of suprasegmental phenomena which has a huge impact on verbal languages notably the english language system. intonation carries not only grammatical concepts but also syntactic and pragmatic meanings. with that being said, it is reasonable to state that language learners who made greater efforts in learning and exploiting intonation in their learning have higher proficiency in english (wennerstorm, 1998). aside from learning how to master the incredibly precise pronunciation of discrete words or sentences, learners' awareness and concerns about other prosodic features such as intonation should receive more attention from those in charge of l2 teaching and training. as a matter of fact, it would be much better if the students themselves were provided with proper intonation training. in lin, fan, and chen's views (1995), english learners tend to pay greater attention to pronunciation or lexical items such as vocabulary and grammatical structures than intonation and rhythm when listening to english. this explains why most of them struggle to catch up with the speed of the listening tapes. according to gilbert (1994), tone and its features enable learners to follow the flow of information in spoken english. for piekering (2004) and wennerstomi (2004; 1998), a nonnative speaker’s english will be deemed more comprehensible by receivers if the user can employ proper intonation structures. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 95 mainly, english language intonation is generally classified into three systems of hierarchy: tonality, tonicity and tone (3ts) (wells, 2006). respectively, tonality can be referred to as the position at which speakers choose to cut their utterances into chunks. appropriate intonation patterns should be applied to each chunk. those chunks are widely known under the names like the intonation of word group, tone group or intonation phrases so-called ips. considered the next hierarchical matter, tonicity is a term showing that language users highlight the most crucial words they desire to express (wells, 2006). these accented words are expected to receive much attention from the hearers. more often than not, the speakers accent the main stressed syllable of the word to be more accurate. at the time, they shift the pitch movement by rising from low to high tones. this is to say, the last matter in 3ts happens to be born tone. particularly, the last and the most important accent in ip is called the nucleus. the tone is defined and decided when the speaker locates the nucleus in terms of pitch. the tone of sentences is closely associated with the type of pitch movement placed. basically, the most fundamental distinctions of nucleus tones are falling, rising, and fallingrising tones. in this study, the three tones are again generalized into falls and non-fall since falling tones, and their variations are varied and rather vague (wells, 2006). in falling-toned sentences, the tails fall lower than its nucleus and rising-toned sentences with that in vice versa. (fall) i think it was funny. • ● ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ nucleus|tail (rise) was it funny? ∙ ● ∙ ∙ nucleus|tail in the two examples, the syllables -funare treated as the nucleuses which are accented strongly with appropriate timing, and the syllables -nyare tails. the tail in (fall) examples goes lower than its nucleus compared to that of (rise) example. therefore, (fall) example is determined as falling tone and (rise) example is defined as rising tone. in this paper, the research team principally pays huge attention to default tones that are relatively associated with the notion of tones regarding each type of sentence. our target participants are non-english majors who have loose english backgrounds and no attachment to the language. as generalized, default tones can be: ● a fall as in sentence types such as statements, commands and wh-questions, exclamations; https://asiacall.info/acoj le, p. n., vu, h. m. l., & tran, m. n. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 96 ● a rise as in questions requiring confirmation such as yes-no questions; apart from that, another generalization of default tones involves the notions of utterances. the default can be: ● a fall if it displays the main part of the utterance, and ● a fall-rise/rise (non-fall) if it displays a subordinate or dependent clause. 2.1.2. google text-to-speech (gtts) google text-to-speech (gtts) with wavenet occurred as a momentous development of speech synthesis technology. google text-to-speech (gtts) is an application of screen reader used for the android operating system, powered by google. it enables apps to read out loud the texts appearing on the screen in a variety of languages. apps such as google play books for using machined voices to read books aloud, google translate for voicing out loud translations with precise pronunciation and human-like intonation, and many other applications which command ascended artificial intelligence (ai) technologies. wavenet, a software developed by google's uk-based ai firm deepmind, belonging to google since 2014 due to google's acquisition, generates google cloud text-to-speech. the system makes an effort to set itself apart from amazon and microsoft. deepmind's ai speech synthesis technology is notable for its realistically sophisticated naturalness. concatenative synthesis is used by most speech synthesizers (including one of the most powerful ai apps apple's siri), where a program saves individual phonemes and subsequently puts them together to produce words, phrases, or sentences. wavenet, on the other hand, generates speech via machine learning. it then reconstructs waveforms from a database of the human voice with a rate of up to 24,000 samples a second. google text-to-speech has successfully exploited new technology speech synthesisto the full. a variety of voices and languages supports gtts. gtts is provided with a wide range of voices, including both standard and wavenet voices. wavenet voices, specifically, are examined for higher quality voices. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 97 particularly, wavenet voice implemented in google translate google text-to-speech is coded: language voice type language code voice name ssml gender english (us) wavenet en-us en-us-wavenet-g female gtts is believed to be the highest achiever on the mean opinion score (mos) scale. this bar chart below indicates that wavenet voices in us english and mandarin chinese are significantly more outweighed compared to other synthetic voices and human speech. the yaxis values show raters’ mean opinion score (mos). on a scale of 1 to 5, test raters evaluated each voice based on how much it was almost like natural human talk. (google, 2013) https://asiacall.info/acoj le, p. n., vu, h. m. l., & tran, m. n. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 98 figure 1. comparison between us english and mandarin chinese using wavenet voices, other speech synthesis and human speech. wavenet produces more natural-sounding voices than previous text-to-speech model systems. its synthesized voices are based upon levels of phonemes, syllables, and words which shadow human-like emphasis and inflection. in 2016, oord, dieleman, zen, simonyan, vinyals, graves., ... & kavukcuoglu, k. proved the effectiveness and the degree of naturalness of wavenet voices via their paper. the researchers conducted three experiments in total, including multi-speaker speech generation (mssg), text-to-speech (tts), and music (m) in order to give clear evidence and significant statistics. among others, it is rather obvious to view from table 1 that tts from wavenet occurred to be greater outperformed the two models which were first from gonzalvo et al. (2016) hidden markov model (hmm) and the other was from zen et al. (2016) long short-term memory recurrent neural network (lstm-rnn). wavenet voices reached 4.21 for north american english and 4.08 for mandarin chinese on the 5-point mos scale for its naturalness, which proved the undeniable significance. they were considered the surprisingly highest point ever achieved. wavenet considerably improved the prior state of the art, narrowing down the distance between human-like speech and the best previous synthesized speech model by up to 50%. table 1 the mos test results are shown from the test. 2.1.3. shadow-reading technique intonation should be substantially put into consideration to teach at the discourse genres, according to levis (2002; 2004) and jenkins (2004). shadowing, along with mirroring, acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 99 repetition, and imitation approaches (goodwin 2004), is one of the most effective oral teaching methodologies applied for copying intonation of native speakers, according to celce-murcia et al. (1996). in practical application, the shadowing technique is commonly employed in simultaneous interpretation training (si). before starting si training sections, the participants must engage in extensive shadowing practices to grasp the rhythm shadowing technique in english intonation instruction and prosodic elements in actual speech. the fundamental skill set of shadowing is to closely follow the utterances of native speakers (nss) (luo, yamauchi & minematsu, 2010). in this paper, a pedagogical method called shadow-reading technique, adapted from murphey's (2001a) deemed to be 'conversational shadowing', predominantly became our central instruction. the pedagogical method helps to strike into a complicated yet customary phenomenon in discourse matters regarding people's silent or aloud repetition of what they hear from their interlocutors. shadowing, from 1992, has been identified as an effective tool for training interpreters (kurz, 1992; sabatini, 2000) and for assessing skills in the language process, particularly for listening and reading skills, to majority scholars (kurz, 1992; sabatini, 2000). (gray, 1975; jordan, 1988; marslen-wilson, 1975; muchisky, 1983). murphey (2001a) advocated for the use of conversational shadowing in classroom research, a practice in which students not only repeat, partially or totally, what other students say but also respond dialogically. summarizing as a means of shadowing lengthy spans of conversation is also recommended by murphey (2001a). therefore, there are two formations of shadowing: shadowing and summarizing. according to murphey (1996, 2001a), shadowing may be useful in demonstrating to learners how to make negotiations in a way that facilitates l2. as indicated by gal'perin (1969) approach to the development of mental processes, interactive shadowing and summarizing appear to be excellent for external (audio) verbalization. shadowing and summarizing have been demonstrated to be useful in boosting l2 learners' listening and speaking abilities in empirical studies (tabata, 2002; tamai, 2001). with that being said, shadowing itself became our exclusive method option to implement in our online training. vygotsky's (1986) idea of imitation has been shown to be in agreement with james m. baldwin's (lantolf & thorne, 2006), particularly the form of imitation he called persistent imitation. simple imitation, which baldwin (1894, 1895/1906) defined as an involuntary, results in a more or less close copy of the original and does not involve consciousness of what has been done, and persistent imitation, on the other hand, is a type of purposeful, intentionally cognitive activity that involves making multiple tries to duplicate a model, each time in an attempt to improve the reproduction using an image of the original model and the imitator's past attempts as a guide. therefore, persistent imitation is more cyclically, purposefully transformative in nature and optioned as a more narrowed scope of the study. it is apparent that imitation does not imply mindless mimicry or repetition. imitation entails recognizing the means to achieve the activity's goal (end, purpose, or result) and understanding the objective's aim (end, purpose, or result). linguistic imitation, in particular, necessitates both awareness of the communication goals and the tendency to generate language. rather, it is the endeavor of children to recreate the language that adults produce with the same communication function, according to tomasello (2002). two important factors govern linguistic imitation: entrenchment and pre-emption (tomasello, 2003). learners get habituated to producing language solely in ways that are comparable to those generated by professional speakers around https://asiacall.info/acoj le, p. n., vu, h. m. l., & tran, m. n. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 100 them through entrenchment, which is achieved by frequent exposure to linguistic models and successful use. 2.2. previous studies there is increasing demand in learning global languages in this interconnected world, and english has long taken the lead amongst other languages. language, by far, is one of the primary factors that function as a bridge to bring worldwide nations closer, which means a great deal in terms of both economic and social aspects (tran & nguyen, 2018, as cited in luu et al., 2021). as far as language acquisition is concerned, efl learners are expected to master all four skills to be verified as proficient language users. henceforth, the standardized english language syllabus used in vietnam has long been dominated by the teaching of grammar and reading comprehension while the speaking skill was hardly paid any attention to, which resulted in learners not being able to communicate in a real-time context properly. pronunciation and intonation were therefore also excluded as part of the national syllabus for the foreign language program for ages before they started to captivate attention from vietnamese researchers and educators roughly two decades ago. since then, with the advancement of technologies, and recently, the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic, learners all over the world have been subjected to virtual learning. though met with a barrage of criticism, online learning, assisted by up-to-date media, presents a “strong potential to enhance language skills for learners and promote the process of learning english" (2021, van et al., as cited in pham, 2021), and a vast variety of research into this particular area has got an opportunity to expand further. in 2011, ngo published a study featuring adopting an intonation teaching approach that involved individual language learning strategies (lls). the training model allowed learners to decide on the strategy that best suited them, and it was shown to work well in combination with other teaching and learning techniques employed throughout the training course, such as written reports, field notes, group discussions and interviews. as a result, the study generally revealed improvement in the ability of vietnamese learners of english to perceive two features of english intonation: tonicity and tone after the training course. within the same year, tran (2011) also suggested that the teaching of intonation in which students are entitled to experiencing real english rhythmic patterns and melody yielded a better result on students’ performance of intonation compared to those who were only provided with theoretical knowledge concerning intonation. most of these studies, despite particular differences in their approaches, revealed a positive outcome for certain implications on teaching and acquiring pronunciation/ intonation. students’ interest was successfully aroused as they were allowed to have a more hands-on experience in their training and really get engaged in the world of melody with diverse prosodic features, which proves absolutely crucial in any pronunciation training. however, regardless of the observable merits, it goes without saying that those teaching methods not only take a large amount of time but also demand close monitoring of the trainer. thus, whether it would present a mismatch between what the research team thinks is possible and what can actually be achieved after an intonation training course remains questionable. studies on shadowing technique & intonation in the era of the audio-lingual method, shadowing was considered one of the most relevant techniques to use in teaching speaking and listening, and so far, it still proves to be an effective tool in pronunciation training (лобачова, 2020). in fact, practically speaking, of all the techniques prevalently implemented in intonation training, shadowing is gaining greater acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 101 support than ever and contributing considerably to the second language teaching as well as acquisition. however, it is rather surprising that back in the early 2000s, little research could be observed on the implementation of shadowing in teaching speaking, with pronunciation and intonation included (hamada, 2018). despite its own failure to maintain researchers' interest over the last two decades, shadowing technique is currently intensively delved into and manifests itself in an abundance of research schemes into the field of intonation training worldwide. up to the present, most of the works aiming at measuring the effectiveness of teaching experiments using shadowing technique have revealed a positive impact on students' performance in receptive and productive skills such as listening, speaking and reading (hamada, 2016; nakanishi & ueda, 2011; hsieh, dong, & wang, 2013). the prosperity of research into the importance of shadowing for english language teaching is rather obvious, but then, there are few studies that examine the influence of this particular technique on pronunciation in general and intonation to be more specific. in addition, despite the fact that different training approaches were taken into detailed consideration and all proved fruitful to some extent, they tend to involve great effort and require teachers to have a profound understanding of prosodic features and intonation-related concepts. nonetheless, it is not ideal in vietnam, especially when most teachers lack the confidence to conduct pronunciation/intonation lessons. 2.3. the current study the teaching of intonation has been neglected for a long time for numerous reasons (ngo, 2011). research by graham & post (2018) suggested that together with other aspects, the l2 competency of a second language learner was also represented in the way they deal with intonation while speaking. however, in spite of its importance, there has been no course devoted to teaching intonation at any language institutions in vietnam, along with the fact that the amount of time allocated for teaching intonation in the course syllabus is not specified, and even if any, the amount remains minimal and often skipped by the teachers as intonation training section is, more often than not, considered optional. this is true for all levels of public education in vietnam, from primary schools to tertiary institutions, and the significance of intonation training seems to be overlooked at present time though several reformations regarding second language teaching have already taken place throughout the course of history. as intonation is not presented as part of the national syllabus of english subjects, it is not legally included in any kinds of testing or assessment of english language proficiency issued by the vietnamese ministry of education and training. this necessarily presents an urge to rethink the problem, raising teachers' awareness of the fact that intonation training should not be undervalued under any circumstances and coming up with in-time strategies to compensate for the ever-gloomy scenario of intonation teaching in vietnam. the lack of research into intonation training that takes into account the vietnamese educational settings could be attributed to numerous factors, among which stands out two significant ones that, as the research team believes, can be properly addressed within the scope of this study. first, the lack of confidence and understanding of intonation amongst vietnamese teachers of english remains quite a prevalent issue (ngo & setter, 2011). second, intonation, like other language areas, requires learners to have constant exposure to it by listening to modal recordings as well as practicing using appropriate intonation on a regular basis in order to be familiarized with intonation. also, assessing students’ progress in their performance can even present itself as a major concern for those in charge of teaching intonation. the question pops up right here: in a circumstance in which intonation training is generally undervalued, https://asiacall.info/acoj le, p. n., vu, h. m. l., & tran, m. n. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 102 represented by the fact that no course has ever been specifically designed for reinforcing students' perception of intonation, and economic factors constantly prevent a large number of vietnamese learners from accessing proper training, what should be done to address the problem? at this point, it is worth remembering that the world has entered the greatest digital reformation, and the options for any kind of learning should be numerous. zeitoun (2008, as cited in nguyen, 2021), classified online learning into two different types: synchronous and asynchronous mode. the former is typically conducted via a video-conferencing room, which allows learners to interact intensively with their instructors and receive different kinds of feedback, either impromptu or official, while the latter offers students access to a wide range of sources with already prepared lessons, and they can keep track of their own learning pace. regarding intonation training, the advent of applications assisting the acquisition of pronunciation, elsa speak, voki, and puppet pals, to name but a few, has proved its great contribution to improving the situation (samad and ismail, 2020). however, most of them are not free of charge or have a free basic version which merely provides learners with limited access to their features and resources. by now, the option should be clear – the research team is seeking a tool or website assisting intonation practice that (1) possesses a wide range of resources of oral records and database to serve the purposes, (2) fully requires little competency from the teachers and (3), most importantly, easily accessed with permanent free of charge policy. after researching intensively, gtts seemed to be a potential candidate and was taken into account as the primary tool adopted in this experimental study. specifically, gtts operates on a massive volume of worldwide language data, with prosody information (i.e., rhythm and melody) included, and the voice assistant embedded in the website is totally eligible for a pronunciation/intonation learning tool. besides, gtts, which is embedded within google translate, is a cost-free and readily available service, with a new model introduced recently that enables users to use the app everywhere, no matter whether there is an internet connection or not ("about google translate", 2017). these features make gtts a preferred tool for our intonation training scheme. basically, the study aims at measuring the effects of the shadowing technique aided by gtts on efl students' performance of intonation in-text throughout a predesigned training course. 2.4. research questions the aims of this study can be addressed through the following research questions: 1. do the students use default intonation in text correctly before the online training course? 2. to what extent do the students improve their performance of default intonation in text after the online training course? 3. methods 3.1. pedagogical setting and participants the participants in the study were university students ranging from first to the third year who have little to no knowledge of english intonation in text. at the time of the research, these students were studying at two universities in ho chi minh city (abbreviated to hcmc), vietnam, namely the hcmc university of technology and the hcmc university of education. both convenience sampling and snowball sampling were employed for the distribution of the questionnaire. first, the research team posted an online questionnaire via acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 103 google forms on the facebook pages of the two universities mentioned previously, which received a total of 172 responses. the respondents, then, were kindly requested to invite their classmates and friends to fill in the form. hence a snowball sampling started, which gathered ten more participants in the process. the responses were then checked manually to opt out of those who had more competency in english intonation needed for the study. in total, 18 valid responses were recorded. due to the adversity of the raging covid-19 pandemic, the size of the participants was then shrunk to only 7. this represented a great difficulty for the research team in finding a sufficient number of available participants to take part in the online training course. despite the very limited sample given, the research team believes that this study's findings should provide a starting point for further in-depth research on the same area of interest. 3.2. design of the study the study was conducted using both quantitative and qualitative components. a pretest/posttest design was used to measure the effects of a 10-week online training course (ten 90-minute sessions on the zoom online meeting platform) on english default intonation. the online course only took place in only 10 weeks since it occurred during the start of the participants’ new school year. periods longer than 10 weeks would have been problematic for the participants’ schedules. the course syllabus mainly focused on the default intonation of five types of sentences, namely statement, exclamation, yes-no question, wh-question, and tag question. although the course included all types of default intonation in text, the research team only elaborated on falling and rising intonation as the study's aim. the course allowed the saving of the audio files, which facilitated the contrast between the prosodic patterns produced by the participants and that of the spoken texts provided by gtts. these files were then analyzed using speech analyzer software to provide auditory and visual displays of pitch contours as feedback and assessment. the software, hence, served as a tool for the interpretation of the study's findings. the training course syllabus followed a framework of shadowing instruction and structured input activities (wells, 2006) in combination with gtts. the input activities focused on helping the participants to recognize and reproduce some important patterns of english default intonation in text. the course also included explicit information about the patterns and their meaning in terms of text and basic conversation (wells, 2006). 3.3. data collection and analysis the pretest (see appendix 1) consisted of the first recording of the participants’ short sentences prior to receiving any target knowledge of english default intonation in text. the test required the students to create separate recordings of 6 sentences, including 2 statements, 1 exclamation, 1 yes-no question, 1 wh-question, and 1 tag question. the results taken from the pretest will facilitate the course syllabus as they will provide the research team with a preliminary assessment of the participants' appropriate use of english default intonation in text. the researcher compiled notes on the sessions and the learners' comments and reactions during the training course. the participants' progress was also recorded for analysis and feedback throughout the course. at the end of the online training course, the posttest consisted of the participants' perception of default intonation in the text as well as the last version of short sentences produced and recorded by them. in terms of the recording questions, the students were asked to create separate recordings of 9 sentences, including 2 statements, 1 exclamation, 3 yes-no questions, 1 wh-question, and 2 tag questions. each participant completed an anonymous questionnaire on the value of the online intonation training course received within the post-test. https://asiacall.info/acoj le, p. n., vu, h. m. l., & tran, m. n. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 104 finally, using the speech analyzer software, each of the participants' recordings in the posttest was assessed by comparing their prosodic patterns with those produced by gtts. each of the recordings was assessed by the three members of the research team to make sure that the assessment was done coherently and appropriately. then, each member gave their own comments on the degree of intelligibility of the participants' prosodic performance. after that, the research team provided feedback for the participants' performance. 4. results, findings and discussion 4.1. results and interpretation as previously mentioned, participants were asked to do a pre-designed test on their ability to use proper intonation for different types of english sentences prior to the training course. it is rather surprising to observe that the students managed to use appropriate falling intonation while the rising tone seemed to pose a real challenge to their perception (1). after the training course, students' performance in intonation was assessed via another test whose results then, indicated an improvement in rising intonation. by contrast, it is noticed that their use of falling tone hardly improved. this trend can be presented in the charts as below: statement (falling intonation as default) table 4.1 frequency description of students’ pretest default falling intonation performance using speech analyzer pretest sentence name nucleus (hz) tail (hz) percentage (%) 1. i don't think it is true that she was afraid. student a 287 211 73.52 student b 307 254 82.74 student c 118.7 105.9 89.22 student d 140.9 66.1 46.91 student e 419 243 58.00 student f 136 120 88.24 student g 294 184 62.59 google 296 113.4 38.31 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 105 table 4.2 frequency description of students’ posttest default falling intonation performance using speech analyzer posttest sentence name nucleus (hz) tail (hz) percentage (%) 5. i believe it is going to rain at the end of the week. student a 271 210 77.49 student b 246 195 79.27 student c 139.7 119.8 85.76 student d 137.8 122.8 89.11 student e 294 214 72.79 student f 375 68.8 18.35 student g 280 176 62.86 google 297 122.8 41.35 the tail movement percentage illustrates whether the sentence is uttered with falling or rising intonation. a value below 100% points to a fall in intonation, while one exceeding 100% indicates a rise in the speaker's speech. the table is intended to record the figures for statements. obviously, tail movement percentage values generated by the speech of all students manifest themselves below 100%, so all those taking the test used proper falling intonation for this sentence type in both pretest and posttest. that means the learners generally did not struggle with the falling intonation, and there is also no significant improvement in learners' perception of this prosodic feature. yes-no questions (rising intonation as default) https://asiacall.info/acoj le, p. n., vu, h. m. l., & tran, m. n. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 106 table 4.3 frequency description of students’ pretest default rising intonation performance using speech analyzer pretest sentence name nucleus (hz) tail (hz) percentage (%) 2. is it true that you faked your way in here? student a 344 283 82.27 student b 357 287 80.39 student c 111 106.4 95.86 student d 64.9 229 352.85 student e 247 457 185.02 student f 160 139 86.88 student g 406 234 57.64 google 237 286 120.68 table 4.4 frequency description of students’ posttest default rising intonation performance using speech analyzer posttest sentence name nucleus (hz) tail (hz) percentage (%) 1. are you serious? student a 331 355 107.25 student b 246 260 105.69 student c 129.9 231 177.83 student d 127.8 227 177.62 student e 237 376 158.65 student f 146.9 185 125.94 student g 227 228 100.44 google 267 287 107.49 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 107 the research team attempted to calculate the variation percentage concerning yes-no questions brought about by both the pretest and the posttest. according to wells (2006), the default intonation of yes-no question is a rise. as to the pretest, most figures are below 100%, which points to a fall in the participants’ speech. this is deemed inappropriate as the participants were required to record the yes-no question given using proper default intonation, i.e., a rise. meanwhile, the above-100% percentages shown in the posttest suggest that the learners successfully used the correct rising intonation as default. at this point, it would be better to delve into the dilemma in greater depth. the fact that learners barely improve their intonation when it comes to a fall can be attributed to two main reasons. first, vietnamese intonation does not embed and operate on semantic meaning but lexical meaning, which features the rise or fall based merely on the tonal systems with the combination of 6 fundamental tones. that should explain why vietnamese do not have a tendency to lower their tone when asserting discourse-level definiteness and certainty. secondly, according to wichmann (2014), when learners are trained properly and their awareness is deliberately activated, they tend to improve rising more than falling intonation. theoretically, the rising tone is easier to recognize. to exemplify (1), students’ intonation performance in 3 sentences corresponding to two types of intonation rising and falling will be placed under thorough scrutiny. the measurement of improvement follows the rating criteria below (table 4.5): table 4.5 improvement scale score rating definition 1 worse no improvement 2 mildly improved < 25% improvement 3 improved 25-49% improvement 4 much improved 50-74% improvement the table above is adapted from the subject global aesthetic improvement scale (2019). it is used to measure and interpret the difference between the mean baseline and mean follow-up grades of the participants’ prosodic patterns. https://asiacall.info/acoj le, p. n., vu, h. m. l., & tran, m. n. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 108 figure 4.6 tail movement description improvement (%) = |(lpost gpost) (lpre gpre)| note: l = learner’s tail movement percentage in specific sentence type g = gtts tail movement percentage in specific sentence type (lpost gpost) = percentage of the difference between learner's performance of falling/rising tones and gtts' performance on falling/rising tones in posttest (lpre gpre) = percentage of the difference between learner's performance of falling/rising tones and gtts' performance on falling/rising tones in pretest this formula is applied to the analysis of the participants’ improvement in all types of sentences, which will be elaborated as follows: ● default falling intonation 1 (statement) acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 109 table 4.7 the improvement of the participants’ default falling intonation sentence type name pretest posttest improvement (%) tail movement percentage (%) tail movement percentage (%) statement student a 73.52 77.49 0.94 student b 82.74 79.27 6.50 student c 89.22 85.76 6.50 student d 46.91 89.11 39.17 student e 58.00 72.79 11.76 student f 88.24 18.35 72.92 student g 62.59 62.86 2.76 google 38.31 41.35 figure 4.7a student e’s pretest performance of a statement https://asiacall.info/acoj le, p. n., vu, h. m. l., & tran, m. n. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 110 figure 4.7b student e’s posttest performance of a statement as depicted by table 4.7, figures 4.7a and 4.7b, there is a slight overall improvement regarding the participants' default falling intonation in statements. specifically, while one student shows a significant improvement of 72.92% in their default falling intonation and one with a considerable improvement of 39.17%, four others show mild improvement of more than 2%. however, one of them does not show any improvement after the online training course. ● default falling intonation 2 (exclamation) table 4.8 the improvement of the participants’ default falling intonation sentence type name pretest posttest improvement (%) tail movement percentage (%) tail movement percentage (%) exclamation student a 64.14 63.29 5.28 student b 149.43 24.93 128.93 student c 76.95 32.49 48.89 student d 62.25 63.27 3.41 student e 64.33 62.21 6.55 student f 105.36 29.93 79.86 student g 34.88 60.59 21.28 google 48.33 52.76 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 111 figure 4.8a student b’s pretest performance of an exclamation figure 4.8b student b’s posttest performance of an exclamation table 4.8, figures 4.8a and 4.8b illustrate an overall mild improvement in the students’ default falling intonation in exclamations. two students among the group perform significantly better with 128.93% and 79.86% in the improvement rate. one of which shows a mild improvement of 48.89% in their english default falling intonation. the remaining four students show a slight improvement of more than 3% in their intonation performance. ● default rising intonation 2 (yes-no question) https://asiacall.info/acoj le, p. n., vu, h. m. l., & tran, m. n. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 112 table 4.9 the improvement of the participants’ default rising intonation sentence type name pretest posttest improvement (%) tail movement percentage (%) tail movement percentage (%) yes-no question student a 82.27 107.25 38.17 student b 80.39 105.69 38.48 student c 95.86 177.83 95.16 student d 352.85 177.62 162.04 student e 185.02 158.65 13.19 student f 86.88 125.94 52.25 student g 57.64 100.44 55.99 google 120.68 107.49 figure 4.9a student a’s pretest performance of a yes-no question acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 113 figure 4.9b student a’s posttest performance of a yes-no question according to table 4.9, figures 4.9a and 4.9b, the students show an overall significant improvement regarding the participants’ default rising intonation in yes-no questions. in particular, one student performs 162.04% better in the posttest than in the pretest, which is a significant improvement. three other students show considerable improvement of more than 50%, while the three remaining show mild improvement of more than 10%. addressing the first research questions posed from the beginning of this paper, it is evident that, in the pretest, the students performed relatively well in sentences that required falling intonation while they seemed to struggle with rising intonation. for the second question, the results suggest that the participants made significant progress in their use of rising intonation, whereas their performance in falling intonation hardly improved after the training course. 4.2. merits of the study despite only a small number of learners taking part in the study, the research team is able to demonstrate a relatively positive result obtained by an alternative to costly tools and timeconsuming approaches to teaching intonation. with the tool supported by google and the framework clearly presented in the coursebook, it is reasonable to expect that teachers will be less likely to suffer from hard work and the fear of their own ignorance of the prosodic word. in addition, with the aid of the widely-available google text-to-speech system, learning does not necessarily occur at school, which addresses a long-standing problem that no specific time is assigned to intonation teaching at school currently. last but not least, the idea of taking google text-to-speech as a model to imitate provides students with a purpose to learn. indeed, 85% of those participating in the project reported that they felt a sense of achievement as they managed to imitate exactly what the machine said. as claimed in the first place, the study delves into a new approach to intonation training, which is believed to benefit efl teachers and learners in various ways. the vast availability of gtts grants teachers easy access to one of the most highly approved ai applications in the modern world, with a huge authentic linguistic database. there is little syllabus time as well as few financial challenges involved, as the practice of intonation is not only refrained in the classroom setting, and users are not required to make registration or process any problematic installation. this study also successfully reveals a positive influence of the combination of gtts and shadowing technique on learners' performance in intonation, especially when it comes to rising tone. https://asiacall.info/acoj le, p. n., vu, h. m. l., & tran, m. n. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 114 5. conclusion all in all, although the study succeeds in yielding certain positive results in learners' use of intonation, the small participant size, to a lesser or greater extent, prevents us from reaching any level of generalization for a larger population. additionally, while the research team finds themselves in a rather fine position to answer the question of whether there is any learners' improvement in terms of intonation use, it presents, so far, an unsolved problem regarding the question of to what extent. this necessitates further research into the approach to gain more insight into its possible effects on intonation training and learners' perception of related prosodic features. apart from these, it should also be mentioned that the scope of this study does not seem to afford generalization of the result as it is rather small. right from the onset, the research team encountered a number of difficulties in recruiting the participants. although the initial questionnaires managed to reach out more than 100 participants, with approximately 70% showing their support when asked if they would like to participate in an online intonation training, only 14 showed up on the first day and the number then dropped down to only 7 towards the end of the training section. this can be attributed to 3 fundamental reasons. first, there is no commitment amongst those taking part in the project, though they were asked to affirm their commitment via a so-called agreement between the learners and the researchers. the fact that no punishment was administered for their one-sided drop might result in the sense of little obligation to the course. without obvious gain and loss, it is virtually impractical to believe they would adhere to the training as, generally, students are not intrinsically motivated. second, the course was initiated at the start of an academic year when university students seemed to be fully occupied in preparing for their classwork. getting engaged in a course with an unforeseeable outcome could prove a waste of time to those already packed with their daily schedule. another reason is that online learning, despite its particular merits, might seem daunting to a number of learners. references "about google translate". google translate. retrieved july 9, 2017. "google text-to-speech apps on google play". play.google.com. anh, n. p. (2017). teaching english intonation to vietnamese students of english: tonicity and tone. vnu journal of foreign studies, 33(6). baldwin, j.m. (1895/1906). the mental development of the child and the race (3rd ed.). new york: macmillan. retrieved from: http://www.brocku.ca/meadproject/baldwin/baldwin_1906/baldwin_1906_toc.html (may 2013). cruttenden, a. (1997) intonation (2nd edn). cambridge: cambridge university press. crystal, d. (1986) prosodic development. in p. fletcher and m. garman (eds) studies in first language development (pp. 174–97). new york: cambridge university press. gal’perin, p.y. (1969). stages in the development of mental acts. in m. cole, & i. maltzman (eds.), a handbook of contemporary soviet psychology (pp. 249–273). new york: basic books. http://www.brocku.ca/meadproject/baldwin/baldwin_1906/baldwin_1906_toc.html acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 115 gilbert, j. (1994). intonation: a navigation guide for the listener. pronunciation pedagogy and theory: new views, new directions (ed. by joan morley), 36-48. alexandria, va: tesol. gonzalvo, xavi, tazari, siamak, chan, chun-an, becker, markus, gutkin, alexander, and silen, hanna. recent advances in google real-time hmm-driven unit selection synthesizer. in interspeech, 2016. url http://research.google.com/pubs/pub45564.html. graham, c., & post, b. (2018). second language acquisition of intonation: peak alignment in american english. journal of phonetics, 66, 1-14. gray, m.j. (1975). effects of shadowing on reading. journal of experimental psychology: human learning and memory, 104, 423–428. halliday, m.a.k. (1970) a course in spoken english: intonation. london: oxford university press. halliday, m.a.k. (1994) an introduction to functional grammar. london: arnold. hamada, y. (2016). shadowing: who benefits and how? uncovering a booming efl teaching technique for listening comprehension. language teaching research, 20(1), 35-52. hamada, y. (2018). shadowing for pronunciation development: haptic-shadowing and ipashadowing. journal of asia tefl, 15(1), 167. hsieh, k. t., dong, d. h., & wang, l. y. (2013). a preliminary study of applying shadowing technique to english intonation instruction. taiwan journal of linguistics, 11(2). http://ebookbrowse.com/teaching-pronunciation-in-the-leamer-centered-classpdfdl01773540 jenkins, j. (2004). research in teaching pronunciation and intonation. annual review of applied linguistics 24: 109-125. jordan, n.c. (1988). language processing and reading ability in children: a study based on speech-shadowing techniques. journal of psycholinguistic research, 17, 357–377. kurz, i. (1992). ‘shadowing’ exercises in interpreter training. in c. dollerup, & a. loddengaard (eds.), teaching translation and interpreting: training, talent and experience (pp. 245–250). amsterdam: john benjamins. lantolf, j.p., & thorne, s.l. (2006). the sociogenesis of second language development. oxford: oxford university press. levis, j. m. (2002). reconsidering low-rising intonation in american english. applied linguistics u.v. 56-82. levis, j. m. and pickering, l. (2004). teaching intonation in discourse using speech visualization technology. system 32.4: 505-524. lieberman, p. (1986) the acquisition of intonation by infants: physiology and neural control. in c. johns-lewis (ed.) intonation in discourse (pp. 239–57). london: croom helm. lin, hsiang-pao., chuen-yn fan, and chi-fen chen. 1995. teaching pronunciation in the learner-centered classroom. retrieved january 11, 2011 from http://research.google.com/pubs/pub45564.html. http://research.google.com/pubs/pub45564.html. http://research.google.com/pubs/pub45564.html. http://ebookbrowse.com/teaching-pronunciation-in-the-leamer-centered-classpdf-dl01773540 http://ebookbrowse.com/teaching-pronunciation-in-the-leamer-centered-classpdf-dl01773540 https://asiacall.info/acoj le, p. n., vu, h. m. l., & tran, m. n. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 116 luo, d., yutaka, y., and nobuaki, m. (2010). speech analysis for automatic evaluation of shadowing. paper presented at the interspeech 2010 joint satellite workshop on "second language studies: acquisition, learning, education and technology", tokyo: japan. luu, l. p. t., nguyen, t. n. q., vo, n. t. t., & nguyen, m. t. h. (2021). the need of applying english learning apps to help van lang university students improve their spoken english performance. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 72-86. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/33 marslen-wilson, w.d. (1975). sentence perception as an interactive parallel process. science, 189, 226–228. mehler, j., jusczyk, p.w., lambertz, g., halsted, n., bertoncini, j. and amiel-tison, c. (1988) a precursor of language acquisition in young infants. cognition 29, 143–78. muchisky, d.m. (1983). relationships between speech and reading among second language learners. language learning, 33, 77–102. murphey, t. (1996, september). proactive adjusting to the zone of proximal development: learner and teacher strategies. paper presented at the 2nd conference for sociocultural research vygotsky–piaget, geneva, 1–4. murphey, t. (2001a). exploring conversational shadowing. language teaching research, 5, 128–155. nakanishi, t., & ueda, a. (2011). extensive reading and the effect of shadowing. reading in a foreign language, 23(1), 1-16. ngo, a. p., & setter, j. (2011, august). evaluating the intonation perception ability of vietnamese learners of english. in icphs (pp. 1466-1469). nguyen, h. n. (2021). a case study of home-based teaching and learning practice at ton duc thang university. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 1-11. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/24 oord, a. v. d., dieleman, s., zen, h., simonyan, k., vinyals, o., graves, a., ... & kavukcuoglu, k. (2016). wavenet: a generative model for raw audio. arxiv preprint arxiv:1609.03499. pham, d. t. t. (2021). the effects of audiovisual media on students’ listening skills. international journal of tesol & education, 1(1), 13–21. retrieved from http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/3 pickering, l. (2004). the structure and function of intonational paragraphs in native and nonnative speaker instructional discourse. english for specific purposes 23a: 19-43. sabatini, e. (2000). listening comprehension, shadowing and simultaneous interpretation of two ‘non-standard’ english speeches. interpreting, 5, 25–48. samad, i. s., & ismail, i. (2020). elsa speak application as a supporting media in enhancing students’ pronunciation skill. majesty journal, 2(2), 1-7. snow, d. and balog, h. (2002) do children produce the melody before the words? a review of developmental intonation research. lingua 112, 1025–58. http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/3 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 117 supported voices and languages | cloud text-to-speech documentation tabata, m. (2002). shadowing and summarizing as effective output sla activities. nanzan studies in english language education, 9, 115–170. tamai, k. (2001). strategic effect of shadowing on listening ability. in j. white (ed.), proceedings of the 4th international conference on foreign language education and technology (fleat iv) (pp. 620–625). kobe: japan association for language education and technology. tomasello, m. (2002). the item-based nature of children’s early syntactic development. in m. tomasello & e. bates (eds.), language development: the essential readings (pp. 169– 186). malden, ma: blackwell. tomasello, m. (2003). constructing a language: a usage-based theory of language acquisition. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. vygotsky, l.s. (1986). thought and language. cambridge, ma: the mit press. wells, j. c. (2006). english intonation pb and audio cd: an introduction. cambridge university press. wells, j. c. (2007). english intonation. an introduction. cambridge university press. wennerstorm, a. (1998). intonation as cohesion in academic discourse: a study of chinese speakers of english. studies in second language acquisition 20.1: 1-25. zen, heiga, et al. (2016). fast, compact, and high quality lstm-rnn based statistical parametric speech synthesizers for mobile devices. in interspeech, 2016. url https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.06061 лобачова, і. (2020). methodological aspects of implementing the shadowing technique in teaching english. професіоналізм педагога: теоретичні й методичні аспекти, (13), 73-84. biodata nhi le phuong is currently studying for her master’s degree in linguistics at hoa sen university, hcmc. she fancies researching linguistic fields and teaching methodology. linh vu hoang mai is a visiting lecturer at ton duc thang university and hoa sen university, ho chi minh city, vietnam. currently she is doing a ma degree in linguistics at hoa sen university and finds herself interested in the field of corpus linguistics. nhat tran minh is a testing coordinator at the faculty of foreign languages at hoa sen university, ho chi minh city, vietnam. he is currently a master candidate in linguistics at hoa sen university who is interested in finding feasible teaching methods and applications in the 21st century. https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.06061 https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.06061 https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.06061 https://asiacall.info/acoj le, p. n., vu, h. m. l., & tran, m. n. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 118 appendix appendix 1: pretest evaluation of english intonation performance the following test is used to evaluate your english intonation performance as a means for the research team to design and adjust the online training course in the most effective way. as there are 6 sentences in the test, please prepare separate recordings for each one. then, please upload them to the google forms accordingly (maximum 10mb per audio file). note: please use the type of intonation that you have already known and refrain from referencing external sources for the test so that the research team may gather the most objective evaluation of your performance. during recording, please make sure that your surrounding area is relatively quiet with minimum background noises. after recording, please make sure that your audio file is clear enough for the listeners to understand. full name .......................................................... record the below sentences using the intonation that you have already known. 1. i don't think it is true that she was afraid. 2. is it true that you faked your way in here? 3. which question is going to make them uncomfortable? 4. sounds impossible, doesn't it? 5. what a great view! 6. don't rush or you will fall. add file here acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 119 appendix 2: posttest final evaluation of english intonation performance the following test is used to evaluate your final english intonation performance after taking the online training course as a means for the research team to evaluate the effectiveness of the method applied in the training course in improving students’ english default intonation performance. for the theoretical questions, please choose only one option or fill in the most appropriate answer that you have learnt. for the recording question, please prepare separate recordings for each of the 9 given sentences. then, please upload them to the google forms accordingly (maximum 10mb per audio file). note: please use the type of intonation that you have already known and refrain from referencing external sources for the test so that the research team may gather the most objective evaluation of your performance. during recording, please make sure that your surrounding area is relatively quiet with minimum background noises. after recording, please make sure that your audio file is clear enough for the listeners to understand. full name .......................................................... theoretical questions answer the following questions using what you have learnt (please refrain from using external sources during the test). question 1: intonation features: ◯ the change of vocal pitch ◯ the change of prosodic features ◯ the rise of a person's voice to the highest point question 2: the use of monotone in reading/speaking indicates: ◯ the overwhelming of emotions which bring many expressions ◯ the lack of confidence https://asiacall.info/acoj le, p. n., vu, h. m. l., & tran, m. n. vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 120 ◯ the lack of emotion which makes it dull for the listeners question 3: what is the difference between pitch and intonation? ◯ pitch indicates the change in vocal pitch, intonation indicates the highest/lowest point in a person’s voice ◯ pitch indicates the high or low vocal point/degree, intonation indicates the change/changing process of the vocal pitch ◯ pitch and intonation only differs based on perception question 4: how many basic types of intonation are there? what are they? ◯ 4 types: flat tone / rising tone / falling tone / falling-rising tone ◯ 3 types: rising tone / falling tone / falling-rising tone ◯ 3 types: rising tone / falling tone / upspeak tone question 5: default tones should be understood as: ◯ the local dialect ◯ the most used tone for each specific type of sentence ◯ the difference in vocal tone between the male and the female question 6: choose the suitable default tones for the below types of sentences: falling intonation rising intonation wh-questions ◯ ◯ yes-no questions ◯ ◯ statements ◯ ◯ exclamations ◯ ◯ question 7: in general, rising intonation is used to indicate… / falling intonation is used to indicate... (short answer) …………………………………… question 8: to indicate uncertainty and doubts in the sentence: “i want to go to that party…, but…”, what type of intonation should be used? ◯ falling intonation ◯ rising intonation question 9: to indicate enthusiasm and excitement in the sentence: “i'm glad to have you here”, how would you change your falling intonation? (short answer) ……………………………………... question 10: the variation in intonation used in tag questions indicates many different layers of meaning. choose the suitable intonation for the meaning of the sentence: “you've been to london once, haven't you?” acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 1; 2022 121 falling rising the speaker genuinely wants to ask for information or is doubtful ◯ ◯ about his/her knowledge. the speaker already has information ◯ ◯ and is certain about his/her knowledge. record the below sentences using the intonation that you have already known. 1. are you serious? 2. who was the girl you were talking to? 3. i don't think it's safe to go there, is it? (the speaker is unsure) 4. he has such a beautiful voice! 5. i believe it is going to rain at the end of the week. 6. should i hand in my project? 7. i'm going to the park. would you like to come? 8. he will be late again, isn't he? (the speaker already knows this) add file here citation asiacall online journal received: 15/12/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 28/03/2022 vol. 13, no. 2, 2022 accepted: 04/04/2022 pp. 21-41 online: 06/04/2022 citation | nguyen, h. u. n., duong, l. n. t., & pham, v. p. h. (2022). written corrective feedback strategies applied by van lang university’s efl lecturers in teaching online. asiacall online journal, 13(2), 21-41. doi: https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221322 written corrective feedback strategies applied by van lang university’s efl lecturers in teaching online nguyen huyen uyen nhi1, duong ly nhat tam1, pham vu phi ho1* 1 faculty of foreign languages, van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam * correspondence: pham vu phi ho, van lang university, vietnam. e-mail: ho.pvp@vlu.edu.vn * https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7459-8509 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221322 abstract during the covid-19 pandemic, many changes occurred that disrupted our lives. authors must adapt to survive, and learning through online platforms is a change that forces us to adapt to avoid disrupting the learning process. the primary goal of this research project is to investigate the wcf techniques used by 30 teachers while teaching writing english online. the research instrument sets comprised 16 questions, including open and closed ones. the study uses quantitative and qualitative methods. this research paper is a timely complement to the topic of wcf strategies. it will serve as a resource for many teachers who are unsure about using the wcf approach when teaching writing online. keywords: written corrective feedback, wcf strategies, writing, online platform, efl lecturers 1. introduction throughout the history of teaching and learning to write in l2, especially writing in english, written correction feedback (wcf) has always played an unalterable role. it is proven as an effective pedagogy even in our constantly changing world. a study by bitchener & knoch (2009) showed that the more occasions the direct corrective feedback was provided, the more accurate the students' writing was and the less time it took for students to reach a higher writing level. in order to make a counterargument against the idea that wcf was ineffective and negatively affected learning writing skills, bitchener (2008) did research to prove the effectiveness of wcf. the research's findings showed that the feedback of the written corrections greatly influenced the accuracy improvement of the two functions of the english article system, and this accuracy level did not change even after two months without additional feedback or guidance. however, it remains the case that if something changes, something else must also be changed. the growth of e-learning and the spread of the covid-19 pandemic have forced lecturers to change their written corrective feedback strategies. over the past decade, several authors have researched wcf through online platforms. for instance, they conducted a study https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221322 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7459-8509 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221322 https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, h. u. n, duong l. n. t., & pham, v. p. h. vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 22 on conservation language teachers' online written correction feedback option and response time in computer-assisted l2 grammar teaching. in 2019, kılıckaya found that learners recognized that direct feedback was the most effective method for improving their writing through online platforms. in an effort to discover whether synchronous corrective feedback or asynchronous written corrective was more effective when applying online, shintani & aubrey (2016) conducted a study of 68 intermediate-level english students. the results showed that synchronous correction feedback provided a greater advantage in learning grammar than asynchronous correction feedback. in vietnam, e-learning is not a new definition, but it is only more popular as the covid-19 pandemic spreads throughout the country because authors are forced to use e-learning as an alternative method in order not to interrupt our learning process. therefore, there seems to be a lack of research papers on wcf strategies adopted by vietnamese lecturers when using online apps to teach writing. 2. literature review 2.1. previous related studies nakamura sachiko (2018) defined written corrective feedback as an instruction that teachers give their second language students to help them improve their writing skills. wcf strategies can be designed in different ways. teachers can focus on types of wcf such as giving direct feedback, commenting, or reformatting, or they may provide wcf primarily for the purpose of correcting student grammar, organization, or content. or more simply, teachers can design wcf strategies in a negative or positive tone. online written corrective feedback strategies mean wcf strategies devised by teachers as they teach academic writing in a second language through online applications. throughout the history of second language teaching, especially in english language pedagogy, wcf has been proven as having positive effects on teaching writing in english (hosseiny, 2014; wang & jiang, 2015). although there are a large number of organizational patterns in the literature reviews, this review mainly focuses on the methodologies that have been applied in the collected research papers. after analysis, the collected research articles were divided into two groups according to the way they were approached. the first group consisted of researchers whose data were collected in one trial. and the other group included research with data obtained through surveys, interviews, and/or existing data. the difference in their approach made a difference in research results. the following articles used an experiment to collect their data to explore how wcf strategies affected the effectiveness of teaching english writing. the first one is bitchener's research (2008). he investigated the effect of wcf after some studies had proved conflicting results of wcf on learners (truscott, 1996; ferris, 2004, 2006). he conducted the findings of 2month research on the effectiveness of written corrective feedback to 75 low intermediate acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 23 international esl students in auckland, new zealand, who had east asian origin by means of a pre-test/post-test design. after being assigned randomly to 4 groups of wcf options (direct corrective feedback, written and oral meta-linguistic explanation; direct corrective feedback and written metalinguistic explanation; direct corrective feedback only; the control group received no corrective feedback), the participants wrote three tests (pre-test, immediate post-test, and delayed post-test) to compare the efficacy between those groups when testing students to differentiate two functional uses of the english article system a/the. the research found that the students who received written corrective feedback in the immediate post-test were more accurate than those in the control group since the study focused on one small specific aspect of the english language (article a/the). in 2009, bitchener and knoch conducted a study in ten months to prove the effective role of written corrective feedback (wcf) in using two articles: a/the. 52 esl students at a lowintermediate level from a new zealand university were randomly assigned to one of four groups (direct corrective feedback, written, and oral meta-linguistic explanation; direct corrective feedback and written meta-linguistic explanation; direct corrective feedback only; the control group) and were asked to write five pieces (pre-test, immediate post-test, and three delayed post-tests). the research looked at the impact of these specific feedback choices (variable combinations) to see whether each group has different accuracy. the data was collected by means of a pre-test–post-test design (a pre-test at the beginning of the 10month period and the remaining four post-tests after two weeks, two months, six months, and ten months). on all post-tests, each of the treatment groups outperformed the control group, and there was no difference in efficacy among the three treatment groups. yu et al. (2020) studied topics related to wcf translation strategies. research data were collected during the semester, and the study participants have experienced teacher and 151 undergraduates. the results showed that the teacher mainly used wcf indirectly and unfocused wcf and the strategy used had a positive impact on student campus and improved the accuracy of the translated text. in 2020, two research papers that also found the effectiveness of wcf by using experiments were collected. the first article was the article of lira-gonzales, maria-lourdes, and hossein. they conducted a survey to verify the usefulness of written corrective feedback in different origins and educational levels. there were six esl teachers and 128 students with different backgrounds and educational levels. an experiment collected the data, teachers gave feedback on students’ writing assignments and then asked them to redo the assignments and correct mistakes based on the teacher’s wcf. the results revealed important differences between the three levels in terms of student mistakes, teacher comments, and student reviews. their findings suggested that teachers should pay more attention to the students' education level in order to choose the appropriate feedback types. the second one is wei and wu (2020)'s research. they used ellis's typology and borg's theory to investigate the strategies used by second language teachers in correcting and giving feedback on student writing tests. there were 254 lecturers from vietnam, china and https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, h. u. n, duong l. n. t., & pham, v. p. h. vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 24 thailand who participated in the survey. quantitative and qualitative analyses of survey data were carried out, and the results of the study showed that teachers would adopt various strategies such as high requirements, low requirements, and no feedback based on different reasons. their findings show that the personal and contextual factors have a significant impact on teachers' corrective written feedback. as mentioned above, the methodology of the other research group is mainly made up of surveys, interviews, and/or existing data. amrhein and nassaji (2010) compared the similar and different perceptions between lecturers and students about different types and amounts of written corrective feedback (wcf). a total of 64 respondents, including 33 adult esl students and 31 esl teachers in five different classes from two language schools, took part in the study. data were collected by using both quantitative and qualitative methods to find out participants' views and their reasons given about the different types and amounts of wcf. quantitative data were gathered using a closed-ended questionnaire as a likert scale. qualitative data were also gathered through open-ended questions to elicit further information about why instructors and students preferred a specific kind or quantity of feedback. as a result, the learners thought wcf most useful when they received as many as possible mistakes corrections. in contrast, the instructors categorized the mistakes and focused on important ones to save time. the students liked the feedback with mistakes, and corrections with a comment, while the teachers wanted them to self-correction. both the learners and instructors agreed that wcf played an important role in grammatical mistakes, punctuation mistakes, spelling mistakes, and vocabulary mistakes, though there was some disagreement about the effect of wcf on content and idea. furthermore, the study included a small group of people, so additional research on a larger scale in various educational settings is needed. ferris et al. (2013) investigated the effect of written corrective feedback (wcf) in a u.s. university. ten non-native students wrote four texts in the esl writing class over a 16-week semester. after writing, they received wcf to revise each text. three interviews were conducted after the first three writing texts respectively and revisions. the authors used a qualitative method with a multiple-case study design. student surveys, four texts with mistake marks and revision sessions per student, the four essay prompts used to produce the texts, three retrospective interviews per participant, and a teacher interview were among the gathered data. in this research, the individual factors such as external limitations (busy schedules) and internal qualities (attitude, confidence) affected the benefits of feedback and teaching. moreover, the students valued the personalized and interactive teaching and learning offered by the feedback and interview cycles. based primarily on the topic related to the effectiveness of wcf in improving grammatical writing skills in second language learning. kang and han (2015) used a meta-analysis analytical for their research. they selected 18 published and four unpublished articles that matched their high requirements for quality to find their research results. their results suggested that wcf had a significant effect on improving second language learning, but the acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 25 effect was influenced by a number of specific factors such as learner skills, context, and the type of article. chen, nassaji and liu (2016) conducted a study to discover efl students' different perceptions and attitudes from different study backgrounds towards written corrective feedback (wcf). the data was collected from 64 efl students at three levels (intermediate, advanced-intermediate, and advanced) in a university in mainland china. a written questionnaire was used to gather quantitative and qualitative data on participants' views of wcf and the reasons behind such perceptions. closed-ended questionnaire questions with multiple choices or likert scale formats were used to gather quantitative data. open-ended questions were used to gather the qualitative data. the quantitative data were gathered in order to analyze the participants' preferences for grammar education and wcf activities in general. the qualitative data were gathered to learn more about the reasons behind their choices. the findings showed that most students viewed wcf as a positive method to improve their writing, especially grammar. instead of conducting surveys or experiments, mao and lee (2020) selected studies published in renowned academic journals on the topic of wcf in a second language. they then analyzed and synthesized the collected data to obtain results where the collection of data from the point of view of the scope of the response was an extraordinary means for future research. in addition, their study also provided a detailed assessment of the response coverage in the wcf study, adding valuable data to the previous review and synthesis that primarily focused on quantitative research. 2.2. writing teaching approaches in the research fields of writing, there has been a great deal of research on writing teaching methods and their effectiveness. in recent years, due to the expansion of the covid-19 epidemic, learning through technology-based has been a major subject in scientific research circles. tran and nguyen (2021) explored the problems with students' writing ability due to limitations in cognition, emotion, and social interaction. then, they used technology-based communication as a new writing teaching method and discovered that the new method improved students' writing performances and the students' attitudes toward writing. their research also said that much of the feedback on students' writings focuses mainly on cognitive elements of writing. due to the increase in using technology and demands for using mobile devices for online learning, le (2021) conducted a study on english-majored students' attitudes toward using mobile-assisted in learning writing. the research findings showed that the students had positive attitudes towards using mobile devices in learning writing. they believed that mlearning would help look for information and improve accuracy and fluency. as a result, mlearning is a writing teaching method that is ideal for teachers to apply to their writing teaching approaches. because of the development of technology and the negative effects of the covid-19 pandemic, teaching and learning writing using technology devices are trends. https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, h. u. n, duong l. n. t., & pham, v. p. h. vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 26 because this research focuses on the wcf strategies used by efl lecturers at vlu, research on efl learners learning writing strategies would be extremely beneficial to the research's literature evaluation. tran (2021) investigated the self-regulated learning (srl) techniques vlu efl students use when learning writing. mai conducted research on a cross-sectional explanatory design using questionnaires and interviews to gather data with the purpose of determining what srl techniques students at van lang university commonly apply, as well as the challenges they confront when employing various srl strategies. the study's findings revealed that using srl methods assisted learners in improving their writing skills. she also stated that both instructors and students must participate. she also stressed the importance of both instructors and students working together to improve students' writing performances. she also stated that instructors should train or give more opportunities for their students to improve their time management and approach. in summary, all of the above articles are perfectly organized, and their results have contributed greatly to the improvement of writing corrective feedback strategies. although they have different types of approaches and are taken at different times, their results do not appear to be significantly different. most of the above research results show that written corrective feedback has a significant impact on improving second language learning, but this impact is affected by many specific factors, such as the academic level of teachers, skills of students, context, and type of language. they also note that the more feedback students receive, the more their writing skills will improve. these studies also show that it is important for teachers to choose appropriate written corrective feedback strategies for students of different levels and educational settings. 2.3. research questions 1. what are the most common strategies applied when providing wcf on the online platform? 2. what is the most influential factor in choosing a wcf strategy on an online platform? 3. methods 3.1 pedagogical setting & participants the survey was conducted at the faculty of foreign languages of van lang university, established in the early days of the university's establishment. the faculty of foreign languages of van lang university currently offers two bachelor's programs: english language and chinese language. there are five majors in the bachelor of english language program: english for teaching, english for business, english for tourism, english for translation and interpretation, and english chinese for business. due to the high demands on the quality of teaching, all of the faculty of foreign languages participants have a master's degree and/or higher and have extensive experience in teaching english. particularly, the authors sent our survey to 40 efl lecturers and received 30 answers acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 27 in two weeks. in fact, nearly all of the participants have been teaching english for more than five years, accounting for 90%, with 13 teachers (43.3%) reporting that they have been efl teachers for more than ten years. all the respondents already gave the wcf on students when teaching online. the male and female respondents accounted for 40% and 60%, respectively. there are 25 vlu lecturers (83.3%) who give more than three writing assignments throughout the semester since nearly three-quarters (70%) give assignments every week. more than half of the lecturers give assignments for both group work and individual work made up 56.7%, followed by individual work (33.3%), and only 10% in total give writing assignments for group work only. 3.2 design of the study the research instrument sets comprised 16 questions, including both closed and open-ended ones. the first two questions are designed as multiple-choice questions to collect personal information about respondents, including their gender and teaching time. from questions 3 to 7, the authors also use the multiple-choice form. authors ask if they have ever taught writing in english through online platforms if they provide feedback on their students’ writing tasks, if they give the assignments to students by group work or individual work, their frequency of giving writing assignments, and the number of assignments. in the next six questions, the authors also use multiple-choice questions. authors ask our participants if they have ever taught writing in english through an online platform if they provide feedback on students' writing assignments if they assign assignments to students through group or individual assignments, and authors ask them about the frequency and number of writing assignments they give students at any given time. the last three questions in our survey are designed as multiple-choice questions of the checklist type. for collecting information on issues like common student mistakes, feedback strategies, and factors affected by wcf strategies, checklist types can help respondents make decisions among the many options listed. in the final part of the questionnaire, the authors use five open-ended questions to know the respondents' true attitude on the mentioned issues. 3.3 data collection & analysis to illustrate the collected data, the authors utilize pie charts, bar charts as figures, and statistical tables. the data is then analyzed using the average calculation and analysis of variance to answer two questions regarding the wcf technique the participating lecturers used when teaching online and the factors that impact their method choice. authors utilize both open-ended and closed-ended questions in the mailed questionnaire to gather information, so the collected data would be evaluated in multiple ways. the data gathered are much trustworthy because all of the respondents are experienced and competent instructors. specifically, the ratio of male to female respondents is 2/3, and 90% of them have been teaching english for more than five years. fig 3.2 illustrates that 46.7 percent (blue) have five to ten years of experience teaching english, while 44.3 (green) percent have more than ten years of experience as efl lecturers. https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, h. u. n, duong l. n. t., & pham, v. p. h. vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 28 fig. 3.1. gender of participants fig. 3.2. teaching experience of participants our research focuses on the wcf techniques used by instructors at van lang university's faculty of foreign languages. the authors design a question that requires respondents to choose from various response alternatives. there are eight available wcf strategies, and respondents are able to add any methods. according to fig. 3.3, the most used wcf method is "correct common errors," chosen by 73% of surveyors. the other two methods, "peer correction and direct feedback", account for 73.3%. "students respond to feedback required," according to half of the study respondents, is one of the strategies they employ while teaching english writing online. the remaining strategies are "indirect feedback", "electronic feedback", "metalinguistic feedback correction", and "correct all the mistakes", which are picked by 33.6%, 26.6%, 20%, and 20% of the total poll respondents, respectively. fig. 3.3. some common online wcf strategies applied in vlu university male 40 % female 60 % gender male female 10 % 47 % 43 % years of teaching experience 2 to under 5 years 5 to 10 years more than 10 years 22 11 6 23 22 6 8 15 0 5 10 15 20 25 direct feedback indirect feedback correct all of the errors correct common errors peer correction metalinguistic feeback correction electronic feedback students respond to fb required the number of participants choosing each wcf strategy perspective acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 29 the authors inquire about the elements that influence the techniques vlu's foreign languages faculty lecturers use to provide feedback on their students' english writing online and receive responses shown in fig. 3.4. more than 50% of the lecturers choose “target of the course”, “time allowed”, “students’ levels”, “students' weaknesses”, "learning experiences", and “personal teaching experience” as the influenced factors. specifically, “students’ levels” and “personal teaching experience” earn 70% of the lecturers' votes, whereas “students’ weaknesses” and “learning experiences” receive 66.6% of the votes. fig. 3.4. some common factors influence wcf strategies one factor that is frequently recognized as having a significant impact on the selection of wcf methods based on the common mistakes that students make. according to the statistics in fig. 3.4, 2/3 of the questioned lecturers admit that they pick the suitable wcf technique based on students' weaknesses. according to the data collected, students' most common mistake when learning english writing through online platforms is "grammatical correctness," with 93.3 percent of the teachers picking this option. fig. 3.5. common mistakes of vlu students 13 28 20 19 25 22 13 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 task response grammatical accuracy quality of argument structures syntactic complexity unconvincing evidence vocabulary text length the number of lecturers choosing each option prospectively 21 20 13 20 21 17 7 16 12 0 5 10 15 20 25 personal teaching experience learning experiences training experiences students’ weaknesses students' levels time allowed school syllabus the target of the course available resources the number of respondents choosing each factor's perspective https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, h. u. n, duong l. n. t., & pham, v. p. h. vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 30 in addition, fig. 3.5 also shows that other options, including "unconvincing evidence", "vocabulary", "quality of argument structures", and "syntactic complexity," are likewise regarded as common student mistakes by the majority of the lecturers. fig. 3.6 the frequency of giving online writing assignments the number of assignments that teachers give to students will have an effect on how teachers give feedback, so the authors examine the frequency of online writing tasks. each writing course at van lang university's faculty of foreign languages generally lasts around ten weeks. the number of writing assignments in each writing module may vary depending on various circumstances, but according to the data collected, the majority of teachers (72%; in green) provide pupils with writing tasks every week, and 21% (blue) give writing assignments to their students per two weeks. fig. 3.7 the effectiveness of online wcf 72 % 21 % other 7 % per week per two weeks other 7 % 63 % 30 % excellent good average poor acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 31 learning writing online as opposed to face-to-face learning causes changes that both students and teachers must adapt to learn effectively. the authors decide to study the efficacy of studying writing using an online platform since the inability to physically engage and continue working with the computer may produce certain pressures. and the result is, according to fig. 3.7, 63% (orange) of teachers still believe the online writing program is successful, and 7% (blue) believe it is extremely effective. however, 30% of instructors believe that the effectiveness of teaching writing online is at an average level (green). table 3.1. some considerations of vlu lecturers for effective online wcf considerations count % learning platform 3 10 teachers’ responsibility 13 43.33 students’ responsibility 8 26.67 teacher-student collaboration 3 10 others 3 10 table 3.1 shows that some considerations are given by vlu lecturers when providing wcf to students on the online platform. three teachers (10% of the respondents) commented that the system and the learning platform need upgrading. also, it is critical to use various online tools to assess the students’ work. teachers’ responsibility is the most important factor in the effectiveness of the online wcf, with 13 participants (43.33% of the total) agreement. teachers have to deal with the burden of a high workload throughout the course to track students' progress. firstly, teachers must provide a clear scoring rubric and explain the course objective to students before the course. then they have to instruct students to add submissions and read the feedback on the platform. to adapt to teaching writing online, teachers are required to have a lot of experience, patience, dedication, skills, and knowledge. when providing wcf online, teachers follow some rules to correct students’ writing assignments and help them to clarify their problems. firstly, they randomly pick some writing assignments, correct common mistakes, and let the students conduct self-correct mistakes by themselves or by peer correction. the feedback needs to be simultaneous and concise and focuses on the content and structures. besides, lecturers should be responsive and prompt to students' work and give regular assignments for better assessment. also, some teachers use some oral feedback by recording to make sure students fully understand their comments. eight vlu teachers (26.67% of the respondents) claim that students are mostly responsible for effective online wcf. first of all, the students need to take the feedback into more serious consideration. the suggestion is that after receiving feedback, students correct responses and reassess their writings. after this process, they will improve their writing and broaden their knowledge. the readiness of both teachers and students to adapt to the online wcf is necessary. three teachers (10% of the respondents) state that boundary setting, empathy, and cooperation between lecturers and learners are crucial for effective online wcf. finally, three teachers (10% of the respondents) mentioned some other factors apart from teachers and students, such as class size and technical problems. https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, h. u. n, duong l. n. t., & pham, v. p. h. vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 32 table 3.2 the advantages of online wcf advantages count % convenience 13 43.33 quick feedback 9 30 effectiveness 6 20 others 2 6.67 regarding the advantages of the online wcf, table 3.2 reveals that 13 respondents (43.33% of the participants) agree that providing corrective feedback through online platforms is flexible and convenient. lecturers can correct students' work whenever they have time and wherever they are and organize students' work effectively. all online feedback can store as a reference for students, which is permanently available for them to revise. the students can review the lesson better and improve their level of academic performance. also, 9 vlu teachers (30% of the total) admit that students can receive feedback faster when giving wcf online. also, students’ mistakes can be noted and recognized clearly, which are easier to read compared to handwriting. thanks to the quick feedback, learners will revise their writing work better. besides, 6 participants (20% of the teachers) notice that students feel less nervous when receiving and responding to teachers' online wcf. they are more aware of their mistakes and easier to improve. these factors help improve students writing to meet the course objective. the last two respondents (6.67% of the answers) mention other benefits of online wcf, such as progress tracking and various online tools. these instruments help the teacher target students' mistakes and provide constructive feedback on their writing performance. it also saves time in giving feedback during the process of writing and in grading the final products. table 3.3 the disadvantages of online wcf disadvantages count % plagiarism 3 10 time consuming 8 26.67 face-to-face interaction 5 16.67 misunderstanding 4 13.33 class organization 3 10 unproductive 4 13.33 others 3 10 as can be seen in table 3.3, there are a variety of drawbacks that vlu lectures deal with when providing wcf online. the most common problem is time-consuming, with eight respondents (26.67% of the participants) experiencing the fact that wcf on multi-modal texts from students can bring more challenges to teachers because of the heavy workload and time constraints. teachers need a large amount of time and patience to give feedback on all students' assignments. five teachers (16.67% of the respondents) claim that the practice of wcf online lacks human interaction. no face-to-face communication can cause some acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 33 confusion and call for clarification. they have to give “impersonal" feedback, which creates a sense of isolation. also, four respondents (13.33% of the total) admit that wcf online is unproductive. there are some limitations in giving wcf to some grammatical areas, and ineffective for low-tech or weak students. besides, three lecturers (10% of the respondents) state that plagiarism is a challenging issue to address. another three teachers (10% of the respondents) claim that class organization depends on students' engagement and cooperation, which means teachers have difficulty controlling the class and monitoring students. also, four lecturers (13.33% of the total) admit that there are some misunderstandings between teachers and learners when giving wcf online, which leads their students to ignore their feedback. finally, 3 participants (10% of the respondents) mentioned some external factors when providing online wcf, such as wifi connection or eye disease. table 3.4 vlu students’ responses to wcf online students’ responses count % positive 13 43.33 average 7 23.33 negative 7 23.33 method 3 10 the open-ended question about student responses when studying online receives a lot of positive feedback, as revealed in the table 3.4. 13 vlu teachers (43.33% of the respondents) report that their students are active and satisfied when replying to their wcf online. they often ask for more questions about the mistakes to correct and rewrite the essays. however, seven lecturers (23,33% of the participants) answered that just some of their learners read their wcf carefully and asked them to clarify the feedback to provide better answers. others easily accept their feedback or ignore it. they just submit their work and commit the mistakes again after getting wcf. regarding group work, some students cooperate well, and some do not work. moreover, 7 participants (23.33% of the respondents) comment that they find their students uninterested and insufficient when learning online. they have no comments, rarely ask for further explanation, and work on wcf with reluctance. finally, three lecturers (10% of the total) give information about some common ways that learners respond to their wcf by typing in on chatbox, voicing their opinions, or using the icons. 4. findings and discussion due to the covid 19 expansion, e-learning is the only solution that will allow us to continue studying without interruption. this study aims to investigate the wcf techniques used by vlu lecturers to assist students in improving their writing. research question 1: what are the most often used wcf strategies for an online writing class? according to the statistics given in fig. 3.3, the most common wcf technique used by vlu lecturers is "correct common mistakes."the lecturers detect the common mistakes that the https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, h. u. n, duong l. n. t., & pham, v. p. h. vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 34 majority of the students frequently make and give solutions to correct these mistakes. this technique is chosen by 23/30 participants, accounting for 76.6 percent of the total. in a different context, in response to the question about variables influencing feedback, 56.6 percent of participants stated that they picked the suitable wcf technique based on the time allowed. perhaps this is why the "correct common mistakes" is the most popular technique at van lang university's faculty of foreign languages. 22/30 participants, or 73.3 percent, choose "peer correction then teacher correction" and "direct feedback” as their wcf strategies to provide feedback online to their students in writing class. direct feedback means teachers point out students’ faults in writing and offer strategies to assist them better. the advantage of this technique is that students become more aware of the faults they frequently make. in the "peer correction then teacher correction" technique, the instructors allow students to point out and correct each other's faults. then teachers examine the tasks again, give comments, and recommend ways to improve. this technique encourages students to be more active while studying. besides, addressing their peers’ writing mistakes is a good way to improve their writing skills proactively. half of the surveyed lecturers chose the technique "students reply to requested feedback." after getting comments from the teacher, pupils must edit their work. teachers determine if students have comprehended the directions and provide students more opportunities to practice writing. the remaining options, "indirect feedback," "electronic feedback," "metalinguistic feedback correction," and "correct all mistakes," are not as popular among surveyed participants, with just 20% to 36.6 percent of total votes. the authors use the 𝑋 formula below to get each respondent's average number of wcf methods. as a result, the authors find that each survey participant employs a mix of more than three wcf strategies on average, which means students receive writing feedback in various ways, making their learning process more pleasant and successful. research question 2: what is the most influential factor in choosing wcf strategy on an online platform? the authors ask respondents what variables influence their decision to approach wcf, and authors receive answers like fig. 3.4. according to the data collected, "personal teaching experience" is one of the most common factors, with 70% of voters for it. for that reason, the authors tabulate table 4.1 to check if there are any variations in the use of wcf techniques among groups of teachers with varying years of teaching experience. table 4.1 shows that there is a difference in the wcf technique utilized by groups 1 and 2 compared to group 3. if authors merge groups 1 and 2, authors will get a group of lecturers with fewer than ten years of teaching experience. the most commonly used wcf method in this mixed group is "correct common mistakes". in the group of lecturers with more than ten years of teaching experience, the most common method is direct feedback. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 35 table 4.1. the wcf strategies are applied by the three groups, separated by teachers’ years of experience wcf strategies direct feedback indirect feedback correct all the mistakes correct common mistakes peer correction then teacher correction metalingu istic feedback correction electronic feedback students respond to fb required years of teachi ng experi ence 2<x<5 (1) 1 3 2 2 row percen t 33.3% 100% 66.6% 66.6% 5<=x<= 10 (2) 9 5 3 11 11 5 6 2 row percen t 64.3% 35.7% 21.4% 78.6% 78.6% 35.7% 42.9% 14.3% >10 (3) 11 5 2 8 8 2 6 3 row percen t 84.6% 38.5% 14.4% 61.5% 61.5% 14.4% 46.2% 23.1% * x: the years of teaching experience table 4.1 indicates that while teaching writing online, the majority of instructors from 2 to less than five years of experience and the majority of teachers from 5 to 10 years of experience utilize the "correct common mistakes" strategy. however, among teachers with five to ten years of experience, the "peer correction then teacher correction" technique is also often applied. the majority of lecturers with more than ten years of experience favor "direct feedback," although the two techniques "correct common mistakes" and "peer correction then teacher correction" also obtain a significant proportion of votes. next, the authors utilize one-way anova, a statistical approach, to examine whether there are variations in the number of wcf methods employed by instructors in groups with varying years of teaching experience. https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, h. u. n, duong l. n. t., & pham, v. p. h. vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 36 table 4.2. the summary of the calculation of subgroup statistics for variables within categories. group count sum average variance >10 (group 3) 13 45 3.461538 3.769231 5<=x<=10 (group 2) 14 52 3.714286 2.527473 2<x<5 (group 1) 3 9 3 1 there are three different groups: lecturers from 2 to less than 5 years of experience (group1), lecturers from 5 to 10 years of experience (group 2), and lecturers with more than 10 years (group 3) of teaching experience. particularly, the total number of types of feedback used by group 1 is 9. on average, each participant use three different types of feedback. in group 2, the total number of types of feedback used is 52. on average, each person uses 3.7 different types of feedback. for group 3, the total number of types of feedback used is 45. on average, each person uses 3.5 different types of feedback. table 4.3. anova source of variation ss df ms f p-value f crit between groups 1.378754579 2 0.689377 0.232409 0.794191 3.354131 within groups 80.08791209 27 2.966219 total 81.46666667 29 as can be seen in table 4.3, f value is less than f crit in this case (0.232409 < 3.354131), thus, the null hypothesis is accepted. it indicates that the numbers of wcf methods used by the lecturers in different groups are quite similar. the ultimate result is that the number of wcf techniques used by the lecturers is not different based on teachers’ years of teaching experience. next, the authors tabulate table 4.4 to examine if there is any difference in wcf techniques used by instructors when students work independently (group 1), in groups (group 2), and both (group 3). the results show that the teachers in group 1 use various methods, but there is little overlap in the methods employed. only two methods were not used, and half of the participants in this group chose the most used methods. group 2 also has various wcf methods, but there is an overlap in methods applied. according to table 4.4, 6/8 methods are used by two-thirds of the lecturers in this group. people in group 3 utilize a range of wcf methods as well because the data reveal that just one method is not used. the three approaches utilized by the teachers in this group are “peer correction then teacher correction”, “correct common mistakes”, and “direct feedback”. in conclusion, there is little variation in the number and kind of wcf methods used by trainers from these groups. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 37 table 4.4. the wcf strategies are applied by the three groups, separated by types of assignments wcf strategies indirect feedback correct all the mistakes correct common mistakes peer correction then teacher correction metalinguisti c feedback correction electronic feedback students respond to fb required types of assignmen ts individual (1) 0 3 5 4 2 3 0 row percent 0.00% 30.00% 50.00% 40.00% 20.00% 30.00% 0.00% group (2) 2 2 2 2 0 1 2 row percent 66.67% 66.67% 66.67% 66.67% 0.00% 33.33% 66.67% both (3) 6 0 15 16 5 10 3 row percent 34.49% 0.00% 88.24% 94.12% 29.41% 58.82% 17.65% this research aims to find out the most common wcf methods used by teachers when teaching writing online and the factors that affect their choices. the results will serve as a reference for those who wish to apply the wcf method to teach writing online. in addition, based on the above results, readers will better understand the wcf methods used and the factors that influence the choice of these methods. the findings of the study accord with earlier relevant studies on the recognition of the effectiveness of wcf, indicating that efl teachers utilize a combination of three different wcf tactics on average to assist their students in developing their writing skills, and the strategies are successful. the findings are in line with previous research papers’ findings that the factors that affected how teachers used particular wcf strategies are personal factors and factors related to students’ writing levels. the research findings also increase the diversity of wcf strategy research, especially the wcf strategy in online teaching, during the spread of the covid19 epidemic. 5. conclusion in conclusion, based on fig. 3.3 and the preceding data, the most common online wcf strategy applied by van lang university's faculty of foreign languages lecturers while teaching writing online is "correct common mistakes." according to the lecturers in fig. 3.4 and the study above, some elements that have the largest effect on the choice of wcf method are "personal teaching experience" and "students' level". based on the analysis, it can be concluded that when most lecturers in the faculty of foreign languages of van lang university conduct online teaching, they mainly rely on their personal teaching experience to https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, h. u. n, duong l. n. t., & pham, v. p. h. vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 38 the method of "correct common mistakes" to give feedback to efl students. this technique can utilize the limited time in each writing class to provide feedback to all students, so all students' writing can be corrected. in addition, the teacher's survey also uses a combination of other methods to support students more effectively. due to the global outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic, this research paper becomes a timely complement to the topic of wcf strategies. it serves as a resource for many teachers who are willing to teach writing online. in comparison to previous research, the findings of this paper have further supported the topic of wcf, which provides readers with more practical facts about the situation of the spreading epidemic and makes e-learning necessary. in comparison to previous relevant studies, this research supports the notion that wcf has a good impact on writing instruction and learning. all in all, there are some limitations in our study that should be addressed. there are 30 vlu lecturers who conduct our survey, which is quite a small research scale. our scale is in the faculty of foreign language, where teachers use english mostly to give wcf to students. besides, the authors focus on the wcf strategies applied in writing assignments – a small aspect requires wcf. due to the covid-19 pandemic, vlu teachers have just been switching to the online platform for a short amount of time, so the long-term effects of different wcf strategies need to be taken into consideration. the results of the study will contribute to the existing literature on wcf strategies and provide additional information on how wcf should be applied through online platforms. based on the analysis of data provided by experienced teachers, the research's findings are reference resources for young teachers who are inexperienced in applying wcf strategies when teaching via online platforms. besides, because of the spread of the covid-19 pandemic, e-learning is the most popular used learning method in vietnam. the information from the research will be the latest and the most appropriate for reference to apply in places where elearning is used for the first time as a form of formal teaching. furthermore, based on the results, the other researchers will know the most popular strategies are used, and then they can research the effectiveness of these wcf strategies when applying to teaching l2 to vietnamese students. future research which studies the effectiveness of different wcf strategies on the online platform should employ a longitudinal design to examine the improvement of their students' writings. from their performance, authors can find out the most effective wcf strategy when learning online. besides, students should be provided with different types of wcf strategies to decide which one is the most suitable for them. different levels of students may adapt to different wcf strategies, so future research can develop more about the factors that influence the wcf methods used by teachers. acknowledgement the authors of this article acknowledged the support of van lang university at 69/68 dang thuy tram st., ward 13, binh thanh dist., ho chi minh city, vietnam. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 39 references amrhein, h. r., & nassaji, h. (2010). written corrective feedback: what do students and teachers think is right and why?. canadian journal of applied linguistics, 13(2), 95–127. retrieved from https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/cjal/article/view/19886 bitchener, j. (2008). evidence in support of written corrective feedback. journal of second language writing, 17(2), 102–118. doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2007.11.004 bitchener, j., & knoch, u. (2009). the value of a focused approach to written corrective feedback. elt journal, 63(3), 204–211. doi:10.1093/elt/ccn043 bitchener, j., & knoch, u. (2009). the contribution of written corrective feedback to language development: a ten-month investigation. applied linguistics, 31(2), 193214. doi:10.1093/applin/amp016 chen, s., nassaji, h., & liu, q. (2016). efl learners’ perceptions and preferences of written corrective feedback: a case study of university students from mainland china. asianpacific journal of second and foreign language education, 1(1), 1-17. ferris, d. r. (2004). the ‘‘grammar correction’’ debate in l2 writing: where are we, and where do authors go from here? (and what do authors do in the meantime...?). journal of second language writing, 13, 49–62. ferris, d. r. (2006). does mistakes feedback help student writers? new evidence on the shortand long-term effects of written mistakes correction. in k. hyland & f. hyland (eds.), perspectives on response. cambridge: cambridge university press. ferris, d. r., liu, h., sinha, a., & senna, m. (2013). written corrective feedback for individual l2 writers. journal of second language writing, 22(3), 307–329. doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2012.09.009 hosseiny, m. (2014). the role of direct and indirect written corrective feedback in improving iranian efl students’ writing skill. procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 98, 668-674. kang, e., & han, z. (2015). the efficacy of written corrective feedback in improving l2 written accuracy: a meta-analysis. the modern language journal, 99(1), 1–18. doi:10.1111/modl.12189 kılıçkaya, f. (2019). pre-service language teachers’ online written corrective feedback preferences and timing of feedback in computer-supported l2 grammar instruction. computer assisted language learning, 1-26. le, m. t. (2021). students’ attitude towards using smartphones and portable devices for studying writing. international journal of tesol & education, 1(3), 54–64. retrieved from http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/13 https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/cjal/article/view/19886 https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/cjal/article/view/19886 https://asiacall.info/acoj nguyen, h. u. n, duong l. n. t., & pham, v. p. h. vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 40 lira-gonzales, m.-l., & nassaji, h. (2020). the amount and usefulness of written corrective feedback across different educational contexts and levels. tesl canada journal, 37(2), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v37i2.1333 mao, z., & lee, i. (2020). feedback scope in written corrective feedback: analysis of empirical research in l2 contexts. assessing writing, 45, 100469. doi:10.1016/j.asw.2020.100469 nakamura, s. (2018). insights from studies on written corrective feedback: implications for language pedagogy. reflections, 22, 89-102. retrieved from https://so05.tcithaijo.org/index.php/reflections/article/view/112330 shintani, n., & aubrey, s. (2016). the effectiveness of synchronous and asynchronous written corrective feedback on grammatical accuracy in a computer-mediated environment. the modern language journal, 100(1), 296– 319. doi:10.1111/modl.12317 tran, t. m. l., & nguyen, t. t. h. (2021). the impacts of technology-based communication on efl students’ writing. asiacall online journal, 12(5), 54-76. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/80 tran, t. t. m. (2021). use of self-regulated learning strategies in paragraph writing at van lang university. international journal of tesol & education, 1(3), 1–13. retrieved from http://i-jte.org/index.php/journal/article/view/80 truscott, j. (1996). the case against grammar correction in l2 writing classes. language learning, 46, 327–369 wang, t., & jiang, l. (2015). studies on written corrective feedback: theoretical perspectives, empirical evidence, and future directions. english language teaching, 8(1), 110-120. wei, w., & cao, y. (. (2020, july-september). written corrective feedback strategies employed by university english lecturers: a teacher cognition perspective. sage journals, 10(3), 1-12. retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/2158244020934886 yu, s., zhang, y., zheng, y., & lin, z. (2020). written corrective feedback strategies in english-chinese translation classrooms. the asia-pacific education researcher, 29(2), 101-111. https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v37i2.1333 https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v37i2.1333 https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/80 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 41 biodata nhi nguyen huyen uyen is a final-year student majoring in the english language at van lang university. due to the high demands of coursework and her interest in research, she has been doing some scientific research. she also had a research paper published in the assiacall online journal. because she had little experience in conducting research, each of her research papers was supervised by her professors, who had substantial research experience. contact mail: uyennhi09012000@gmail.com tam duong ly nhat is a junior student majoring in the english language at van lang university. because of the requests for her degree, she has been doing scientific research. moreover, she had a research paper published in the assiacall online journal. because she had little experience in doing research, she was guided by professors with extensive research experience in her conducting research process. contact mail: duonglynhattam@gmail.com associate professor dr. pham vu phi ho is an assoc. dean of the faculty of foreign languages, van lang university, vietnam. he used to be a vice-president of ba ria – vung tau university, and vice-president and dean of faculty of foreign languages of van hien university, vietnam. pham has been published 56 research articles in both local and international journals (isi/scopus-indexed), and 8 books and course-books, 2 course-books were used for undergrad students at hcmc open university, vn, and one course-book was used for both the undergraduate and graduate level at lourdes college, higher education department, cagayan de oro city, philippines. he is the vice president for administrative affairs of the asiacall and the managing editor of its online journal. he is now the editorin-chief of the international journal of tesol & education. he is also an editor for the asian journal of applied linguistics (scopus), an editor for the world journal of english language (scopus), and a peer reviewer for some international journals indexed in isi/scopus such as computer assisted language learning, open sage, international journal of instruction. his main interests include academic writing, peer responses, translation, teaching methodologies, and technology-enhanced learning. mailto:uyennhi09012000@gmail.com asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, trần thị thơm building classroom games via multimedia trần thị thơm danang architecture university, vietnam thomfiat@gmail.com abstract for a teacher, an effective and successful lesson plan is the one that can help students not only master their knowledge, create new skills but also develop their own interest in learning. therefore, teachers must always invest a lot of their time and effort in building interesting lesson plans. one of the ways of creating such lesson plans is using games in teaching process. thanks to multimedia, teachers themselves can design competitive and challenging games that make students feel fun when engaging in their learning activities. as such, “building classroom games via multimedia” has been chosen as the topic for this paper. this paper aims at presenting some useful sources of materials especially from the internet that teachers can use for reference when preparing their lessons. then, it shows the flexible combination of multimedia in class. finally, it makes productions of some techniques in using multimedia through powerpoint such as using macros, visual basic editor etc. we believe that the findings of this paper can bring positive effects in teaching and learning english. keywords: call, classroom games, multimedia, websites 1. introduction according to ur (1988), the actual language production is in hands of the learners, the teachers merely providing instructions and materials and acting as a monitor and helper. it means that learners need to participate actively in class; in other word, it is active learning. when we discuss active learning in the classroom, it is understood that lecture is still important – the foundational knowledge required for students to be able to engage in higher level thinking is essential. however, for the sake of maintaining student interest, and facilitating meaningful, and eventually self-directed learning, it can be very helpful to vary the teaching and learning activities you employ in the classroom (cited from celt teaching tip sheet, p.1). there are a wide range of activities used both inside and outside the classroom that promote active learning and one of them is using games. furthermore, nowadays, with the aids of multimedia, it seems easier for teachers to create effective activities in order to make learning fun and interesting both for the learners and teachers. as such, in this paper we will deal with the factor of building classroom games via multimedia so that it can support teachers in their language teaching. 2. roles of classroom games in language teaching in the introduction of the book “games for language learning”, andrew wright, david betteridge and michael buckby (1984) states that language learning is hard work. one must make an effort to understand, to repeat accurately, to adapt and to use newly understood language in conversation and in written composition. effort is required at every moment and must be maintained over a long period of time. games help and encourage many learners to sustain their interest and work. in addition, wright et al also affirm that games also help the teacher to create contexts in which the language is useful and meaningful. games provide one way of helping the learners to experience language rather than merely study it. moreover, lee su kim, writing in forum journal in 1995, sums up the perception that the classroom is considered by many to be no place for games. these ones think that all learning should be serious and mailto:thomfiat@gmail.com asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, trần thị thơm solemn in nature, and that if one is having fun and there is hilarity and laughter, then it is not really learning. however, su kim asserts that this is a misconception. he states it is possible to learn a language as well as enjoy oneself at the same time. one of the best ways of doing this is through games. furthermore, he reasserts the points: there are many advantages of using games in the classroom:  games are a welcome break from the usual routine of the language class. they are motivating and challenging.  learning a language requires a great deal of effort. games help students to make and sustain the effort of learning.  games provide language practice in the various skillsspeaking, writing, listening and reading.  they encourage students to interact and communicate.  they create a meaningful context for use. in short, there is no doubt that using games in class brings a lot of benefits for language learning and teaching. therefore, when teachers prepare language activities for their lessons, games should be taken into account. nevertheless, they should keep in mind that games are used not only for mere fun, but more importantly, for the useful practice and review of language lessons, thus leading toward the goal of improving learners’ communicative competence. (nguyen thi thanh huyen and khuat thi thu nga, writing in the asian efl journal in 2003) 3. what is multimedia? according to tannenbaum (1998), “multimedia” is derived from a shortening of the two words “multiple” and “media”. in addition, alan cutting (2011) asserts that the term “media” have been long used in the field of education. however, it sometimes only referred to “audio-visual aids”, to help our teaching.. also, fenrich (1997) defines that multimedia is the exciting combination of computer hardware and software that allows you to integrate video, animation, audio, graphics, and test resources to develop effective presentations on an affordable desktop computer. as a result, when concerning about using multimedia to build classroom games, this paper will focus on using applications of computer software especially microsoft powerpoint to achieve this. 4. building classroom games via multimedia 4.1. preparation for building games first of all, it is really important for teachers to determine the stages of the lesson in which games will be used. they just need a warm-up game – game used to activate students at the beginning of the class, a practicing gamegame used after each part of the lessons, or a lesson game – game used together with the lesson being taught. when keeping this in mind, they can choose suitable games for their lessons. the next step is that teachers need to gather all the materials related to their lesson. it is essential that teachers equip themselves with variety of materials. materials can be taken from textbooks, from reference books or from the internet. last but not least, how to tie all these materials together to make a fun game should be taken into account. 4.1.1. useful sources of materials apart from the materials teachers can take from the textbooks, teacher’s books, from the school library; there is the internet, this is, without a doubt, the biggest resource of all, and is capable of providing a wealth of learning experiences to all students. with only google search tool, teachers can catch a huge source of materials such as video files, audio files, word files, portable files, picture files etc. therefore, in this part of the paper, there will be the introduction of useful books and websites which teachers can use as reference materials. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, trần thị thơm first, there are some good game books which help teachers to have the ideas for building games. 1. fun with grammar, communicative activities for the azar grammar series by suzanne w. woodward, prentice hall regents, 1997. 2. “games for language learning” by andrew wright, david betteridge, michael buckby, cambridge university press, 2006. 3. “grammar games, cognitive, affective and drama activities for efl students” by mario rinvolucri, cambridge university press, 1998. 4. “great ideas, listening and speaking activities for students of american english, teacher’s manual” by leo jones & victoria kimbrough, cambridge university press, 1987. 5. “ready-made english, multi-level activities” by kurt scheibner, heinemann publishers (oxford) ltd, 1995. 6. “reward, resource pack, communicative activities for students of english” by susan kay, macmillan publishers limited, 1998. (five levels) 7. “speaking extra, a resource book of multi-level skills activities” by mick gammidge, cambridge university press, 2004. 8. “the great big book of games and puzzles” compiled by anna amari-parker and edited by rebecca gerlings, arcturus publishing limited, 2006. 9. “word games with english, teacher’s resource book” by deirdre howard williams & cynthia herd, macmillan publishers limited, 1998. 10. “zero prep, ready-to-go activities for the language classroom” by laurel pollard and natalie hess, alta book center publisherssan francisco, 1997. the above books contain interesting games as well as interactive activities that can not only help students to practice different skills such as speaking skills, listening skills, reading skills and writing skills but also make them sustain the interest in their learning. there are many other game books, but as for me, these above books are easy to use and applicable to various kinds of lessons with different levels of students. second, some useful websites that provide printable and interactive games and activities are listed below so that teachers can use as sub-materials for their lessons. 1. http://www.michellehenry.fr/default.htm 2. as for me this is one of the best sites for esl materials and this link is for the huge collection of games and other links. busy teachers can find various multimedia with different topics that they can choose for their lessons. 3. http://www.esl-lab.com 4. this is a wonderful site for listening practice, teachers can choose any topics they like with different levels. 5. http://www.eslbase.com 6. this site has a lot of free, downloadable, ready-to-use activities, lesson plans, ideas and worksheets for your classes. 7. http://bogglesworldesl.com 8. this site contains printable teaching resources for language arts, tesol, tefl and esl. 9. http://baladre.info/english/sedaviwebfront/index.htm 10. this site is a very easy way to refresh structures and exercises seen in class. it also has many listening exercises, some with interesting songs. 11. http://www.eslprintables.com 12. this website is the place where english language teachers exchange resources: worksheets, lesson plans, activities, etc. their collection is growing every day with the help of many teachers. teachers can find useful worksheets or powerpoint lessons available for their lesson plans. if they want to download they have to send their own contributions. it means that in http://www.michellehenry.fr/default.htm http://www.esl-lab.com/ http://www.eslbase.com/ http://bogglesworldesl.com/ http://baladre.info/english/sedaviwebfront/index.htm http://www.eslprintables.com/ asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, trần thị thơm order to download available files, teachers have to upload their own files to get the points. the more people download your files, the more points you can get. 13. http://www.isabelperez.com/songs.htm 14. this site contains a list of songs with related activities to practise vocabulary, grammar, sounds, etc. most of them are popular and some others are old songs, but nice and useful. the students can feel fun and relaxed when practicing english with songs. 15. http://www.eslcafe.com/idea/index.cgi?games 16. this is a well-known excellent site that offers alphabetically listed games and how to play them. besides, it also has a forum where teachers can find and share ideas for teaching. 17. http://www.eslflow.com/games1.html 18. this is a must visit site as it has a superb collection of games and downloadable activities for most occasions. 19. http://www.esl-galaxy.com/lessons.htm 20. this is an excellent site with games for all levels. it offers over 2368 free printable worksheets for esl lesson plans and esl activities; and there are more additions every other day. 4.1.2. choosing suitable types of multimedia used in each lesson choosing suitable types of multimedia used in each lesson is a very important step for teachers themselves because this is the key to effective teaching and a critical factor in achieving positive student outcomes. therefore, teachers should pay much attention to selecting applicable multimedia. they should bear in mind if they need to use any movies, videos, audio files, flash files, graphics, animations or they just need a worksheet, or even with only a chalk and a blackboard to build a classroom game or they need to combine all of them. with the reference books and websites recommended above, i think that they will find it easy to create a good game for their class. 4.2. flexible combination of various multimedia 4.2.1. using available worksheets and board games in game books and from the internet as suggested above, there are a wide range of reference materials available on the internet and in activities’ books that teachers can be ready to use in their lessons. these are printable worksheets and board games. it is to say that teachers can make some copies or print them out. 4.2.2. using slides in powerpoint using slides in powerpoint file is a time – saving, visual and interesting way to build a game. teachers can combine multimedia effectively and flexibly. they can insert video files, audio files, flash files, pictures or charts etc. in a powerpoint file. a. using simple and available animations in powerpoint to have a beautiful and useful slide in order to review the previous lesson, teacher can use a definition game. in this game, teachers can check students’ vocabularies which they learned from previous lesson. one member in each group has to define the word and the rest of his or her group has to guess the correct word. the more words they can guess, the more points they can get. http://www.isabelperez.com/songs.htm http://www.eslcafe.com/idea/index.cgi?games http://www.eslflow.com/games1.html http://www.esl-galaxy.com/lessons.htm asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, trần thị thơm in order to save the time of designing slides before class and the time used during language lessons, teachers can design simple slides by making some copies of one or more shapes and animations. it means that they just need to make some basic shapes, add animations for these shapes and then make copies. b. using some more complex functions in powerpoint to make games more interesting apart from simple slides, teachers sometimes also need to make more elaborate ones in order that their slides can fulfill more functions, look more beautiful and especially can be useful for language lessons. for example: when teachers would like to create a warm-up game both to review the previous lesson and to start their new lesson, they can use a guessing game to let students review their knowledge and guess the topic of the new lesson. some macros will be used in these slides to change numbers into letters that show the topic of the new lesson, and to set the scores for each team. besides, in order to practice reading skills, a careful design of slides can help students feel more fun and relaxed with difficult reading lesson. c. using picture, audio, video and flash files in slides teachers can combine various multimedia in powerpoint slides to make their games more exciting and attractive. using pictures in slides is a simple and powerful way of getting students’ attention. when seeing imaginable, decorative, descriptive, informative, contrastive and attractive pictures, students can achieve the goals their teacher wants them to get easily and sometimes feel fun and relaxed with these pictures. in addition to using pictures, teachers can also use sounds in their slides. when inserting audio files in their slides, they don’t need to use the cd player because it’s ready to use in their slides. furthermore, teachers can take a video from class cd rom or download from the internet to use in their class. when watching the video, students can practice listening skills with real situations. more usefully, flash games downloaded from the internet are ready-touse activities which save a lot of time for teachers. they just need to insert into their slides and ask students to practice the language points they are this slide show the example of list of the vocabularies a group has to define. each number has a question and each group will choose the number they like to answer the question. if they have correct answer they get 5 points. click on the name of each group to add their points. (a macro will be run on labels group 1 and group 2 to set the points for each team. students read the statement and choose “true or false”. click on the number to see the statement. each group has 5 sentences. if their answer is correct, their ball will go one step. the group getting to the finishing line first wins the game. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, trần thị thơm learning. three of the following flash games are taken from the website: http://www.michellehenry.fr/default.htm to help students to practice saying the time. in short, with various multimedia in hand and with the use of them flexibly, teachers can find it easy to design interesting, challenging and useful games in their classes. 5. some techniques in using multimedia through powerpoint 5.1. using audio files audio files are means that are often used in slides. however, teachers sometimes have some problem when using these files. one of the frequent trouble is that teachers cannot play the sounds because there is no source of these files. this problem is because when making a copy of a powerpoint file, they don’t remember to copy the media files with them. therefore, the following techniques will help to show this problem. first, the audio files you need to use in your slides have to change their extension into “*.wav” files because only this file type is accepted when using this action. there is some software that can help to change the extension of audio files and the software commonly used is goldwave. you only need to open the file that you want to change the extension, then on the file tab, click save as and choose “*.wav” extension. second, insert this file into your slide and add action. if you use microsoft office powerpoint 2003, choose the shape you need to add an action, then right click on this shape and choose action setting. on mouse click tab, check the box play sound, select other sound then choose the file you need to insert, click ok. from then, whenever and wherever in your file you need to insert this media file, do the same process, because at that time, in the play sound box, this sound is available for you to choose. it means that if you http://www.michellehenry.fr/default.htm asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, trần thị thơm forget to copy the source file, it is not the problem anymore because this sound is always available in this powerpoint file. furthermore, if you use microsoft office powerpoint 2007, in order to turn on the tab action setting, choose the shape you need to add an action, then on the insert tab select action function, the tab action setting will appear and do the same process as in microsoft office powerpoint 2003. 5.2. using video files when inserting a video file directly on a slide, teachers cannot pause at any places of this file. the question is how to solve this problem. first, you need to display the developer tab. to do this, click the microsoft office button , and then click powerpoint options. click popular, and then select the show developer tab in the ribbon check box. second, on developer tab, click symbol more controls in controls group, in the list of controls, click window media player and then click ok, after that drag on the slide to draw the control. next, you can resize the window media player on this slide. finally, on controls group of developer tab, choose properties, then on properties table, copy the path of your video file. when viewing slide show, you only need to click on play symbol to play the video. moreover, if you use microsoft office powerpoint 2003, in order to display more controls symbol, in view tab select toolbars, and then choose control toolbox. the next steps do the same as in microsoft office powerpoint 2007 more importantly, remember to change the path leading to the source files when you make a copy and use them on other computers or you cannot see the video at all. however, in order not to do this action, you need to use some commands in visual basic editor. at first, on control toolbox, click the label symbol or command button symbol, then change the name and the caption of this label or command button by selecting properties on control tool box. second, choose the window media player; click properties to rename the window media player. for example: you change the name of the label into “label1” and the name of the window media player into “wmp”, so the command is as follows: private sub label1_click() wmp.url = activepresentation.path + "\media\whattimeisit.mpg" end sub remember that the powerpoint file and the folder containing media files are at the same level. this means if the path of the powerpoint file time.ppt is “d:\time lesson\time.ppt”, the path of the video file whattimeisit.mpg will be d:\time\lesson\media\whattimeisit.mpg. when making a copy to another computer, you need to remember to copy the entire folder time lesson. if you do so you don’t have to copy and paste the new path for you video file whenever you use it on another computer. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, trần thị thơm if you want to load some videos on the same window media player, you can make more labels and copy the command above, you just need to change the name of you root files on each command. for example: private sub label1_click() wmp.url = activepresentation.path + "\video\warm\kfc_1new.wmv" end sub private sub label2_click() wmp.url = activepresentation.path + "\video\warm\kfc_2new.wmv" end sub 5.3. using flash files sometimes, teachers would like to use some flash files, so they need to do the following actions. first, on the developer tab, in the controls group, click more controls . in the list of controls, click shockwave flash object, click ok, and then drag on the slide to draw the control. second, right-click the shockwave flash object, and then click properties. on the alphabetic tab, click the movie property. in the value column (the blank cell next to movie), type the full drive path, including the file name (for example, d:\time lesson\media\telling_time_gr2.swf). another way is that you can install swiff point player 2.0 software. after install that software, you only need to embed the flash file you want by doing the following steps: first, on add-ins tab, click flash movie in menu commands group, locate the folder that contains the file, and then double-click the file that you want to add. if you are working with microsoft office powerpoint 2003, on insert tab, click flash movie, then locate the folder that contains the file. finally, resize your flash files. 5.4. some other useful macros and commands in visual basic editor 5.4.1. move a shape when you want to create a macro or a command, the first thing you need to remember is the order of the shapes you make on your slides sothat the macro will have an effect on the correct shapes. in order to move a shape to the left or the right, up or down on your slides, you can use the following macro: label command buttons properties asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, trần thị thơm a. move to the left or the right supposing that you would like to move the first shape on slide 3 to the right 50 pixels, the shape move needs to run the macro named move as follows sub move() activepresentation.slides(3).shapes(1).incrementleft 50 end sub if you want to move this shape to the left 50 pixels, you change “50” to “50” sub move() activepresentation.slides(3).shapes(1).incrementleft -50 end sub b. move up or down if you want to move your shapes downwards 50 pixels, you have the following commands: sub move() activepresentation.slides(3).shapes(1).incrementtop 50 end sub in contrast, if you want to move your shapes upwards 50 pixels, use minus before 50 sub move() activepresentation.slides(3).shapes(1).incrementtop -50 end sub 5.4.2. change the text of a shape in some games, you need to change the text of a shape in order to check the shape chosen already, or to introduce the new contents and so on. therefore, you need to use a macro to do this. this macro can be applied when you let your class play noughts and crosses game. to win this game group x needs to have three in a row before group o gets three in a row and vice versa. in the game below, group wins the game. after choosing question number 2, group can answer it correctly, so the teacher click on (x symbol) and then on the home slide, number 2 is changed into letter x. sub macrox2() activepresentation.slides(1).shapes(3).textframe.textrange.text = "x" move asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, trần thị thơm end sub 5.4.3. set scores for groups in order to set scores for each group, teachers can create a macro, so students can see their scores on the presentation. it will make them feel more excited. sub diem1000a() dim a as integer a = val(activepresentation.slides(2).shapes(4).textframe.textrange.text) activepresentation.slides(2).shapes(4).textframe.textrange.text = a + 1000 end sub although the text of a shape is a number, powerpoint considers it a text. therefore val function is used to change a string into a number. it means that this number can function as a number itself. you can do the calculation with it. with the command above, the score of each group will be added 1000 when you click on the flower. 5.4.4. hide or unhide a shape in memory games, one of their variations is hiding a shape, thus the following macro will help teachers to do this action. sub bien1() activepresentation.slides(4).shapes(11).visible = msofalse end sub the slide above is the fourth slide of the file, shape 11 is the hairbrush, when the teacher clicks number 1, the hair brush will disappear. if you want to unhide this picture change msofalse to msotrue sub bien1() activepresentation.slides(4).shapes(11).visible = msotrue end sub in this game, teachers click on a number to hide a picture, students have to guess what picture is missing. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, trần thị thơm 6. conclusion although there are some limitation due to the lack of time, of my knowledge, of my conditions for doing research, i hope that this paper might be beneficial for teachers in using multimedia to build good games in their english class. also, teachers can make best use of multimedia in their entire teaching process so that students will be activated, encouraged to learn english actively and enthusiastically. references andrew, w. & david b., michael b. (2006), “games for language learning” cambridge university press. cutting, a. (2011), “using multimedia in the classroom, a guide for teachers”, curriculum materials and assessment division, mesc, samoa. ersoz, a. (2000), “six games for the efl/esl classroom”, the internet tesl journal, vol. vi, no. 6. fenrich, p. (1997), practical guidelines for creating instructional multimedia applications. fort worth, tx: harcourt brace. kim, l. s. (1995), “creative games for the language class”, forum vol.33 no 1, january-march, p.35. nguyen thi thanh huyen and khuat thi thu nga (2003), “learning vocabularies through games, asian efl journal. phillips, r. (1997), “the developers handbook to interactive multimedia: a practical guide”, educational applications london. savage, t. m. & vogel k. e. (1996), “an introduction to digital multimedia”, jones & barlett publishers. websites 1. http://www.eslbase.com 2. http://www.michellehenry.fr/default.htm 3. http://bogglesworldesl.com 4. http://provost.tufts.edu/celt/teaching-resources/teaching-tip-sheets/ http://www.eslbase.com/ http://www.michellehenry.fr/default.htm http://bogglesworldesl.com/ http://provost.tufts.edu/celt/teaching-resources/teaching-tip-sheets/ citation asiacall online journal received: 16/10/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 08/04/2022 vol. 13, no.2, 2022 accepted: 14/04/2022 pp. 42-59 online: 15/04/2022 citation | pham, t. t. (2022). promoting students’ autonomy in online classes: a study on first-year nonenglish major students at thuongmai university. asiacall online journal, 13(2), 42-59. doi: https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221323 promoting students’ autonomy in online classes: a study on first-year nonenglish major students at thuongmai university pham thi tuan1* 1 thuongmai university, vietnam *correspondence: pham thi tuan, thuongmai university, e-mail: tuan.pt@tmu.edu.vn * https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1478-5657 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221323 abstract vietnam's higher education has experienced considerable changes due to the effects of the covid-19 pandemic. when schools are closed, online classes become the inevitable mode of teaching, and information technology shows its indispensable role. in response to significant challenges, not only do teachers have to upgrade themselves with new teaching forms and techniques, but students also need to adapt to a new remote learning environment. classes occur outside the classroom and only via a computer screen, which means many difficulties faced by the teachers in giving good lectures and promoting students' active learning. different tactics have been used to deal with these problems, bringing both positive and negative results. this study is aimed to investigate strategies that english teachers at thuongmai university have been employing to improve students' autonomy in their online courses and the results they have achieved. to collect data for the study, five english teachers and fifty first-year nonenglish major students at thuongmai university are invited as participants, while questionnaires and interviews are used as the main data collection tools. the research findings reveal that a wide range of it tools have been employed in english online classes, and they show a great help in promoting students' autonomy. among the listed it tools, padlet and quizizz are the most preferred. keywords: online classes, thuongmai university, students’ autonomy, strategies 1. introduction the year 2020 witnessed unpredictable changes and unforeseen challenges in every aspect of life due to the emergence of a virus called sars-cov-2. what is called the "covid19 pandemic" has been exerting negative effects on almost all countries worldwide. undoubtedly, the three sectors that most severely suffered from the pandemic are health, economy, and education. in response to the pandemic, numerous changes have been made in education, including the replacement of online classes for offline ones. all aspects of teaching are conducted through the screen, which causes significant difficulties for both teachers and students. getting exposed to a new learning environment, that is, virtual learning requires students’ more active participation and strong determination. https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221323 mailto:tuan.pt@tmu.edu.vn https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1478-5657 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221323 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 43 there is no doubt that fostering students’ motivation and self-study plays a vital role in achieving learning objectives regarding english language teaching. promoting students’ engagement in a face-to-face class is never easy, and this level of difficulty increases when it comes to online classes. globally, many recommendations have been proposed, and they have proved to be of various influences. among the ways suggested, it tools are considered a great help. as one of the first universities in hanoi to shift from the offline mode into an online one, thuongmai university has made significant attempts to prepare teaching and learning resources that can serve the new situation. the school renovated its facilities by installing a new wifi connection system, purchasing learning management systems, and upgrading the classroom equipment. numerous training courses and webinars on the application of it in teaching and research were offered to both teachers and students. the very first days of online teaching and learning saw undeniable struggles and difficulties for different reasons; however, things got better over the next few months thanks to the non-stop efforts made by participants. as for the question of promoting learner autonomy inside and outside the classroom, it is time for us to look back and have some evaluation of what we have been doing and achieving. this paper serves as a minor study contributing to developing students' autonomy in online learning at thuongmai university. due to the limited time and effort, the study only focuses on online english classes, investigating the current situation of promoting learner autonomy and students' perceptions of the strategies their teachers have applied. 2. literature review in a traditional view, the focus of teaching language is imparting knowledge and developing skills instead of guiding how to learn. nevertheless, students' learning outcomes are different because of distinctions in teaching curricula, course books, or teaching styles but due to their studying methods. in other words, students take primary responsibility for their own learning and decide how good their learning results are. obviously, autonomous learning has received increasing focus because it is closely linked to student development in language learning. over the past decades, many scholars have attempted to define what learner autonomy, also called autonomous learning, is. learner autonomy derives from the concept of life-long learning, which has been regarded as a significant goal since the early 1960s (gardner & miller, 1999). in the 1970s, learner autonomy was first introduced into the field of second language teaching. according to holec (1981), who is considered a father of autonomous learning, it is “the ability to take charge of one’s learning” (p.3). included in this definition is the management of various aspects of the learning process, which means monitoring one's learning progress, setting goals, and selfassessment. dickinson (1995) states that an autonomous learner “takes complete responsibility for all of the decisions concerned with learning and implementation of those decisions” (p.11). https://asiacall.info/acoj pham thi tuan vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 44 similarly, little (1991) is of the opinion that autonomous learners are cast in a new perspective and have a capacity for detachment, critical reflection, and decision-making. he adds that these kinds of learners take independent actions and are expected to assume greater responsibility for and take charge of their own learning. learner autonomy is not related to students only but is looked at in a relationship with the teacher. as for the teacher’s roles, scharle and szabo (2000) suggest that it is very important for teachers to find out students’ level of knowledge and attitudes, their level of motivation, the learning strategies the students use, and to get students to think about their own learning style. harmer (2007) said that teachers need to offer them choices in learning strategies if they train the learners to be autonomous. dornyei (2001) shows how important learning materials and technology-based approaches are to the development of learner autonomy, which emphasizes independent interaction with educational technologies. in zhong (2018), it was stated that apart from the psychological factors of the learner, environmental factors, e.g., the guidance from the teacher and learning conditions, also play a critical role in the formation of different dimensions of learner autonomy. there have been numerous studies on learner autonomy in the context of online education. indonesian researcher, a study was conducted by sung, chang, and yang (2015), whose results supported the benefits of the use of e-media in mobile learning. it is claimed that e-media are quite effective in enhancing learner autonomy in language learning. the reasons are mobile learning allows students to personally control learning by deciding the preferable time, place, and pace. also, it boosts students’ interaction and cooperative learning between teachers and students or even peers. regarding language teaching and learning during the covid-19 pandemic, muhammad (2020) investigated how schoology – a learning management system – successfully promoted students’ active participation by logging in and commenting on others' ideas. the finding of his research also revealed that some shy students in efl classes showed better confidence in schoology. dutton (2021) conducted an auto-ethnographic work on teaching french online during the covid-19 confinement, which demonstrated that negotiating the balance between autonomy and community is the key to teaching and learning a language during that time. other studies on voices of the emerging context of online learning platforms over learner autonomy, including teachers' and students', could be found in onyema et al. (2020), ariebowo (2021), and ningsih and yusuf (2021). when it comes to the english language teaching and learning in vietnam during the coronavirus outbreak, nguyen (2021) studied home-based teaching and practice at ton duc thang university with three-period online lessons. the study revealed that studying through it-based tools, such as zoom and google classroom, made it difficult for english teachers in class facilitation, control, and feedback giving in spite of geographical convenience and time flexibility. nguyen et al. (2022) had a closer look at the use of quizlet to enhance autonomous learning of vocabulary for first-year and second-year students at a university in ho chi minh acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 45 city, which indicated that this learning application is a tool that plays an important role in motivating students' self-study. a study by tran & nguyen (2022) was about non-english major college students’ attitudes towards learning english at saigon university under the covid-19 restrictions, while another was to investigate the utilization of digital resources to foster young learner's engagement in online learning classrooms (ho & nguyen, 2022). in short, it can be inferred from the above-mentioned that learner autonomy is a complex concept that involves the responsibilities of teachers and students. to become autonomous learners, students need to develop their own awareness of their self-study, improve their learning techniques and increase their learning independence. teachers are supposed to let students make their own learning choices, instruct and provide them with a learning environment where they can think, do, act, achieve and assess. technological advancements are believed to make a considerable contribution to fostering students’ motivation and learner autonomy. research questions to fulfill the purpose of the study, the survey was seeking to answer the following research questions: 1. what it tools are used to promote students' autonomy in online classes for first-year non-english major students at thuongmai university? 2. how do it tools help promote students' autonomy in online classes for first-year nonenglish major students at thuongmai university? 3. methods 3.1 pedagogical setting & participants the study is to investigate how to promote students' autonomy in online classes at thuongmai university. the main participants of the study are 50 first-year non-english major students partaking in the two english classes, namely class 1 and class 2. the students come from the faculty of international training, and they are taking part in the course english 2, the second of the english preparation series with four courses in total. they all have a 5-day-aweek learning schedule, and they encounter different teachers for different learning sessions of the week. these students are believed to provide reliable responses to the study as they are in the second semester of the first year at university and may not be masters of online learning methods but are getting familiar with the new teaching and learning styles. moreover, five teachers of english, who are in charge of these classes, are invited for email interviews. 3.2 design of the study online survey questionnaires were sent to the students to collect data for the study, while email interviews were conducted with the teachers. this study acts as primarily quantitative research whose focus is to find out the current situation of online classes, ways to promote https://asiacall.info/acoj pham thi tuan vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 46 learner autonomy in online classes, as well as teachers' and students' perceptions of these ways. 3.3 data collection & analysis at the end of the eighth week of the course of english 2, the researcher delivered the questionnaires and the interviews with students and teachers. the questionnaire consists of 4 parts with 68 items about students' personal information, their understanding of learner autonomy, the use of it tools in their online classes, and perceptions of the use of it tools to promote learner autonomy in their classes. the likert scale with 5 degrees was employed to measure the frequency of using different learning activities and it tools and investigate students’ opinions on how it methods helped develop their learner autonomy. after the survey questionnaires were collected and analyzed, ten students, including five from class 1 and five from class 2, were selected for email interviews to clarify some details collected from the questionnaires. at the same time, teachers were invited to get involved in email interviews. having had all the data needed, a careful analysis was made to find out answers to the research questions raised above. methods used for the data analysis could be named as synthesizing, selecting, grouping, counting the percentages, presenting, explaining, comparing, and concluding. 4. results/findings and discussion as presented above, participants of the study are first-year non-english major students from the faculty of international training of thuongmai university who are taking part in the course english 2, where they are trained in english at the pre-intermediate level. the coursebook they use is life, pre-intermediate, published by national geographic learning. the first six units of the book cover the topics of lifestyle, competitions, transport, challenges, environment, and stages in life. students involved in the survey are asked to give their opinions about learner autonomy. the results collected from the questionnaires show that the majority of students, accounting for 60%, responded that learner autonomy means learning outside the classroom. more than threequarters of the students agreed that students become autonomous when they are allowed to choose their own learning materials and learning methods. all the students surveyed proposed that they feel more independent in their learning if they could make and then evaluate their own choices in classes. furthermore, half of the students suggested learner autonomy means students work individually, while the others argued that it means they have to work in pairs or groups. with regard to the teacher's roles, only 20% of students strongly agreed that they need the teacher's help and guidance in their self-study, while 50% showed their uncertainty. finally, over 80% of students responded that learner autonomy is of great importance in modern learning, especially in online classes. in general, most student participants gain some common understanding of what learner autonomy is, but some present their own opinions. in line with the theories suggested by acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 47 researchers (borg & al-busaidi, 2012), students agreed that learner autonomy means they can make their own decisions inside and outside the classroom, and they are centered in their learning process. as for the time to have learner autonomy, a minority of students seemed to think that it is mandatory for them to work during the class as to the teacher’s requirements and evaluation, and this is not learner autonomy. they suggested that their level of learner autonomy is only shown and measured through their self-study at home. in this way, the concept of learner autonomy is misunderstood by a number of students surveyed. moreover, the fact that nearly 5% of the students, who disagreed on the important roles of teachers in learner autonomy, indicated that they viewed learner autonomy as their complete self-study; in other words, they are fully responsible for their study progress, and the support from the teachers seems to make them less autonomous. thus, this idea is opposite to the theories presented previously. 4.1 the use of it tools in online english classes for first-year non-english major students at thuongmai university an investigation into the general situation of online classes for first-year non-english major students at thuongmai university was conducted. for online classes, the university used the platform of zoom meetings as the main tool for lesson delivery. this platform brought some advantages for english teachings such as screen sharing, chatbox, breakout zooms, notetaking, and highlighting. students were asked about activities during and after online classes. the majority of students surveyed, with over 90%, agreed that their teachers not only taught things in the coursebook only but gave them further exercises for practice. all students suggested that their teachers had a mix of zoom meetings techniques and others such as google docs, padlet, mentimeter, quizizz, and canva. as for the interviews, all students from class 1 stated that their teachers only gave exercises in the workbook as homework assignments after the online classes, and those from class 2 presented that they were given various types of exercises to do at homes, such as journal writing, magazine designing, and video making. responses to the questions on the use of it tools used during or after online classes show that teachers from the two classes employed a variety of it techniques in their teaching, which are illustrated as follows: table 1: the frequency of it tools used in online english classes technologies always often sometimes rarely never zoom technologies 1. chatbox 10% 30% 30% 30% 0% 2. breakout rooms 0% 30% 50% 10% 10% other technologies 1. google docs 0% 10% 80% 10% 0% 2. padlet 20% 30% 0% 20% 30% 3. mentimeter 10% 10% 40% 30% 10% 4. quizizz 10% 60% 20% 10% 0% 5. canva 0% 0% 40% 20% 40% 6. others 0% 0% 10% 50% 40% https://asiacall.info/acoj pham thi tuan vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 48 as can be seen from table 1, zoom technologies were always used by the teachers in the two classes. 60% of the students stated that their teachers used chatbox quite often. over 30% claimed that breakout zooms was often used, while half of the students surveyed presented that their teachers sometimes used it. for non-zoom technologies, it is clear that quizizz was the most popular tool employed during online classes, while padlet ranked second. google docs and canva were sometimes used, which were agreed upon by 80% and 40% of the students, respectively. students from class 2 noted that their teachers also occasionally used some other techniques, such as liveworksheet.com or google forms, while those from class 1 claimed that their teachers used no other tools. to be more specific, students were surveyed on the frequency of it tools in different learning activities during and after online classes. these activities included brainstorming, giving opinions, multiple choice questions, gap-filling, short-answer questions, discussion, writing sentences, and writing letters/ short emails. chatbox was most frequently used regarding zoom technologies when teachers wanted students to give short answers to questions. it was also used quite often for students to brainstorm ideas, give opinions, or write short sentences. breakout rooms proved to be very helpful in activities of interviews, and discussions, especially for group work. as for other technologies, teachers showed a particular preference for each tool, in line with a particular activity, for example, google docs for collaborative writing, mentimeter for brainstorming ideas, quizzes for multiple choice questions, and gap-filling, canva for mini-projects, and google forms for mini-tests. padlet was reported to be helpful for different activities. it was used for brainstorming ideas, giving opinions, short-answer questions, and writing sentences. a comparison of responses from the two classes showed that teachers in class 1 used fewer it tools than those in class 2. the frequency of using non-zoom technologies for class activities in class 1 was also lower than that of class 2. results from email interviews with teachers of the two classes showed a great match when those from class 1 admitted that they were not able to use technology tools flexibly as their it skills were not good enough. they were only confident with zoom tools, which they got familiar with and were well-trained. they sometimes used some other techniques like padlet or quizizz as their colleagues had shared them. in contrast, teachers from class 2 showed their considerable interest in using different it tools in their teaching. they were all younger than 35 years old, so they seemed to be quick and efficient at performing it tasks. in addition to learning tasks designed in the coursebook and workbook, these teachers assigned extra tasks to students as homework. a striking example of this was a mini-project of designing a travel poster or magazine using canva. they used this mini-project as a preparation for the topic 8: holidays. 4.2 teachers’ and students’ perceptions towards the use of it ways to promote learner autonomy in online classes as for the students' opinions on how learner autonomy was developed in their online classes when asked whether the level of their autonomy in online classes, most of them agreed acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 49 that they were given more independence compared to offline classes. nearly half of the students agreed that student talking time increased while teacher talking time decreased during online classes. over 30 students surveyed claimed that they were encouraged to work in pairs or groups. about the opportunity to make decisions, three-quarters of the students stated that they were free to make their own choices of learning materials and methods and to raise their voices well. half of the students agreed that teachers sometimes let them do peer checking, especially in collaborative writing or discussions. regarding learning activities after online classes, the level of learner autonomy was reported to be high because students were totally responsible for their assignments. with around 70%, the majority of students responded that their teachers gave them some group work to be done at home, and they had to decide all things related to their homework. individual work was assigned for completing exercises in the workbook. over half of the students agreed that their teacher gave constant help and feedback on their assignments, while the others stated they received infrequent assistance. the findings from email interviews with teachers reveal that they did all their best to promote their students’ autonomy in online classes. although they always tried to give support to all students, they could not make it as constant due to the fact that they had to be in charge of different classes, most of which were in big size. one more thing is that the teachers sometimes applied the peer assessment prior to giving their feedback on students’ final work. it was the reason why students sometimes did not receive their comments and feedback. as regards to the effects of using it tools in online classes to increase learner autonomy, findings from questionnaires are shown below: table 2: opinions on the use of it tools to promote learner autonomy opinions strongly disagree disagree uncertain agree strongly agree 1. the use of it tools gives me opportunities to develop my learning independence. 0% 10% 40% 20% 30% 2. it tools help me develop my language skills. 10% 30% 50% 10% 10% 3. the use of it tools helps me develop my learning skills. 0% 0% 20% 50% 20% 4. the use of it tools helps me develop my critical thinking. 0% 30% 20% 30% 20% 5. the use of it tools helps me develop my it skills. 10% 0% 40% 30% 20% 6. the use of it tools helps me develop my teamwork skills. 0% 20% 30% 10% 40% 7. the use of it tools helps me develop my presentation skills. 20% 10% 30% 20% 20% 8. the use of it tools helps me develop my confidence and determination. 0% 20% 20% 40% 20% https://asiacall.info/acoj pham thi tuan vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 50 it is noticeable from the table that students give the most positive feedback on the use of it tools to develop learner autonomy in online classes. teamwork skills rank the most greatly benefited thanks to the use of it tools, with about 40% of the students strongly who agreed. similarly, 30% of the students strongly agreed that it tools give them opportunities to develop their learner independence, while only one out of ten disagreed. almost half of the students stated that through the use of it tools, they could develop their learning skills and their confidence. in the interviews, nine of ten students presented that they felt more confident to raise their voices in online classes compared to offline ones. assignments that included the use of it tools made them work hard to complete their learning duties, such as researching, collecting, selecting, and analyzing data. hence, their learning independence and learning skills were considerably enhanced. meanwhile, a third of the students agreed to develop it skills and critical thinking to be other important help that the use of it tools brought to them. 20% of students stated that the employment of it tools helped them develop their language skills, while half of them admitted that they were not sure. in the interviews, they explained that they did not know how to count and measure the level of their english proficiency before and after they got exposed to it tools in their online classes. four out of ten students, mostly from class 2, claimed that they could develop their presentation skills thanks to the use of it tools as they had to present their mini-project products their travel magazines. results from teachers’ interviews showed an excellent match with their students’. they all agreed that increased learner autonomy was advantageous for both teachers and students. when asked about what they expect to develop learner autonomy, 80% of student interviewees agreed that the teachers should increase their roles by giving clearer and more frequent instructions and guidelines. in addition, flexible use of learning materials and it tools is highly recommended, with all students strongly agreeing. students from class 1 expect their teachers to use more technologies and assign learning tasks in a greater variety, while those from class 2 suggested they were so happy with the support they had had from their teachers. however, some students from class 2 admitted that they found that having too many homework assignments with the use of it tools with strict deadlines was quite stressful at times. furthermore, students from the two classes were willing to constantly have feedback from the teachers. in the interviews with teachers, they shared that they should have better use of technology in their teaching by updating new it techniques in order to promote learner autonomy in online classes. also, they should make a careful plan for the whole course and for each lesson so that their learning tasks can be given in a more systematic way and in a greater variety of forms. regarding the class size, they expected the school to reduce the number of students in each class so that they could manage and supervise them more effectively. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 51 5. conclusion the covid-19 pandemic has caused various problems, but education has done its best to solve them. with the new mode of online teaching and learning, both teachers and students at thuongmai university have made great attempts to improve their situation. admittedly, promoting learner autonomy is a big challenge in online classes, and different strategies are used to deal with it. results of the study show that it tools are a great help. fifty students from the two english classes were selected to be the participants of the study, and most of them agreed that learner autonomy was of significant importance in online classes, and they were given opportunities to develop it. during the online classes, teachers had a mixed use of zoom techniques and non-zoom ones, such as padlet, quizizz, google docs, mentimeter, and canva. tools were particularly used for activities they served best, namely brainstorming ideas, giving opinions, short answer questions, multiple-choice questions, collaborative writing, and peer checking. when each other tool was commonly used for a certain activity, padlet was helpful in different ways. as for opinions on ways to promote learner autonomy in online classes, the majority of students had positive feedback, while some of them suggested that online classes with stricter requirements on self-study made them quite stressed and anxious. responses from the two classes also showed differences. while students from class 1 admitted that their teachers sometimes used some new it tools, those from class 2 reported that their teachers were able to use technologies flexibly and at high frequency. learning activities in class 2 also presented a greater variety than in class 1; as for homework assignments, teachers from class employed mini-projects and collaborative writing, which are believed to strongly foster learner autonomy in their online classes. the use of it tools was reported to bring improvements in all aspects of learning in online classes. when students become more autonomous, their confidence, determination, and learning skills were also sharpened. besides, soft skills like it, presentation, teamwork, and critical thinking were strengthened when students’ autonomy was enhanced. as for the better promotion of learner autonomy in online classes, some suggestions have been made, namely increasing teachers' roles, the use of it tools, and frequent feedback given to students. in spite of fruitful attempts, the limitations of the study cannot be avoided. owing to the limited time and ability, the study focuses only on some it tools used as a way to promote learner autonomy in online classes. the number of participants is only fifty, which may not ensure the reliability of the study findings. all these limitations leave a gap for further studies to fulfill, which can go for an investigation into ways to promote learner autonomy through the use of a greater variety of tools and with data collected from a larger number of participants. https://asiacall.info/acoj pham thi tuan vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 52 references ariebowo, t. (2021). autonomous learning during covid-19 pandemic: students objectives and preferences, journal of foreign language teaching and learning, 6(1), 56-77. borg, s. & al-busaidi, s. (2012) learner autonomy: english language teachers’ beliefs and practices. british council. dickinson, l. (1995). autonomy and motivation a literature review, system, 23(2), 165-174. dornyei, z. (2001). teaching and researching motivation. england: pearson education limited. dutton, j. (2021). autonomy and community in learning languages online: a critical autoethnography of teaching and learning in covid-19 confinement during 2020, frontiers in education. retrieved from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2021.647817/full on april 12, 2022 gardner, d.; miller, l. (1999). establishing self-access: from theory to practice. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. harmer, j. (2007). the practice of english language teaching (4rd ed.). new york: longman. ho, t. m. l., & nguyen, t. b. k. (2021). utilizing digital resources to foster young learners’ engagement in online learning classrooms. asiacall online journal, 13(1), 82-92. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/114 holec, h. (1985). autonomy and foreign language learning. oxford, uk: pergamon press. little, d. (1991). learner autonomy 1: definitions, issues and problems. dublin: authentik. muhammed, u. m. (2020). promoting students’ autonomy through online learning media in efl class, international journal of education, 9 (4), 320-331. nguyen, h. n. (2021). a case study of home-based teaching and learning practice at ton duc thang university. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 1-11. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/24 nguyen, t. t., nguyen, d. t., nguyen, d. l. q. k., mai, h. h., & le, t. t. x. (2021). quizlet as a tool for enhancing autonomous learning of english vocabulary. asiacall online journal, 13(1), 150-165. https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj221319 ningsih, s. & yusuf, f. n. (2021). analysis of teacher’s voices of learner autonomy in efl online learning context, advances in social science, education and humanities research, 546, 556-561. onyema, e.m., eucheria, n.c., obafemi, fa, sen, s., atonye, f.g., sharma, a. and alsayed, a.o. (2020). impact of coronavirus on education. journal of education and practice, 11(13), 108-119. scharle, a. & szabo, a. (2000). learner autonomy: a guide to developing learner https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2021.647817/full https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/114 https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/24 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj221319 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 53 responsibility. cambridge: cambridge university press. sung, y., chang, k., & yang, j. (2015). how effective are mobile devices for language learning?: a metaanalysis, educational research review, 16, 68-84. tran, t. p., & nguyen, t. t. a. (2022). online education at saigon university during the covid-19 pandemic: a survey on non-english major college students’ attitudes towards learning english . asiacall online journal, 13(2), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221321 zhong, m. q (2018). the evolution of learner autonomy in online learning environments: a case study in a new zealand context, studies in self-access learning journal, 9(1), 71-85. biodata pham thi tuan is currently an english teacher at english faculty, thuongmai university, vietnam. she has been teaching for 7 years, and she has been in charge of courses in general english, english linguistics and english culture. her students include both english majors and non-english ones. her research interests are english language teaching and english theories. https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221321 https://asiacall.info/acoj pham thi tuan vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 54 appendix 1 survey questionnaire promoting learner autonomy in online classes: a study on first-year non-english major students in thuongmai university hello, everyone! my name is pham thị tuấn, a teacher of english from english faculty, thuongmai university. i’m conducting a research titled “promoting learner autonomy in online classes: a study on first-year non-english major students in thuongmai university”. this questionnaire is designed to collect data for the research. i would be very grateful if i could receive responses from you. i ensure that all the information you provide will be only used for the research and strictly kept confidential. it should take about 15 minutes to complete this questionnaire. if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at tuan.pt@tmu.edu.vn thank you for your time and support! part 1: personal information 1. full name 2. age 3. faculty: 4. class: 5. name of english course: 6. how many english classes do you have per week? 7. how many teachers do you have for this english course? 8. which course book do you use for this english course? mailto:tuan.pt@tmu.edu.vn acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 55 part 2: opinions on learner autonomy please tick the answer that can show your understanding and perceptions of learner autonomy (1 = strongly disagree => 5 = strongly agree) statements 1 2 3 4 5 1. learner autonomy means learning outside the classroom. 2. learner autonomy means that students can choose their own learning materials. 3. learner autonomy means that students can choose their learning methods. 4. learner autonomy means that students can make their own choices and decisions. 5. learner autonomy means that students can evaluate their own learning tasks. 6. learner autonomy means that students work individually. 7. learner autonomy means that students work in pairs and in groups. 8. learner autonomy means that students can learn without a teacher. 9. learner autonomy means that students learn with teachers’ help and instructions. 10. learner autonomy is important, especially in online classes. part 3: the situation of online classes for first-year non-english major students please tick the answer that can show the general situation of your online classes (1 = strongly disagree => 5 = strongly agree) statements 1 2 3 4 5 during the online classes 1. the teachers only teach things in the coursebook. 2. the teachers give further exercises. 3. the teachers use the zoom techniques only. 4. the teachers use a mix of zoom techniques and other techniques. after the online classes 1. the teachers only give exercises in the work book. 2. the teachers give further practice exercises. 3. the teachers ask to make mini-projects. 4. the teachers use different techniques for giving and collecting homework. https://asiacall.info/acoj pham thi tuan vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 56 please tick the answer that can show the use of technologies in your online classes (1 – always, 2 – often – 3 – sometimes – 4 – rarely – 5 – never) technologies 1 2 3 4 5 zoom technologies 1. chatbox 2. breakout rooms other technologies 1. google docs 2. padlet 3. mentimeter 4. quizzes 5. canva 6. others …. ………………………. write the numbers 1-5 as for the frequency of using the technologies for learning activities in your online classes (1 – always, 2 – often – 3 – sometimes – 4 – rarely – 5 – never) brainstorm ing ideas/ giving opinions mtc questions gapfilling short answer question s intervie w/ discussi on writin g senten ces writing paragra phs/ letters peercheckin g during the online classes 1. chatbox 5 2 3 10 1 2. breakout rooms after the online classes 1. google docs 2. padlet 3. mentimeter 4. quizzes 5. canva 6. others ……….. part 4: perceptions on the use of it tools to promote learner autonomy in online classes please tick the answer that can show your opinion for each statement. (1 = strongly disagree => 5 = strongly agree) statements 1 2 3 4 5 opinions on activities during online classes 1. the teachers talks most of the class time. 2. students talk most of the class time. 3. the teachers encourage students to work independently. 4. the teachers encourage students to work in pairs or groups. 5. the teachers let ss make their own choices and decisions. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 57 6. the teachers let ss freely give their opinions. 7. the teachers encourage ss to think critically. 8. the teachers let ss peer check. opinions on activities after online classes 1. the teachers give homework assignments in different kinds (listening, speaking, reading, writing, mini-projects). 2. the teachers give ss clear instructions on how to do the homework. 3. the teachers let ss choose their own learning materials/ sources. 4. the teachers let ss choose their own ways to present their homework/ assignments. 5. the teachers give ss homework mostly as an individual work. 6. the teachers give ss homework mostly as pair work or group work. 7. the teachers let ss peer check their homework assignments. 8. the teachers give constant help and feedback when ss do their homework assignments. please tick the answer that can show your opinion for each statement. (1 = strongly disagree => 5 = strongly agree) opinions on the use of it tools in online classes to promote learner autonomy. 1. the use of it tools gives me opportunities to develop my learning independence. 2. it tools help me develop my language skills. 3. the use of it tools helps me develop my learning skills. 4. the use of it tools helps me develop my critical thinking. 5. the use of it tools helps me develop my it skills. 6. the use of it tools helps me develop my teamwork skills. 7. the use of it tools helps me develop my presentation skills. 8. the use of it tools helps me develop my confidence and determination. https://asiacall.info/acoj pham thi tuan vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 58 appendix 2 interview questions promoting learner autonomy in online classes: a study on first-year non-english major students in thuongmai university interview questions – for teacher interviewees please answer the questions below: 1. in your opinion, what is learner autonomy? 2. how important is learner autonomy in your online classes? 3. what it tools do you use to develop learner autonomy in your online classes? how often do you use them? 4. is the use of it tools in developing learner autonomy a big challenge to you? why (not)? 5. did you often give feedback to students in your online english classes? why (not)? 6. what do you think about the benefits of the use of it tools in terms of promoting learner autonomy in your online classes? why? opinions 1. the use of it tools gives me opportunities to develop my learning independence. 2. it tools help me develop my language skills. 3. the use of it tools helps me develop my learning skills. 4. the use of it tools helps me develop my critical thinking. 5. the use of it tools helps me develop my it skills. 6. the use of it tools helps me develop my teamwork skills. 7. the use of it tools helps me develop my presentation skills. 8. the use of it tools helps me develop my confidence and determination. 7. what will you do to promote the learner autonomy in your online english classes in the future? acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 2; 2022 59 interview questions – for student interviewees please answer the questions below: 1. how many english online classes do you have per week? 2. do you think learner autonomy is important in your online english classes? how is learner autonomy promoted in your online english classes 3. what it tools are used in your online english classes? please state how frequently they are used, for what they are used and why 4. what do you think about the benefits of the use of it tools in terms of promoting learner autonomy in your online classes? why? opinions 1. the use of it tools gives me opportunities to develop my learning independence. 2. it tools help me develop my language skills. 3. the use of it tools helps me develop my learning skills. 4. the use of it tools helps me develop my critical thinking. 5. the use of it tools helps me develop my it skills. 6. the use of it tools helps me develop my teamwork skills. 7. the use of it tools helps me develop my presentation skills. 8. the use of it tools helps me develop my confidence and determination. 5. what do you expect from the teachers to increase learner autonomy in the future? asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, ali rahimi & rouhollah askari bigdeli ict and efl students’ self-regulation mastery: educational meat or poison? ali rahimi bangkok university, thailand rahimijah@yahoo.com rouhollah askari bigdeli yasouj university, iran raskari90@gmail.com abstract this study used a pretest–posttest control group design to find out if application of icts including internet, e-mail, blogs, skype, and powerpoint could develop iranian english students’ self-regulated learning. to this end, sixty (n=60) english students within the experimental and control groups took part in the study. while internet, e-mail, blogs, skype, and powerpoint were used as the main medium of instruction in the experimental group, in the control group the paper-based traditional method was used. a survey adapted from lai and gu (2011) was used to gather the data. the results of the study indicated a significant difference between the control and experimental groups in regard with their selfregulated learning. that is to say, the experimental group taught through ict tools acquired higher levels of self-regulation as compared with the control group instructed through the traditional teaching method. keywords: ict, self-regulation, efl introduction self-regulated learning (srl) has become a crucially prominent concept in education studies in recent years (ellis & folley, 2011). according to zimmerman and schunk (2001), slr involves selfgenerated thoughts, feeling, and actions which are monitored and carried out by students toward attainment of their learning goals. in the same vein, zimmerman (2001) argued that self-regulation encompasses three phases including forethought, performance, and evaluation that come into play frequently during learning process. in fact, slr is associated with a good amount of skills and strategies encompassing, inter alia, goal setting, environment structuring, self-monitoring, help seeking, and task strategies (zimmerman & schunk, 2001) which allow learners to reflect on their learning and assess their progress and consequently make the most of their learning activity. according to boekaerts, pintrich, and zeidner (2000, p.751), “self-regulation involves cognitive, affective, motivational and behavioral components that provide the individual with the capacity to adjust his or her actions and goals to achieve the desired results in light of changing environmental conditions”. these slr components are developed as a result of the reciprocal interaction of personal, environmental, and behavioral factors (schunk, 1989; zimmerman, 1994). it is transparent that the active role of learner is at the heart of this understanding of learning (fischer & mandl, 2002). teachers can support learners to develop self-regulated learning using different elements of instruction. the literature showed the prominence of providing learning environments that stimulate reflection and revision (dettori & giannetti, 2005), offer learners opportunities to monitor the essential dimensions of learning (rosario, nuñez perez, & gonzález-pienda, 2004), and provide mailto:rahimijah@yahoo.com mailto:raskari90@gmail.com asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, ali rahimi & rouhollah askari bigdeli opportunities to get and give feedback (karamarsky & zeichner, 2001). hence, it is postulated that learning environments in which learners are involved and engaged play a pivotal role in their selfregulated learning. friedrich and mandl (1997) maintained that persons, institutions, media in conjunction with methods and teaching practices can be considered as components of learning environments that if employed appropriately can lead to the learners becoming self-regulated. within the realm of english language teaching, the shift in focus from learning of grammatical and lexical structures to the use of language to communicate for real purposes together with the explosive growth of information communication technology (ict) has brought about dramatic changes in teaching techniques and procedures. this trend has provided language learners with opportunities for continuous learning and effective use of language to communicate with people from different parts of the globe (yuvienco & huang, 2005). ict tools are argued to be a learning tool in education in general (md yunus, 2007) and a great educational potential for language learning in particular (thorne, black, & sykes, 2009; zhao & lai, 2007). according to andrews (2000), ict refers to multimedia technologies encompassing computer software, cd-rom, the internet, mobile phone, television, film, e-mail, chat, blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc. the role of technology in fostering and nurturing autonomy has been highlighted over the recent years. watts and lloyd (2001) found that in technology-embedded learning environments, language learners become self-organized and self-directive resulting in developing self-regulated learning. healey (2002) held that self-regulated learning fostered and bolstered by means of ict can considerably benefit language learners in that it can make them aware of their contribution to the teaching-learning process and further persuade them to take an active role in their own learning. investigating the effects of adopting a technology-enhanced language learning framework on the students’ perceptions of their efl classroom environment, rahimi, ebrahimi, and eskandari (2013) found that a technology-enhanced language learning environment proved to be more efficient, learnercentered and facilitative of learning. as noted above, learning environments in which learners are engaged, in large measure, influence the extent the learners need to employ self-regulated behaviors. if a learning environment is highly structured and controlled by the teacher, the learners need not be self-regulated in order to be successful in that learning environment. in contrast, the environment which engages the learners in employing helpful self-regulated behaviors such as planning, monitoring, and strategy use on their own is far more likely to develop slr (bernacki, aguilar, & byrnes, 2011). given that using and working through technology-embedded learning environment for the purpose of successful language learning requires a host of strategies including, but not limited to, cognitive and metacognitive processes such as task analysis, goal setting, strategic planning, it is reasonable to expect that there will be a linkage between slr and the learning environments in which ict tools are incorporated. based upon such reflections, this study was an attempt to investigate if application of icts including internet, e-mail, blogs, skype, and powerpoint could develop iranian english students’ self-regulated learning. in this study, the idea of self-regulated learning is a process in which the language learners used the icts for goal commitment regulation, metacognitive regulation, resource regulation, cultural learning regulation, social regulation and affection regulation. in other words, the learners used the icts as important sources and tools to reach their goal in learning the language more quickly and efficiently; to monitor and plan learning tasks; to seek and get access to a wide range of learning resources; to understand, appreciate, and interact with the target culture better; to connect with peer learners and native speakers of the language all over the world; to make the task of language learning more attractive and free of anxiety. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, ali rahimi & rouhollah askari bigdeli in effect, this study sought to answer the following question: does incorporation of different forms of icts (including internet, e-mail, blogs, skype, and powerpoint) develop self-regulated learning of efl learners? method participants since it fell outside the realm of possibility to randomly select the participants, a total of sixty (n=60) iranian female learners from two intact english conversation classes within the experimental and control groups were chosen to participate in the study. all the learners were in the age range of 16–21 and were studying english at a language school. instrument a survey adapted from lai and gu (2011) was used to gather the data. lai and gu drawing on sociocognitive models of self-regulated learning (pintrich, 2000, 2004; zimmerman, 2000) as well as the available literature on contributions of technology to language learning (ducate & arnold, 2006; zhao & lai, 2007) developed this survey to explore language learners’ self-initiated use of technology to regulate the various aspects of their language learning experience. the survey consisted of 28 likert-items that measure the following six factors: (1) goal commitment regulation, (2) affective regulation, (3) social connection regulation, (4) resource regulation, (5) metacognitive regulation, and (6) culture learning regulation. the participants were asked to indicate the degree to which they agreed with each of the statements using a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). procedure the participants took the pretest at the beginning of the semester. the treatment sessions lasted over 10 weeks (two 90minute sessions per week). the experimental e-learning class was provided with the ict support method by a trained teacher and the control group with the paper-based traditional method on the same teaching materials. the teaching material used for the both groups was four corners (2) authored by jack c. richards and david bohlke (2011). in the control group, the course was taught with the paper-based traditional method without the involvement of technology. the traditional method of teaching, here, refers to the method that incorporated the following main features: (1) lectures on teaching grammar and other aspects of language by the teacher, (2) listening to tape and repeat after the teacher, (3) nearly all communications are initiated by the teacher in the form of teacher-learner direction, and (4) assignments are marked and returned by the teacher without any further feedback. as for the experimental e-learning class, the learners were taught with incorporation of the relevant ict instructional package including internet, e-mail, blogs, skype, and powerpoint. the teacher presented the teaching materials through powerpoint and at times the participants delivered a lecture relevant to their course through powerpoint. the participants had to submit their written assignments, as attachments, via email to the teacher to be marked and returned. via email, the teacher sent the participants feedback, assignments, and relevant websites to be visited and reviewed for the next sessions. the participants were invited to discuss their language problems via email and the teacher provided email consultation on such problems. another ict tool that was employed in the experimental class was text or audio format chatting. chat was included as part of the participants’ http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_2/189-0607509-9062338?_encoding=utf8&field-author=david%20bohlke&search-alias=books&sort=relevancerank asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, ali rahimi & rouhollah askari bigdeli course in that they had to set up a skype account and engage in either text or audio chat on topics the teacher emailed them in advance. chat was in the form of teacher-learners or learners-learners with the teacher playing the role of a moderator. the last ict tool was a blog, designed by the teacher, where the participants were invited to post news and comments, homework, links, what they are learning, and how they have learnt something. after the treatment session, the posttest was administered to the participants in both classes. results and discussion an independent sample t-test was used to determine whether there were significant inter-group differences. the analysis of the self-regulated learning scores (pretest) of the participants in the experimental and control groups indicated that there was not a statistically significant difference in their mean scores on any of the self-regulated learning measures (table 1). table 1. independent samples test for self-regulated learning measures in the pretest experimental control (pretest) (n=30) (pretest) (n=30) mean s. d. mean s. d. t p goal commitment regulation 8.50 1.98 8.33 2.11 .57 .565 affective regulation 10 1.25 9.53 1.11 .86 .388 social connection regulation 12.80 1.54 13 1.41 .79 .432 resource regulation 10.70 1.11 11.03 2.03 1.25 .214 metacognitive regulation 14.86 1.54 15.20 2.08 1.05 .294 culture learning regulation 6.90 1.21 7.16 1.39 .52 .602 however, the results of posttest in table 2 revealed that the experimental group differed statistically and significantly from the control group on all the self-regulated learning measures. that is to say, compared with the participants in the control group at the posttest, the participants in the experimental group achieved statistically (p<0.05) higher mean scores on all self-regulated learning measures. table 2. independent samples test for self-regulated learning measures in the posttest experimental control (posttest) (n=30) (posttest) (n=30) mean s. d. mean s. d. t p goal commitment regulation 13.60 2.35 9.04 1.73 17.48 .000 * affective regulation 18.40 2.87 9.12 2.54 29.62 .000 * social connection regulation 25.43 1.84 12.02 3.01 28.78 .000 * resource regulation 20.47 2.17 13.06 2.62 19.58 .000 * metacognitive regulation 26.86 2.37 12.74 2.71 31.53 .000 * culture learning regulation 13.58 1.56 7.93 1.94 18.23 .000 * * p < .05 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, ali rahimi & rouhollah askari bigdeli ict contributed to goal commitment regulation as zimmerman (2001) pointed out, the first phase in the process of self-regulated learning is “forethought” that involves the setting of goals and strategic planning. goal setting deals with deciding upon specific outcomes of learning and strategic planning refers to purposive processes and actions the learners take to achieve their goal. as shown in table 2, the mean score of the experimental group in goal commitment regulation (m=13.60, s.d. = 2.35) was significantly higher than that of the control group (m=9.04, s.d. = 1.73). compared with the learners in the control group, the learners in the experimental group are assumed to construct their own meanings and goals from the resources and information available through different forms of the icts. as such, having access to language-related resources and tools available through icts, the experimental group could select and process materials congruent with their individual preferences and goals at any time and from any places. the results demonstrated that icts might help the learners to sustain their interest in achieving their language learning goal as well as help them to persevere in achieving their goal more quickly and efficiently. it is taken for granted that planning and choosing appropriate activities and strategies are vital for the language learners to achieve their language learning goals. icts, as proske, narciss, and körndle (2011) pointed out, due to their unique features in providing multiple sources of information in multiple representation formats as well as establishing multiple interaction possibilities give the learners the chance of choosing from a large pool of information only those pieces essential and appropriate for their language learning goals. hence, it can be concluded that learning environment differs to the extent that engages learners in self-regulated behaviors. in fact by facilitating a learning environment in which lots of interaction possibilities and multiple sources of information are available, icts help learners to become self-directed and accordingly develop their self-regulated learning behaviors. ict contributed to affective regulation it has been argued that cognitive engagement alone cannot ensure effective learning as it requires affective and motivational support (zimmerman, 2000). in the realm of language learning, affect has been considered as a core component of individual differences having a close bearing on second language learning (ellis, 1994). correspondingly, schumann (1997) claimed that affect is associated with the degree of motivation and values learners are exhibiting during language learning process. affective regulation as an aspect of srl is concerned with regulating emotions and enhancing the attraction of learning. the result of the study indicated that ict had a contributing role in regulating affective and emotional aspects of language learning in the experimental group (m=18.40, s.d. =2.87). it appears that the icts employed in the current study by maintaining the learners' interest and enthusiasm in learning the language had the capacity to decrease the boredom and further increase the enjoyment and emotional engagement of the learners with the language learning process. not only do the icts facilitate collaborative learning but also they can pave the way for personalized and independent learning which is often absent in traditional classroom settings in fact crossing the traditional boundaries of classroom context and providing opportunities for independent and individualized learning, the icts enabled the learners to choose their learning materials and worked on them in their own time, at their own pace, and at their own level. when using the icts, the learners had greater freedom and control over their learning without constant direction from the teacher. as such the icts made the task of language learning a relaxing process and more attractive to asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, ali rahimi & rouhollah askari bigdeli the learners helping them to maintain their interest and enthusiasm. in this case, the icts helped the learners not only to monitor and regulate their cognitive activities but also facilitated the regulation of their emotional and motivational processes. ict contributed to social connection regulation in addition to the cognitive activities, as zimmerman (2001) held, social interactions play a leading role in development of self-regulated learning. not only is srl viewed and considered as an individual construct but also a social process with emphasis on the role of social environment and interaction in the srl development (diaz, neal, & amaya-williams, 1990; zimmerman, 2000; zimmerman & schunk, 2001). the results indicated that the icts employed in the study bolstered the experimental group's social connection within the language learning perspective (m=25.43, s.d. = 1.84). the study indicated that learners could benefit from electronically mediated social interactions. that is to say, the icts foster self-regulated learning via social interactions and collaboration involving the learners within the class and the learners from other contexts in the world. as a matter of fact, the icts located the learners in a system of activities and interaction whereby they can use materials and tools to interact with each other and their surroundings. by means of icts such as skype, blogs and internet, the participants in the experimental group were likely to connect with other learners all over the world in sharing and collaborative activities. thus, they could search for encouragement and support from other learners of the language. this way, they could increase the time they spend on learning the language. ict contributed to resource regulation as is shown in table 2, the experimental group's mean score of resource regulation (m=20.47, s.d. = 2.17) was significantly higher than that of the control group (m=13.06, s.d. =2.62). that is to say, the icts expanded the learners' learning experience beyond the language classroom. it created and increased opportunities to learn and use the language. through the icts, the learners could seek learning resources and opportunities to help achieve their language learning goals. this shows that the learners in the experimental group by employing the icts could search for learning resources and opportunities to help achieve their goals. they were more likely to look for attractive language learning materials and experiences which were appropriate for their own needs and preferences. hence, it can be assumed that the way the icts were employed in the present study expanded the participants' learning resources as well as created opportunities to learn and use the language either inside or outside the language classroom. ict contributed to metacognitive regulation the second phase of slr according to zimmerman (2001) is called "performance" in which learners engage in metacognitive regulation that involves strategies, such as self-instruction, selecting new information sources, summarizing, making inferences, hypothesizing, elaborating and attention focusing (bernacki, aguilar, & byrnes, 2011). in the present study, metacognitive regulation of the experimental group (m=26.86, s.d. =2.37) was significantly higher than that of the control group (m=12.74, s.d. =2.71). this demonstrates that the icts enabled the participants to select and plan learning tasks; to use relevant and appropriate materials; and to adjust their language learning goals. in this case, the result is in line with those of puustinen and pulkkinen (2001) who argued that selfregulated learning is the process of employing and adjusting cognitive strategies monitored by one's asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, ali rahimi & rouhollah askari bigdeli metacognition. thus, it can be concluded that the different forms of icts employed in the present study promoted self-regulation as manifested in a better metacognitive knowledge about goal commitment and resource regulation. ict contributed to culture learning regulation the integration of cultural knowledge into language learning has been emphasized and also drawn considerable attention (hall, 1997; damen, 1987). mitchell and myles (2004) stated that “language and culture are not separate, but are acquired together, with each providing support for the development of the other” (p. 235). culture learning is defined as "the process of acquiring the culture-specific and culture-general knowledge, skills, attitudes required for effective communication and interaction with individuals from other cultures. it is a dynamic, developmental, and ongoing process which engages the learner cognitively, behaviorally, and affectively." (paige et al., 2003, p. 177). in this study, culture learning regulation refers to the process in which the participants use different forms of icts in order to seek answers to the questions about the language and culture and to interact with the target culture so that they can understand and appreciate the target culture better. the results depicted in table 2 demonstrated that ict played a significant role in culture learning regulation of the participants in the experimental group (m=13.58, s.d. =1.56). it seemed that the icts enhanced the participants' ability to explore the target culture themselves. by providing opportunities for the participants in the experimental group to interact with other learners or speakers of the target language either asynchronously or synchronously, the different forms of icts like internet, online chat through skype, and e-mail appeared to be effective in increasing the participants' cultural knowledge and led to their culture learning regulation. it appears that the icts made understanding and appreciating the target culture better by enabling the participants to enter into intercultural communication. in this case, the results of the study support the findings of other researchers (e.g., chapelle, 2001; dudeney & hockly, 2008) who found that technology should be encouraged in classes to expand the learners' cultural awareness and also help them to fashion and refashion their social identity in the target culture. in the same vein, the results of other studies revealed that cultural knowledge can be successfully acquired with the help of technology (e.g., herron et al., 2000; hertel, 2003). thus, the use of technology in fostering cultural learning regulation is important in the efl context where the learners do not have adequate access to the target language and its culture outside the classroom pooling together, the results demonstrated that the different forms of icts including internet, e-mail, blogs, skype, and powerpoint helped the participants in the experimental group to regulate different aspects of their language learning experience that resulted in effective instruction (e.g., boekaerts & corno, 2005; butler, 2002; schunk, & zimmerman, 1998). the study also makes a case for supporting the findings of other researchers (e.g., bartolomé & steffens, 2006; brüggen, 2005; carneiro, 2006; steffens, 2006; trigano; 2006; veermans, de jong, & van joolingen, 2000) who emphasized the acquisition of self-regulation skills through information and communication technologies. futhermore, the results reinforce the results of studies that underlined the contribution of self-regulation to the learners' metacognitive, cognitive, behavioral, contextual, and motivational processes (pintrich, 2000; wolters, 2003; zimmerman, 2000). conclusion the major findings of this study suggested that the different forms of icts including internet, e-mail, blogs, skype, and powerpoint helped to significantly develop english learners’ self-regulated learning. the findings suggest that the participants benefited from the technology-enhanced learning environment which had a significant effect on their goal commitment regulation, affective regulation, asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, ali rahimi & rouhollah askari bigdeli social connection regulation, resource regulation, metacognitive regulation, and culture learning regulation. that is to say, technology-enhanced learning environment is a constructive process in which learners regulate and monitor their learning not only cognitively but also motivationally, contextually, and behaviorally. thus, the icts make srl skills easier to achieve, in that they provide the learners with the chance of selecting, managing, and evaluating their own learning different cultural and educational settings. references andrews, r. (2000). learning, literacy and ict: what’s the connection?. english in education, 34(3), 3-18. bartolomé, a. & steffens, k. (2006). self-regulated learning in technology enhanced learning environments. paper presented at the viii congreso iberoamericano de informática educativa, san jose, costa rica, nov. 13-15, 2006. bernacki, m. l., aguilar, a. c. & byrnes, j. p. (2011). self-regulated learning and technologyenhanced learning environments: an opportunity-propensity analysis. in g. dettori & d. persico (eds.), fostering self-regulated learning through ict (1-26). new york: information science reference. boekaerts, m. & corno, l. (2005). self-regulation in the classroom: a perspective on assessment and intervention. applied psychology: an international review, 54(2), 199-231. boekaerts, m., pintrich, p. r. & zeidner, m. (eds.) (2000). handbook of self-regulation. san diego: academic press. brüggen, n. (2005). the use of ilias in student projects to foster self-regulated learning. in r. carneiro, k. steffens & j. underwood (eds.), self-regulated learning in technology enhanced learning environments (119-125). proceedings of the taconet conference, lisbon, sept. 23., 2005. portuguese catholic university. butler, d. l. (2002). qualitative approaches to investigating self-regulated learning: contributions and challenges. educational psychologist, 31(1), 59-63. carneiro, r. (2006). motivating school teachers to learn: can ict add value?. european journal of education, 41 (3/4), 415-435. chapelle, c. (2001). computer applications in second language acquisition. cambridge: cambridge university press. damen, l. (1987). culture learning: the fifth dimension in the language classroom. reading, ma: addison-wesley publishing company. dettori g. & giannetti, t. (2005). an analysis of the srl potential of a technology enhanced learning environment based on story maker 2. itd cnr report n. 01-05, genova, italy. diaz, r.m., neal, c.j. & amaya-williams, m. (1990). the social origins of self-regulation. in l. moll (ed.), vygotsky and education: instructional implications and applications of sociocultural psychology (127-155). new york: cambridge university press. ducate, l. & arnold, n. (2006). calling on call: from theory and research to new directions in foreign language teaching. san marcos, tx: computer assisted language instruction consortium. dudeney, g. & hockly, n. (2007). how to teach english with technology. harlow: pearson longman. ellis, c. & folley, s. (2011). using student assessment choice and e-assessment to achieve selfregulated learning. in g. dettori & d. persico (eds.), fostering self-regulated learning through ict (89-104). new york: information science reference. ellis, r. (1994). the study of second language acquisition. oxford, oxford university press. fischer, f. & mandl, h. (2002). lehren und lernen mit neuen medien (teaching and learning with new media). in r.tippelt (ed.), handbuch bildungsforschung (handbook of educational research) (623-637). opladen, de: leske & budrich. friedrich, h. f. & mandl, h. (1997). analyse und förderung selbstgesteuerten lernens (analysis and promotion of self-regulated learning). in f. e. weinert & h. mandl (eds.), psychologie der asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, ali rahimi & rouhollah askari bigdeli erwachsenenbildung, enzyklopädie der psychologie (psychology of adult education) (237-293). göttingen, de: hogrefe. hall, s. (1997). representation: cultural representations and signifying practices. london: sage publications. healey, d. (2002). learner autonomy with technology: what do language learners need to be successful? tesol 2002, call-is academic session. http://oregonstate.edu/~healeyd/tesol2002/autonomypres-withbiblio.doclast. herron, c., dubreil, s., cole, s. p. & corrie, c. (2000). using instructional video to teach culture to beginning foreign language students. calico journal, 17(3), 395-429. hertel, t. j. (2003). using an e‐mail exchange to promote cultural learning. foreign language annals, 36(3), 386-396. karamarsky b. & zeichner, o. (2001). using technology to enhance mathematical reasoning: effects of feedback and self-regulation learning. educational media international, 38 (2-3), 77-82. lai, c. & gu, m. (2011). self-regulated out-of-class language learning with technology. computer assisted language learning, 24(4), 317-335. md yunus, m. (2007). malaysian esl teachers’ use of ict in their classrooms: expectations and realities. recall, 19(1), 79-95. mitchell, r. & myles, f. (2004). second language theories. london: arnold. paige, r. m., jorstad, h. l., siaya, l., klein, f. & colby, j. (2003). culture learning in language education: a review of the literature. in d.l. lange & r. m. paige (eds.), culture as the core: perspectives on culture in second language learning (173-236). usa: information age publishing. pintrich, p. r. (2004). a conceptual framework for assessing motivation and self-regulated learning in college students. educational psychology review, 16, 385-407. pintrich, r. p. (2000). the role of goal orientation in self-regulated learning. in m. boekaerts, r. p. pintrich & m. zeinder (eds.), handbook of self-regulation (451-502). san diego, ca: academic press. proske, a., narciss, s. & körndle, h. (2011). exploring the effects of an optional learning plan tool in technology-enhanced learning. in g. dettori & d. persico (eds.), fostering selfregulated learning through ict (315-333). new york: information science reference. puustinen, m. & pulkkinen, l. (2001). models of self-regulated learning: a review. scandinavian journal of education research, 45(3), 269-286. rahimi, a., ebrahimi, n. a., & eskandari, z. (2013). the effects of using technology and the internet on some iranian efl students’ perceptions of their communication classroom environment. teaching english with technology, (1), 3-19. richards, j. c. & bohlke, d. (2011). four corners level 2 student's book b with self-study cdrom. cambridge university press. rosario, p., nuñez perez j. c. & gonzález-pienda, j. a. (2004). stories that show how to study and how to learn: an experience in the portuguese school system. electronic journal of research in educational psychology, 2(1), 131-144. schumman, j. (1997). the neurobiological affect in language. boston: blackwell. schunk, d. h. & zimmerman, b. j. (1998). self-regulated learning, from teaching to self-reflective practice. new york: the guilford press. schunk, d. h. (1989). social cognitive theory and self-regulated learning. in b. j. zimmerman & d. h. schunk (eds.), self-regulated learning and academic achievement: theory, research, and practice (83-110). new york: springer. steffens, k. (2006). self-regulated learning in technology-enhanced learning environments: lessons of a european peer review. european journal of education, 41(3/4), 353-379. thorne, s., black, r.w. & sykes, j. m. (2009). second language use, socialization, and learning in internet interest communities and online gaming. modern language journal, 93, 802-821. trigano, p. (2006). self-regulated learning in a tele at the université de technologie de compiègne: an analysis from multiple perspectives. european journal of education, 41, 3-4. veermans, k., de jong, t. & van joolingen, w. r. (2000). promoting self-directed learning in simulation-based discovery learning environments through intelligent support. interactive learning environments, 8(3), 229-255. http://oregonstate.edu/~healeyd/tesol2002/autonomypres-withbiblio.doclast asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, ali rahimi & rouhollah askari bigdeli watts, m. & lloyd, c. (2001). evaluating a classroom multimedia programme in the teaching of literacy. educational research and evaluation, 7, 35-52. wolters, c. a. (2003). regulation of motivation: evaluating an underemphasized aspect of selfregulated learning. educational psychologist, 38(4), 189-205. yuvienco, j. c. & huang, s. (2005). exploring elt teacher’s role within e-learning from students’ perceptions. journal of national taipei teachers college, 18(1), 183-200. zhao, y. & lai, c. (2007). technology and second language learning: promises and problems. in l. l. parker (ed.), technology-mediated learning environments for young english learners: connections in and out of school (167-205). mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates. zimmerman, b. j. (1994). dimensions of academic self-regulation: a conceptual framework for education. in d. h. schunk & b. j. zimmerman (eds.), self-regulation of learning and performance (pp. 3-21). hillsdale, nj: lawrence erlbaum. zimmerman, b. j. (2000). attaining self-regulation: a social cognitive perspective. in m. boekaerts, p. r. pintrich & m. zeidner (eds.), handbook of self-regulation (13-41). san diego, ca: academic press. zimmerman, b. j., & schunk, d. h. (2001) (2nd ed.). self-regulated learning and academic achievement: theoretical perspectives. mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum. zimmerman, b.j. (2001). theories of self-regulated learning and academic achievement: an overview and analysis. in b. j. zimmerman & d. h. schunk (eds.), self-regulated learning and academic achievement (1-37). mahwah, nj, lawrence erlbaum associates. citation asiacall online journal received: 28/05/2022 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 17/06/2022 vol. 13, no. 3, 2022 accepted: 22/06/2022 pp. 22-35 online: 22/06/2022 citation | hoang, t. t. d., & ngo, t. t. t. (2022). e-learning experience of nguyen trai high school students. asiacall online journal, 13(3), 22-35. doi: https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221333 e-learning experience of nguyen trai high school students hoang to thu dung1*, ngo thi thanh truc2 1 hoa sen university, ho chi minh city, vietnam 2 nguyen trai high school, ninh thuan, vietnam *corresponding author’s email: dung.hoangtothu@hoasen.edu.vn * https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3218-9365 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221333 abstract with the rapid spread of the covid-19 pandemic and the fact that most students of all grades in vietnam were not fully vaccinated in 2021, the students had to study online for the first semester of the school year. therefore, the students at all levels, in general, and the high school students, in particular, had a fully online learning experience. this research investigates the experience of the high school students in e-learning in the case of nguyen trai high school in ninh thuan province. the data was collected via online questionnaires toward the end of the first semester of the 2021-2022 academic year to find out about the elearning experience of the students at nguyen trai high school in ninh thuan province. one hundred seventy-four participants were involved in the study by responding to the online questionnaires. the study's findings revealed that most students had a favorable experience with e-learning. however, some drawbacks need to be considered for further development in e-learning education in high schools. keywords: experience, high school students, e-learning introduction to reduce the adverse effects of the covid-19 in the case that high school students were not fully vaccinated against covid-19, the ministry of education and training of vietnam ordered schools at all levels to switch to online learning. to prevent high school students from being severely impacted by the pandemic, schools, universities, and institutions were placed on lockdown until widespread immunization occurred. educational institutions across the country had to shift from traditional education modes to online modes of education. therefore, students, as well as teachers, must adapt to fully remote online learning. although many felt unprepared during the transitional period, they did not have an option but to use online learning. because of the inexperience of both students and teachers in online learning, this quick transition can be difficult (barbour & reeves, 2009). even with high school students in industrialized nations where online learning is fast expanding, there was still 10% of high school students with no experience in e-learning (barbour & labonte, 2017). teachers must be capable of using technological tools for education and a variety of applications along with conducting eclassroom sessions so that the students will have scaffolding in technology for e-learning and https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221333 mailto:dung.hoangtothu@hoasen.edu.vn https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3218-9365 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221333 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 23 have a good online learning experience. in fact, the feelings and experiences of insiders or learners are central to determining the effectiveness of e-learning. therefore, it is critical to understand students' online learning experiences to help educational authorities and institutions better understand students' challenges and improve their online learning experiences. although we have a good understanding of students' characteristics and outcomes in online courses, we have little understanding of their overall experiences in such contexts. (blackmon and major, 2012). additionally, the majority of recent research was limited to students in high school education. with the motivation of unveiling the truths regarding the students' readiness and satisfaction with e-learning, the research is to find out the feedback of high school students regarding their experience with e-learning in the case of nguyen trai high school. literature review theoretical background e-learning, often known as online learning, is the term commonly used all over the world, especially during the covid-19 pandemic. however, the term has different meanings with various descriptions and opinions based on many authors' research fields or experiences. according to tamm (2019), e-learning or online learning or electronic learning is the acquisition of knowledge by instruction and content delivered primarily through electronic technologies and media. online learning is the application of the internet and other significant technologies in creating materials for program management and educational objectives. (fry, 2001). bates (2016) claims that online learning is a type of distant education in which a program is designed to be delivered entirely online. in addition, a few experts describe e-learning as the education given entirely through the internet or web-based media. online education, on the other hand, is defined as education offered exclusively through web-based media or through the internet (lee, 2017). online education is described as the application of internet-based technologies to bridge the gap between teachers and students (ryan & young, 2015). traditional educational institutions all around the globe have long made use of internet-based learning, sometimes known as remote learning or online education (bartley & golek, 2004). elearning is defined by singh and thurman (2019) as the experience of learners in either synchronous or asynchronous scenarios utilizing a variety of devices (e.g., mobile phones, computers, and so on) that can connect to the internet. the timing and location of teaching and learning activities change between asynchronous and synchronous learning. according to alqurashi (2019), one key difference between asynchronous and synchronous online learning is the interaction between the learner and the material, as opposed to the teacher or other students. previous studies on learners’ experience in e-learning as talidong & toquero (2020) point out, most schools still face difficulties in virtual learning because not all instructors and students are familiar with the applications of e-learning. as a result of the covid-19 pandemic, students' online learning experiences have also revealed https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang to thu dung, ngo thi thanh truc vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 24 numerous difficulties, such as connectivity issues (basuony et al., 2020), it equipment problems (bczek et al., 2021), a lack of opportunities for collaborative learning (bczek et al., 2021), and a lack of motivation for schoolwork (niemi & kousa, 2020). basuony et al. (2020) found that 13.9% of cairo students had internet connection concerns. in some rural cities in indonesia, however, about two-thirds of the students complained about unreliable internet, limited data, and improper study tools (agung et al., 2020). another factor is the accessibility of appropriate technological devices to satisfy the requirement for online learning. nearly 76% of college students reported utilizing inadequate technology for online learning, with 15% using a laptop and 85% using a smartphone (agung et al., 2020). although online learning is still a difficult time, educators, teachers, and experts debated whether online learning could benefit all students. kurucay and inan claimed that (2017) there is some proof that online courses can boost students' achievement. according to clark (2007), there is little evidence from the previous studies suggesting that well-prepared traditional learning is more effective than wellprepared online learning and vice versa. in addition, navarro & shoemaker (2000) confirmed that students are quite satisfied with their online learning experiences, and their learning outcomes are comparable to or better than those of conventional. another discussion, as stated in the study of hoa sen university in 2021, revealed that the university students favored elearning due to its flexibility and convenience. (hoang & tran, 2021). beamish, armistead, watkinson, and armfield (2002) also claimed cost efficiency, access, and flexibility as advantages. a great deal of evidence exists showing that no significant differences should be expected regarding the effectiveness of well-designed online learning compared with well-designed inperson learning (clark, 1983; russell, 1999). however, not many students are willing to admit, adapt as well as respond positively to the implementation of online learning. according to joshi et al. (2020), students consider that the most significant weaknesses of online learning are the lack of hands-on experience and lower quality of instruction, while the most significant threats are the vulnerability to scams or academic dishonesty, as well as societal skepticism about the quality of online education. in addition, according to grundmann (2010), one important drawback of online courses is the lack of laboratory and hands-on experience. students have different levels of acceptance of changes in the learning process. age, cognitive capacity, and the students' interest in technology can impact this. students tend to behave differently in online learning, with mature students expressing higher enthusiasm. gender and the number of online experimental courses students take in a semester are two characteristics that substantially impact students' barriers to online learning (muilenburg and berge, 2005). many teachers argue that online education is not a replacement for classroom instruction or other methodologies. it is only a temporary solution to our difficult situations. according to pham, n. t., & nghiem, h. v. (2022), while educators in the research acknowledged online education's benefits, they also reported that blended learning provided safer, better quality results for their students. sigh & thurman (2019) mentioned that online learning might also be seen as a way of utilizing technology to make the teaching-learning process more studentacojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 25 centered, inventive, and adaptive. it has been discovered that technology employed as teaching tools or supportive media in education cannot replace the physical interactions between students and teachers. (miller, 2020). in fact, derouin et al. (2005) found in a review of prior research that it is difficult to determine that e-learning is more, less, or equally successful at the learning level as traditional classroom-based training. research questions 1. what is the high school students' experience on e-learning at nguyen trai high school? 2. how are nguyen trai high school students’ readiness and satisfaction with e-learning? methods pedagogical setting & participants the research was conducted at nguyen trai high school in ninh thuan province (former duy tan high school, built-in 1954) with a total school area of 15,000 m2. over 60 years of establishment and development, the school has trained many generations of successful alumni and contributed to creating human resources for the development of the province. during the first semester of the school year 2021-2022 (september 2021 january 2022), due to the impact of the covid-19 epidemic, the whole school learned online. specifically, all teachers and students had accounts on microsoft office's teams system. on teams, each class was divided into a group, and the teachers assigned to that class were added to that group. all teachers and students were guided to use teams for learning and teaching with files and videos. an online period lasts 35 minutes instead of the usual 45 minutes. most of the students participating in this study are in grade 11 of the school. in general, they all have average or higher academic ability and are able to use computers or smartphones to study. in addition, in the previous school year, 2020-2021, they were also familiar with online learning due to the covid-19 epidemic. although, at that time, online learning did not last for a whole semester like this year, it was interrupted from 1 to 2 weeks intervals. design of the study the survey was conducted to describe the experiences of high school students during the first semester of online learning. the survey questions were given out in google form after the end of the 1st semester and the beginning of the 2nd semester when the students returned to face-toface learning at school. the writers adopted the questionnaire (obidat, alquraan & obeidat, 2020) to illustrate the aspects of the student's online learning experience. research methods are both qualitative and quantitative. quality is reflected when students were asked for opinions about the usefulness of online learning or satisfaction. the quantity is shown in tables as numbers and percentages. https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang to thu dung, ngo thi thanh truc vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 26 data collection & analysis the questionnaire consisted of 24 questions and was divided into eight parts. all of the questions were multiple-choice, 23 of which had a likert scale with values ranging from 1 to 5 (strongly disagree, disagree, no opinion, agree, strongly agree), only the last one asking about students' feelings ranging from 1 to 7 (absolutely terrible, very dissatisfied, dissatisfied, quite satisfied, satisfied, very satisfied and absolutely delighted). results/findings and discussion results in students’ experience in e-learning this study examined factors that characterize students' online learning experiences at the high school level. the data was collected through questionnaires administered to 174 participants who were enrolled in the nguyen trai high school. the questionnaire implemented at the end of the 1st semester gave a return rate of 100%. the analysis of the data revealed eight factors that characterize their online learning experiences, including (i) perceived ease of use as (pe), (ii) perceived usefulness as (pu), (iii) subjective norm as (sn), (iv) intention to continuous use as (ic), (v) learning community as (lm), (vi) learning content as (ln), (vii) learning personalization as (lp), (vii) user satisfaction as (us). from the students' perspectives, the experience of taking advantage of the e-learning system reflected users' acceptance and satisfaction, social pressure, and quality of the online learning platform. table 1. perceived ease of use strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree 1. learning to operate the e-learning system would be easy for me 12/174 ( 7%) 17/174 (9.9%) 82/174 (48%) 48/174 (28.1%) 12/174 (7%) 2. it would be simple for me to get the e-learning system to perform what i want it to accomplish. 7/174 (4.1%) 13/174 (7.6%) 76/174 (44.4%) 66/174 (38.6%) 9/174 (5.3%) 3. it would be simple for me to learn how to use the e-learning system. 6/174 (3.6%) 17/174 (10.1%) 73/174 (43.2%) 58/174 (34.3%) 15/174 (8.9%) 4. i believe the e-learning system is simple to utilize. 9/174 (5.3%) 8/174 (4.7%) 73/174 (42.7%) 68/174 (19.8%) 13/174 (7.6%) nearly half of the students (48%) chose neutral when being asked whether it was easy for them to operate the system, whereas 28,1% agreed and 7% strongly agreed. the percentage of those who disagree and strongly disagree was slightly lower, at 9,9% and 7%, respectively. a similar pattern can be observed in the other three categories, with “neutral” making up the largest scale and more people turning to a positive attitude rather than the negative one. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 27 table 2. perceived usefulness strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree 5. using an e-learning system would help my learning. 7/174 (4.1%) 17/174 (9.9%) 81/174 (47.4%) 50/174 (59.2%) 16/174 (9.4%) 6. using an e-learning system to learn might boost my learning productivity. 10/174 (5.9%) 26/174 (15.3%) 78/174 (45.9%) 39/174 (22.9%) 17/174 (10%) 7. using an e-learning system might improve my learning efficacy. 8/174 (4.7%) 22/174 (12.9%) 78/174 (45.6%) 48/174 (28.1%) 15/174 (8.8%) 8. i would find the e-learning system useful in learning 9/174 (5.3%) 8/174 (4.7%) 64/174 (37.4%) 71/174 (41.5%) 19/174 (11.1%) in terms of perceived usefulness, there was an insignificant variable in the table. specifically, 59.2% of the students agreed that utilizing the e-learning system would improve their learning, making it the first preference. “neutral” ranked second with 47.4%, while the figures for "disagree" and "strongly agree" were relatively similar, at above 9%, and the percentage for "strongly disagree" was much lower. the same trend was reflected in “finding the system useful in learning”. with regards to the other two measurement scales, the number of people selecting “neutral” was dominant in both, followed by “agree”. surprisingly, more people responded with “disagree” than those who strongly agreed and strongly disagreed. table 3. subjective norm strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree 9. people who influence my behavior would think that i should use the elearning system for learning online 13 (7.6%) 26 (15.2%) 86 (50.3%) 38 (22.2%) 8 (4.7%) 10. people that important to me believe that i should utilize an elearning system to learn online. 6 (3.5%) 22 (12.8%) 82 (47.7%) 51 (29.7%) 1 (6.4%) the writers explored how other people 'people who are important to students and those who have an influence on a student's decision-making) reacted to the implementation of e-learning. while most reported neutral, a mild but obvious trend emerged that people who influence children's behavior agreed more on applying e-learning platforms. https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang to thu dung, ngo thi thanh truc vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 28 table 4. intention to continue the use strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree 11. i aim to continue utilizing the elearning system if i have access to it. 8/174 (4.7%) 17/174 (9.9%) 76/174 (44.2%) 57/174 (33.1%) 14/174 (8.1%) 12. given my access to the e-learning system, i anticipate that i would continue to use it. 9/174 (5.3%) 9/174 (5.3%) 81/174 (47.9%) 59/174 (34.9%) 11/174 (6.5 %) some (around 34%) participants agreed to keep studying online, with only less than 10% strongly agreeing, but almost half (42-48%) felt neutral. a minority (10-15%) refused to continue using e-learning platforms in the future. this level of intention seems to reflect a quite high possibility of continuous use. table 5. learning community strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree 13. i can easily discuss questions with other students thanks to the elearning system. 10/174 (5.8%) 20/174 (11.7) 74/174 (43.3%) 53/174 (31%) 14/174 (8.2%) 14. the system of e-learning makes it easy for me to access the shared content from the learning community 7/174 (4.1%) 6/174 (3.5%) 72/174 (41.9%) 63/174 (36.6%) 24/174 (14%) 15. the e-learning system makes it easy for me to discuss questions with my instructors 8/174 (4.7%) 19/174 (11%) 79/174 (45.9%) 50/174 (19.1%) 16/174 (9.3%) 16. the e-learning system allows me to share what i learn with the learning community easily 9/174 (5.3%) 11/174 (6.4%) 72/174 (42.1%) 63/174 (36.8%) 16/174 (9.4%) students were asked to think about the learning community they were involved in when studying online, and most (approximately 45%) neither agreed nor disagreed that the learning community enabled communication with instructors and peers and provided easy data accessibility. a lower but still relatively large proportion of participants agreed that it was simple for them to ask questions and exchange ideas with other students, while only some found it easy to discuss questions with teachers. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 29 table 6. learning content strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree 17. the e-learning system delivers current content. 8/174 (4.6%) 14/174 (8.1%) 80/174 (46.2%) 54/174 (31.2%) 17/174 (9.8%) 18. the e-learning system provides content that exactly fits my needs 9/174 (5.3%) 10/174 (5.8%) 86/174 (50.3%) 52/174 (30.4%) 14/174 (8.2%) 19. the e-learning system provides sufficient content 6/174 (3.5%) 14/174 (8.2%) 86/174 (50.6%) 47/174 (27.6%) 17/174 (10%) when asked about the characteristics of learning content, most students cited “neutral”. 31.2% of the respondents agreed that the content was up-to-date. more people agreed the content was innovative and exactly fits their needs rather than being sufficient, while content adequacy had a higher number of people who strongly agreed. table 7. learning personalization strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree 20. the e-learning system enables me to learn the content i need 9/174 (5.3%) 10/174 (5.8%) 78/174 (45.6%) 61/174 (35.7%) 13/174 (7.6%) 21. the e-learning system enables me to choose what i want to learn and content that exactly fits my needs 6/174 (3.5%) 10/174 (5.9%) 84/174 (49.4%) 55/174 (32.4%) 15/174 (8.8%) 22. the e-learning system enables me to control my learning progress 9/174 (5.2%) 12/174 (7%) 86/174 (50%) 51/174 (29.7%) 14/174 (8.1%) 23. my learning progress and performance are tracked by the elearning system. 8/174 (4.7%) 8/174 (4.7%) 89/174 (51.7%) 56/174 (32.6%) 11/174 (6.4%) while most participants reported a neutral attitude towards the learning personalization level that the platform offered, for some, it was negative. more than 30% reported the platform worked effectively in assisting students to achieve their goals and better control their learning pace. table 8. user satisfaction absolutely terrible very dissatisfied dissatisfied quite satisfied satisfied very satisfied absolutely delighted 25. how do you feel about your overall experience of the elearning system use? 8/174 (4.6%) 5/174 (2.9%) 10/174 (5.8%) 65/174 (37.6%) 61/174 (35.3%) 18/174 (10.4%) 6/174 (3.5%) https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang to thu dung, ngo thi thanh truc vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 30 overall, most of the participants showed a high level of satisfaction in e-learning, 73% were satisfied, and 14% were very satisfied or absolutely delighted when using the system. a minority of students revealed that the system did not fulfill their requirements. 5.8% were dissatisfied, and 7.5% were very dissatisfied or felt absolutely terrible. discussion perceived ease of use (pe) and perceived usefulness (pu) previous research reveals two critical criteria among the numerous variables that may validate the experience of utilizing an online learning system (davis, 1989). the first one is pe perceived ease of use, which is described as the level of confidence a user has about effortlessly using a certain scheme. in addition, perceived usefulness (pu) refers to how confident a user is in better performing their job with the support of a certain scheme. the participants in this study evaluated the efficiency of the system in e-learning. the majority of them shared the same agreement and belief that the system is a useful and effective instrument for building their knowledge. furthermore, the easiness of the online learning platform was also surveyed. a good proportion of learners replied that the platform is straightforward to implement. according to the technology acceptance model, while there is a lack of rational measurement methods for interpreting user acceptance of e-learning systems (davis, 1989), perceived usefulness (pu) and perceived ease of use (pe) are quite important in terms of user acceptability(abbad and jaber, 2014). in other words, these two variables imply usage behavior and determine user technological acceptability. in terms of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, this study finds that the users have an optimistic attitude toward the usage of elearning and the system value. this indicates a relatively high level of user satisfaction and user acceptance. kurucay and inan (2017) argued that there is some evidence that e-learning may improve students' performance. whereas derouin et al. (2005) discovered in a review of existing studies that it is difficult to tell if e-learning is more, less, or equally effective at the learning level as conventional classroom-based instruction. clark (2007) also stated that previous research has not shown that well-prepared traditional learning is more successful than well-prepared online learning or vice versa. subjective norm (sn) subjective norms refer to the individual’s perception of whether the significant others support their behavior. that is to say, subjective norms indicate a user's intention to use a technology system (ajzen, 2022). in this study, two-thirds of people who are either important to students or have an influence on students' behavior agree that in current times, the e-learning system is a great source of learning as well as a good practice of knowledge sharing. while educators in the study recognized the advantages of online education, they also claimed that blended learning delivered safer, higher-quality outcomes for their students. (pham, n. t., & nghiem, h. v., acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 31 2022). it has been shown that the use of media and technology in the classroom is beneficial but that virtual interactions cannot fully replace face-to-face instruction (miller, 2020). intention to continuous use (ic) there is a correlation between perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, subjective norm, and intention to continuous use in this study (abbad and jaber, 2014). the participants are shown to have quite a strong intention and motivation to continue using this online learning system in the future. navarro & shoemaker (2000) revealed that students are highly happy with their online learning experiences, and their learning results are equivalent to or better than traditional ones. another debate, as indicated in the research of hoa sen university in 2021, demonstrated that university students liked e-learning owing to its flexibility and ease. (hoang & tran, 2021). learning community (lm) the learning community in this study includes conversations between learners and their peers and their instructor and data accessibility. it can be seen that there were effective online communities using technology in interactions and sharing. in this study, a large number of students agreed that they feel free to share their personal ideas and interact with their peers in a meaningful way. the reason why students do not have effective collaboration may lie in the fact that they do not feel comfortable enough to either discuss questions with their teacher privately or pose a public discussion. ryan & young (2015) mentioned that the term "online education" refers to the use of various forms of internet-based technology in order to facilitate communication between educators and their students. learning content (ln) many (above 30%) participants reported that the system in e-learning provides greater value to the courses. the platform manages to cater to over 50% of online learners' needs despite the challenge that not all online learners have the same expectations, preferences, or learning goals. moreover, the amount of knowledge was quite well controlled, so learners were made sure not to be cognitively overwhelmed. according to fry (2001), online learning is defined as the application of the internet and other significant technologies in the creation of materials for program management and educational objectives. learning personalization (lp) it is observed from the data that many learners (37,7%) are facilitated to manage his/her own learning progress. around 42% of participants are able to personalize the experience by selecting the course content and using its multiple types. all of these allow learners to follow their own learning path and, as such, boost the quality and speed of education (essaid, hassan, and adnani, 2011). so that is the reason why singh and thurman (2019) stated that e-learning is defined as the experience of learners in either synchronous or asynchronous scenarios utilizing a variety of devices (e.g., mobile phones, computers, and so on) that can connect to the internet. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283159988_e-learning_personalization_based_on_dynamic_learners%27_preference https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283159988_e-learning_personalization_based_on_dynamic_learners%27_preference https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang to thu dung, ngo thi thanh truc vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 32 user satisfaction (us) the level of user satisfaction well correlates with the characteristics mentioned all above. most (nearly 90%) students range from quite satisfied to absolutely delighted, which means that generally, the online learning system fulfills the learner’s needs. ngo, d. h.(2021) stated that an increase in students' motivation to study might be expected if teachers become more skilled at using the internet's benefits to design more engaging online classes. this means that students are more actively involved in their online education. conclusion this study explored factors that characterize a learner's experience in online learning. the constructive attitude shown in every category suggested that students valued the e-learning tools. specifically, the learning content and learning personalization have the strongest positive feedback towards the system. in spite of the perceived advantages of e-learning, this study points out that there is still room for improvement, especially in terms of usefulness. consequently, operating e-learning courses should be considered with sensitivity to the effect positively on learners’ experience of online platforms, particularly for the accessibility of data in the learning community. lastly, educators such as the school administrators, policymakers, and course designers may benefit from this study as data samples can assist in measuring students' acceptance, identifying the cause for rejection and determining the following strategy for correction, and speeding up the rate of adoption. limitations of the study it is thought that this research has certain constraints, reflecting on the sample size. although the sample size of 174 is statistically significant, it is considered undersized compared to the total number of this high school, which is 1851. in addition, the collection of data was mainly limited to the students who were attending nguyen trai high school. as a result, it may not fully represent the diversity of attitudes in other regions. future research should involve multiple high schools in different areas. references abbad, m., & jaber, f. (2014). evaluating e-learning systems: an empirical investigation on students’ perception in higher education area. international journal of emerging technologies in learning (ijet), 9(4), 27–34. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v9i4.3480 ajzen, i. (2022). theory of planned behavior questionnaire. measurement instrument database for the social science. retrieved from www.midss.ie agung, a. s. n., surtikanti, m. w., & quinones, c. a. (2020). students’ perception of online https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v9i4.3480 http://www.midss.ie/ acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 33 learning during covid-19 pandemic: a case study on the english students of stkip pamane talino. soshum: jurnal sosial dan humaniora, 10(2), 225– 235. https://doi.org/10.31940/soshum.v10i2.1316 alqurashi, e. (2019). predicting student satisfaction and perceived learning within online learning environments. distance educ. 40, 133-148. https://doi:10.1080/01587919.2018.1553562 barbour, m. k., & reeves, t. c. (2009). the reality of virtual schools: a review of the literature. computers & education, 52(2), 402– 416. barbour, m. k., & labonte, r. (2017). state of the nation: k-12 e-learning in canada, 2017 edition. http://k12sotn.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/statenation17.pdf bartley, s. j., & golek, j. h. (2004). evaluating the cost-effectiveness of online and face-toface instruction. educational journal and technology. bates. t (2016). online learning for beginners: 1. what is online learning? retrieved 21 september, 2020 from: https://www.tonybates.ca/2016/07/15/online-learning-forbeginners-1-what-is-onlinelearning/ beamish, n., armistead, c., watkinson, m. & armfield, g. (2002) ‘the deployment of elearning in uk/european corporate organisations’, european business journal, 14(3), 105-116. bączek, m., zagańczyk-bączek, m., szpringer, m., jaroszyński, a., & wożakowska-kapłon, b. (2021). students’ perception of online learning during the covid-19 pandemic: a survey study of polish medical students. medicine, 100(7), e24821. https://doi.org/10.1097/md.0000000000024821 basuony, m. a. k., emadeldeen, r., farghaly, m., el-bassiouny, n., & mohamed, e. k. a. (2020). the factors affecting student satisfaction with online education during the covid-19 pandemic: an empirical study of an emerging muslim country. journal of islamic marketing. https://doi.org/10.1108/jima-09-2020-0301 blackmon, s. j., & major, c. (2012). student experiences in online courses a qualitative research synthesis. quarterly review of distance education, 13(2), 77-86. clark. r. e. (2007). reconsidering research on learning from media. rev. educ. res. 2007; 53: 445–459 davis, f. d. (1989). perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. mis quarterly, 13(3), 319–340. https://doi.org/10.2307/249008 derouin, r. e., fritzsche, b. a. & salas, e. (2005). ‘e-learning in organizations’, journal of management, 31: 6, 920-940. https://doi.org/10.31940/soshum.v10i2.1316 http://k12sotn.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/statenation17.pdf https://doi.org/10.1097/md.0000000000024821 https://doi.org/10.2307/249008 https://asiacall.info/acoj hoang to thu dung, ngo thi thanh truc vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 34 el bachari, e., & el adnani, m. (2011). e-learning personalization based on dynamic learners' preference. aircc's international journal of computer science and information technology, 3(3), 200-216. fry, k. (2001). e-learning markets and providers: some issues and prospects. inf discov deliv. 2001; 43: 233–239. grundmann, o., wielbo, d., & tebbett, i. (2010). the implementation and growth of an international online forensic science graduate program at the university of florida. journal of college science teaching, 40(1), 34-40. hoang, t. t. d., & tran, q. h. (2022). changes in students' experiences and perceptions towards e-learning at hoa sen university during covid-19 pandemic. asiacall online journal, 13(1), 22-39. eoi:http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.002. joshi, o., chapagain, b., kharel, g., poudyal, n. c., murray, b. d., & mehmood, s. r. (2020). benefits and challenges of online instruction in agriculture and natural resource education. interactive learning environments, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2020.1725896 kurucay, m., & inan, f. a. (2017). examining the effects of learner-learner interactions on satisfaction and learning in an online undergraduate course. comput. educ. 2017; 115: 20–37. lee, k. (2017). rethinking the accessibility of online higher education: a historical review. internet high. educ. 2017; 33: 15–23. miller, g. (2020). social distancing prevents infections, but it can have unintended consequences. science. 2020. muilenburg, l. y., & berge, z. l. (2005). student barriers to online learning: a factor analytic study. distance education, 26(1), 29-48. navarro, p., & shoemaker, j. (2000). performance and perceptions of distance learners in cyberspace. american journal of distance education, 14(2), 15–35. ngo, d. h. (2021). perceptions of efl tertiary students towards the correlation between elearning and learning engagement during the covid-19 pandemic. international journal of tesol & education, 1(3), pp. 235-259. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11250/ijte.01.03.013 niemi, h. m., & kousa, p. (2020). a case study of students’ and teachers’ perceptions in a finnish high school during the covid pandemic. international journal of technology in education and science, 4(4), 352– 369. https://doi.org/10.46328/ijtes.v4i4.167 obidat, a.h. & alquraan, h. & obeidat, m. h. (2020). data on factors characterizing the elearning experience of secondary school teachers and university undergraduate students in jordan. 16 (3), 385-398. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2020.106402. http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11250/ijte.01.03.013 https://doi.org/10.46328/ijtes.v4i4.167 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2020.106402 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 35 pham, n. t., & nghiem, h. v.(2022). online teaching satisfaction amid the covid-19 pandemic: evidence from a vietnamese higher education context. international journal of tesol & education, 2(1), 310-326. doi: https://doi.org/10.54855/ijte.222119 ryan, t.g. & young, c.d. (2015). online (distance) education: evolving standards. j. des. technol. educ. 2015; 11: 15–30. singh, v., thurman, a. (2019). how many ways can we define online learning? a systematic literature review of definitions of online learning (1988-2018). american journal of distance education, 33(4), 289–306. tamm. s. (2019). what is e-learning? retrieved 20 september, 2020 from: https://estudent.org/what-is-e-learning/ talidong, k. j. & toquero c. m. (2020). philippine teachers’ practices to deal with anxiety amid covid-19. j. loss trauma. 2020; 25, 573–579. russell, t. l. (1999). the "no significant difference phenomenon." raleigh: north carolina state university. retrieved september 30, 2004, from: http://nt.media.hku.hk/no_sig_diff/phenom1.html. biodata hoang to thu dung is currently an english lecturer at hoa sen university. she has over 15 years in teaching at universities. she earned her ma in tesol at victoria university in 2011. she also got ba in finance and banking in university of economics ho chi minh city. her academic areas of interest include tesol methodology, business english, e-learning and psychology. ngo thi thanh truc is working at nguyen trai high school as an english teacher at present. she used to be an english lecturer, admin of an english e-learning website, and academic supervisor. she finished her ma in tesol at victoria university in 2011. her academic fields of interest are tesol methodology, e-learning, english program and curriculum, and english pronunciation. https://doi.org/10.54855/ijte.222119 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, robert snell inquiry into enhancing reflective learning in an online language course robert snell robsnell84@gmail.com city and guilds (freelance content editor), great britain abstract in a learner-centered approach, lecturers constantly adapt their teaching methods to better suit their students’ goals and needs. city and guilds examinations for speakers of other languages are high stakes language examinations approved by the uk border agency. an online examination preparation course has been developed that consists of activities and teacher presentations to help develop students’ language skills and improve examination performance. one of the aims of this course is to enhance reflective learning, using a teacher presentation of explanatory feedback after the controlled practice activity in the lessons. it is envisaged that this would provide an opportunity for students to identify gaps in language knowledge as well as re-balance any misunderstandings. the process would be similar to a situation in a classroom when students request explanatory feedback after they have completed a task. this paper presents the background to the course content, the learning framework of the online lessons and the format of the feedback presentations. initial informal inquiries have revealed the feedback presentations are generally not currently prompting reflective feedback as evidenced by improved scores, as was originally predicted. however, all students were viewing the presentations consistently indicating that some level of knowledge consolidation maybe taking place. it may be possible that students are not fully aware of their purpose and the information contained is not always relevant to each particular individual student. measures to address these issues are suggested and improvements to the learning experience are discussed. keywords: online, examination preparation, reflective learning, teacher role, feedback online language learning courses offer instant feedback and the opportunity for students to try activities more than once. one key element often lacking is explanatory feedback relating to the answers of the questions. it was envisaged that for students taking the city and guilds online examination preparation course, motivation and completion rates could be improved by providing text and visual presentations with narration. the presentations are used to provide three areas of support for the learner: academic, practical, and emotive, as would be provided by the teacher in the classroom (white, 2003). with regard to academic support, activities carried out by the students are explained, the process of answering the questions is examined and incorrect answers are outlined carefully with regard to why they were incorrect. encouragement (emotive support) and organisational information (practical support) about the course (length of study time etc.) are also provided. it is hoped that this will enhance the reflective element of the students' learning, improve progress and lead to greater motivation. this paper outlines an initial inquiry into an attempt at implementing teacher presentations to enhance reflective learning and summarises the how the initial findings have informed improvements to the learning experience. initial student feedback at this stage consists of informal interviews and user statistics from a small sample of chinese students. the examinations can be considered as one of the ‘high-stakes english tests’ alongside ielts, toeic and others, approved by the uk border agency. the online course will soon be adopted by students preparing for the city & guilds english examinations internationally and particularly in schools, universities and test centres in eastern europe and asia (china, malaysia, india, pakistan, sri lanka and indonesia). the city and guilds english examinations are proficiency tests. they consist of international english for speakers of other languages (iesol) and international spoken english for speakers of other languages mailto:robsnell84@gmail.com asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, robert snell (isesol) examinations. the examinations are proficiency based level tests that refer to the common european framework of reference for languages: learning, teaching and assessment (cefr). the cefr sets out to provide a common basis for the development of language syllabuses, curriculum guidelines, examinations and textbooks. there are 6 examinations, one for each level of the cefr: a1, a2, b1, b2, c1 and c2. each of the examinations seeks to assess the candidates’ ability to perform the can-do statements of the cefr for each level. for example, the city and guilds ‘communicator’ examination is aligned to the b2 cefr can-do descriptors. the esol examination consists of 3 skills: listening, reading and writing. the sesol examination assesses speaking. the cefr descriptors determine the design of the examination. for example: ‘can understand the way meaning is built up in a range of texts’ is a requirement for a b2 candidate. in the b2 reading examination part 2, the student is required to identify how meaning is built up using cohesive devices, discourse markers and referencing techniques. in this particular task the candidate is presented with a text with 6 sentences missing. they are given a separate list of 8 sentence options and are required to identify which sentences fill the gaps. to complete the task, the candidate would need to understand the referencing and discourse features of the sentences before and after each gap, as well as in the text as a whole. therefore if the student completes the task successfully, we can say with some level of certainty that the student ‘can understand the way meaning is built up in a range of texts’ and meets this descriptor for b2 from the cefr. preparation course the examination preparation course is an online self-study course that provides approximately 35 hours of study time for each level. the course primarily provides an opportunity for the students to become familiar with the task types and the language performance requirements for each level. for each part of the examination, there are 2-3 one-hour lessons focusing on key language skills and language features including: grammar structures, vocabulary items and functional phrases. the course consists of skills and language development activities, teacher presentations and mock examinations. the language features of the lesson material are determined by the language features and skills required to complete the examination tasks successfully. for example, b2 listening part 1 of the iesol examination requires candidates to listen to a short dialogue and predict what is said next to continue the conversation. the candidate requires good awareness of intonation and stress patterns to do this. the activities in the lesson are focused on developing awareness of these features in order to be able to recognise the topic, speakers and context of the conversation and importantly, the emotion of the speakers. the learning process the course assumes that the learning process is dynamic and non-linear. stages of learning do not follow consecutively from one another. however, it does assume that there are certain attractor states (harshbarger, 2007). it assumes and relies on output as indicators of language ability at that point in the learner’s knowledge and application. it also assumes the learning path can be controlled and changes made to the learning path can enhance or detract from the effectiveness of the learning. the course follows a ‘noticing & sense-making, remembering and application, incorporating’ model as it is felt that this learning framework, when compared to alternative learning frameworks, leads to deeper understanding, new skills and knowledge are better integrated into previous knowledge and application of knowledge will be more fluent when required in the future. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, robert snell noticing and sense-making language is presented in context with questions that require students to notice the language feature. this would help the student integrate the new skill into their previous knowledge. the learner finds something new and interesting and considers this to be true and correct (harshbarger, 2007). application and remembering having introduced the language feature, the student would be asked to try out the new skill in a controlled secure environment. this would help the student try out their new understanding of the language feature with language input designed to highlight this language feature. this leans towards the universal grammar theory of learning (chomsky in cook, 1996). the input provides the basis to set the parameters based on the language feature. although debatable, for the purposes of the course, it is also assumed that output is a form of applying language learnt and provides evidence of current state of understanding (krashen, 1998; swain, 1985 in harshbarger, 2007). allowing for processing theory and focus on practice, questions are given to the students (cook, 1996). incorrect answers are assumed to indicate performance errors and an incorrect assumption related to the language item being learned or a gap in learning to be filled. the feedback can help the student assess whether their assumptions were correct or help students identify their ‘gap’ (e.g. a missing vocabulary item). this process of sense-making encompasses temporary states which are then subsequently corrected and re-organised. if the student does not answer the questions correctly, then the student can re-formulate their parameters in light of this feedback and then try the activity again. this could be framed within the information processing model of mclaughlin (1983 in cook, 1996). the aim is to help the knowledge move from controlled process of application to automatic and therefore each activity would generally contain a series of questions focused on the same language point. incorporating finally, at the end of the lesson, the student is faced with an examination task. this would provide motivation for learners and another opportunity to apply language features covered in the lesson. it is hoped that the knowledge would become incorporated into the learners’ identity and would be evident in their language competency from that point. in effect, one or more ‘can-do’ statements of the cefr would better fit a description of the learner and this would hopefully be reflected in his or her examination results after taking the actual examination. explanatory feedback – teacher presentations after the student has reached the end of the controlled practice activities, it is expected that sufficient information processing will have taken place. the students may develop cognitive disequilibrium – that is to say in this case the student applies his or her understanding of the language point and chooses an incorrect answer to a question. the incorrect answer reveals an inconsistency or an anomaly in relation to his or her understanding (otero & graesser, 2001). the feedback page of the online platform presents the ‘student’s answer’ and ‘correct answer’ (or model answer in the case of free writing and speaking activities). the presentation of the correct answer may be enough for some students to rebalance their understanding and to answer similar questions correctly in the future. however, in a classroom the student may then ask for an explanation with a ‘why is this option the answer, not this?’ or ‘what if i do this – is this ok?’ type of questions (from preg model, otero & graesser, 2001). at this point in the lesson, the learner is presented with explanatory feedback presentation to highlight the reasons why the answers are correct from the previous activity or to highlight the language features of a model answer for productive skills. this could be referred to as the important 'reflective' point of the asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, robert snell learning process (siemens, 2006). the aim is to consolidate understanding, as well as rebalance understanding and help students identify gaps in knowledge. it is assumed that in a classroom situation the student may seek additional assistance from the teacher to re-formulate their understanding of a language point if the questions have revealed to them an inconsistency in their understanding. the teacher explanation presentations aim to promote this classroom learning process in an online learning environment. in short, the explanatory feedback aims to prompt reflection and consolidation of learning or rebalance understanding, as well as increase motivation. at this point, encouragement is also given. the feedback pages for all activities on the platform contain a brief: ‘well done’, ‘try again’, ‘excellent’ depending on the percentage of success. the teacher presentations and narration also contain the teacher saying: ‘if you got all the questions correct, well done. if you didn’t, you can try the activity again.’ it is hoped that this will provide additional motivation to the learner to repeat the activity and improve their score. the relevance of the activities in the lesson is also emphasised and the link between the language features and improved examination performance is highlighted. initial inquiry this study is focused on the benefit of the explanatory feedback presentations presented to the student after the controlled practice activity. it was hoped that in cases where the student was unable to score 100%, the student would then view the subsequent presentation explaining why their answers were not 100% correct and then finally the student would return to the activity and improve their score. the sample of students is too small to provide conclusive findings but can provide an initial indication of student activity and reasons for that activity. the sample size was determined by the availability of data and access to students for follow-up inquiry. the initial feedback from students consists of user statistics from the learning platform from eight early adopter students and in-depth interview feedback with two students. the interviewees were asked to give reasons for his study patterns. interview feedback two individual students were asked about their reaction to the teacher feedback presentations. the teaching assistant was also questioned regarding any additional explanations provided to the students related to the activities of the online course. interviewee 1 reason for study: intending to move to uk as an investor level: c1 explanatory feedback presentations: average of 0.9 views per presentation (an average of ‘1’ would indicate that the student viewed all presentations exactly once, with no content skipped and no pausing) average % score on examination-style activities: 87% comments: works as a university professor, able to regulate learning, reflect on performance, took c1 test shortly after study completion (well-motivated) interviewee 2 reason for study: professional development level: b1 explanatory feedback presentations: average of 0.86 views per presentation (an average of ‘1’ would indicate that the student viewed all presentations exactly once, with no content skipped and no pausing) asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, robert snell average % score on examination-style activities: 94% comments: currently has no intention of taking examination, course provides opportunity to develop english skills for work purposes teaching assistant the students also have access to a teaching assistant. it was hypothesised that if the students had additional questions related to the activities that were not covered by the teacher presentations, then the student would ask the teacher assistant for an explanation. the students had access to the teaching assistant through phone calls and an online question submission system on the homepage of the course. they were not studying in the classroom as part of a blended learning course. the statistics showed that the students were looking at the presentations, although the number of views appeared to reduce rapidly to one or occasionally two views after the first unit of the course. it was also evident that the time spent viewing the presentation was on average longer than the original length of the presentation. this meant that the students were viewing the content completely and to the end of the presentation. interviewee 2 spent approximately 175% of the original presentation length for each view (when he chose to view a presentation rather than skipping it). he explained that he paused the presentation as he listened. if he did not understand the narration clearly, he paused the narration, checked that he understood the text on the screen regardless of the narration. when he was comfortable that he understood the text, he continued listening. the emphasis placed on the text could reflect the focus on reading in chinese schools. listening ability is often below reading ability for many chinese learners of english. did the feedback presentations prompt students to try activities again and did their scores improve? the statistics revealed that of the 178 activity attempts that were followed by a feedback presentation, only 17% of the activities were attempted more than once. in the majority of cases (83% of the time), the student did not repeat the activity. graph 3 (left): repeats of activity preceding teacher feedback presentations graph 4 (right): percentage scores for activities not repeated it’s also clear that for those activities not repeated, there was significant room to improve scores as indicated by the red slice of the pie in graph 4. it was originally hoped that the students would view the teacher feedback presentations and then repeat the activity with an improved score. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, robert snell graph 5: when the activity was repeated graph 5 shows that the students were almost always repeating the activity before viewing the presentation. the students were not repeating the activity after the feedback presentation in almost all cases. in over a quarter of the cases, the students scored 100% on the activity on the first attempt. it is understandable that the student would not repeat the activity again here. it is maybe more than a coincidence that scores of over 60% for any activity are shown as ‘completed’ on the online learning system. in only 2 cases was the score below 60 and not repeated (see graph 4) until a score above 60 was achieved (for the activities followed by a teacher feedback presentation.) this indicates that achieving a score above 60 was important to the learners and was a key motivator behind repeating the activities. interviewee 2 confirmed that the main motivation to repeat the activity was to improve his score and not due to the feedback presentations. he also stated that he was not sure of the benefit of the feedback presentations and in later units he began to skip them. he felt he had mastered the language skill of the lesson without the presentations and therefore did not need to view them. in this case, the lack of views could be explained by a combination of non-existent cognitive disequilibrium (he got the answers right anyway) and a lack of motivation (after all, he was not planning to take the examination). in the absence of deep goals, perhaps the learner cannot be expected to seek a deep explanation. interviewee 1 prepared for the c1 examination by only following the online course and using no other form of assistance. the statistics indicated that she also skipped some of the presentations in later units. she indicated time pressure as the key reason. she felt that the activities themselves were the most useful and that the experience of the different question types and indication of level/requirements were the most helpful elements of the course. given the time constraint (she only had 2 weeks to complete the whole course of approximately 40 hours of learning, while working full-time), she felt that she did not receive much benefit from the presentations. she also suggested that the presentations could be in video format to increase engagement. both interviewees indicated that the presentations were difficult for them to understand at times. they were both very reliant on the text to ensure understanding. given the effort required to understand the explanations, and the uncertainty over the benefit, interviewee 2 skipped some of the presentations in lessons he considered less relevant to his needs. the c1 student (a university professor of chemical engineering) indicated that time constraints were the main reason behind her decision to skip some of the feedback presentations. she was aware of the aim but asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, robert snell she did not feel that the information contained was pertinent to her needs. as a university professor, she could also be considered as a good learner in that she actively self-regulates her learning goals (otero & graesser, 2001). in this case, it’s possible that the explanatory feedback was additional to her learning goals. these were stated as to become familiar with the examination requirements of the level and questions types. she was familiar with students asking questions for further explanations. she recognised that the feedback was explaining some of the answers to the previous questions but she thought that not all the possible questions students might have were being covered. regarding questions asked to the teaching assistant, there were no instances of the questions related to activities that were explained within the content of a teacher feedback presentation from the b1 or c1 course. evidence of reflective learning the reflective learning can be divided into two stages of learner processing. for learners that had already scored 100% on the previous activity before viewing the explanatory feedback, the presentation can be said to be consolidating learning through reflection. the explanation could be moving the students (successful) process of application of the language point or skill from a controlled process to automatic. although yet to be validated by more thorough research, the number of presentation views and length of view for the majority of the presentations suggest that the student placed some value on viewing the presentations and therefore considered them to be helpful in some way. the students were at liberty to skip all the presentations if they had wished. there were two situations when a student repeated an activity after viewing the feedback presentation. reflective learning may have occurred, leading the student to balance an original cognitive disequilibrium or identify a gap in understanding. case 1 level b1 lesson: writing part 3 correcting errors act 10 write the sentence with the correct capitalisation [students are presented with a sentence with incorrect capitalisation and required to rewrite the incorrect elements correctly] act 11 – teacher feedback presentation [presents and confirms answers for all questions] the student attempted activity 10 and scored 0% on the first attempt. the student then viewed the feedback presentation (length of presentation: 1.23s, view time 1.29s: this is consistent with a complete view). the student had a break of nearly two hours and then attempted act 10 again. the student was able to score 66% on the second attempt. however, this activity is the same as the activity in which two students scored less than 60% without making further attempts to improve their score. in fact the average final score for the all six learners who completed this unit was 58%. this was an anomaly as most activities had a much higher average score. it seems likely that the activity itself had been constructed unfairly. as the activity required the writing of multiple sentences, it’s possible that minor typing mistakes could have led the students to consistently achieve a low score even after they had learnt and understood the language focus of the lesson. [the activity has now been improved.] case 2 level b1 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, robert snell lesson: listening part 4 following a discussion act 5 – multiple-select activity [students are required to identify what topics are talked about by two teachers having a discussion, gist activity] act 6 – teacher feedback presentation [samples from the listening script are presented on the screen and the process of identifying the topic from the vocabulary is explained] student scored 0% on three attempts and then viewed the presentation (presentation length: 1.48s, view time: 1.59s: this is consistent with complete view). the student scored 100% on the fourth attempt. in this case, as there was only one question item for the multiple-select activity, the scoring mechanism of the automated marking system meant that anything except all the items selected correctly is scored 0%. in both these cases, the student may have experienced frustration related to the construct of the activity. the student may have been confident of their mastery of the language point but were still unable to achieve the 60% score required for completion. although it was disappointing to find evidence of poorly constructed activities in the course, the analysis has provided a method of identifying poorly constructed activities. further developments the average number of views of the presentations and length of view indicate that for students who scored 100% on the previous activity, some consolidation of understanding could be taking place as a result of the teacher feedback presentations. this is supported by the absence of student questions directed to the teaching assistant. however, the feedback presentations have not proven as successful in enhancing reflective learning as evidenced by improved performance, as was originally predicted. ideas to improve rate of reflective learning from teacher presentations: 1. increase pass rate from 60% to 70% it appears the motivation to improve score is tied closely to the desire to repeat an activity. to reach a higher score of 70% the additional learning to be gained from the teacher presentations may become more necessary and useful. 2. to increase awareness of benefit by changing the title of and location of teacher feedback presentations the lesson overview presentations, feedback presentations and examination tips presentations are all labelled ‘listen to the teacher’. this may have caused the student to fail to realise the full benefit of the teacher feedback presentations. an explicit activity title could be ‘help from the teacher for activity 6’. currently, in order to view the presentations related to a particular activity, the students must move on from the automated feedback pages indicating their score and the correct answers. if the student were able to view the presentation without moving away from the feedback page, the student may be more inclined to view it before repeating the activity. 3. content – whose question is the feedback answering? the teacher explanations may be useful if it relates to the particular misunderstanding of the individual student but otherwise it may be irrelevant to his or her needs. 4. what if the students could choose the question and then watch a teacher-created video based on that question? this would make it more relevant to the students' needs and more engaging for the students. teachers using the online course with their students could use a simple screen capture video tool and upload the video for all students to view. the students could view a list of questions, each with a related video. they would then select the video related to their own asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, robert snell question. if the question is not listed, then an explanation to answer this question could be requested from a teacher. this process would more closely mimic the question and answer process that would take place in the classroom. ultimately, the majority of the students’ questions would have a video providing explanatory feedback. it may be possible to increase the standard number of ‘good’ questions asked by an average student in a classroom. in addition, the student has the flexibility to ask many questions without feeling that they are wasting other students’ time. 5. to increase validity of repeated activity as an indicator of learning: item banking if a student repeats the activity and answers the same questions as before it’s likely that memory of the answers and questions will assist the student in achieving a better score. to eliminate this issue, the student could be presented with different questions related to the same language point. 6. reassess the format of the teacher presentation too passive? 7. it’s likely that the presentation style does not prompt the active processing that is necessary for effective reflective learning to take place. the student is told how to apply the language skill to achieve the correct answer but it would be better if the student is required to form his or her own explanation first before listening to the teacher explanatory feedback. research possibilities this initial investigation has shown that motivation for deeper learning appears could be tied to pass rate score. students may see this as an indicator of satisfactory learning required to achieve success in the examination. future research questions generated from this initial inquiry are: 1. does an increase in pass rate percentage lead to an increased use of teacher presentations and improved scores on the online course activities? 2. does viewing the teacher presentations increase learning evidenced by better results in the examination? conclusion this paper has outlined the learning process following an initial inquiry into an attempt at enhancing reflective learning in an online language learning course. the predicted use of the presentations did not match the actual use of the early-adopter students. the inquiry has shed light on the correlation between student motivation and online language study activity. it has shown that motivation may be a key variable to determine the effectiveness of any attempt to promote reflective learning as part of an online course. this offers an interesting research possibility for the future. further analysis of student use will hopefully improve the learning effectiveness of the course in the future. references cook, v. (1996). second language learning and language teaching 2 nd edition. edward arnold publishers limited. graesser a.c., mcnamara d. s., & van lehn k., (2005). scaffolding deep comprehension strategies through point & query, autotutor, and istart. educational psychologist, 40(4), 225-234, lawrence erlbaum associates, inc. retrieved from: http://www.learnlab.org/uploads/mypslc/publications/graesser%20mcnamara%20vanlehn%20ep%200 5.pdf harshbarger, b. (2007). chaos, complexity and language learning. language research, bulletin, 22, tokyo, icu. retrieved from: http://web.icu.ac.jp/lrb/volume-22.html http://www.learnlab.org/uploads/mypslc/publications/graesser%20mcnamara%20vanlehn%20ep%2005.pdf http://www.learnlab.org/uploads/mypslc/publications/graesser%20mcnamara%20vanlehn%20ep%2005.pdf http://web.icu.ac.jp/lrb/volume-22.html asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, robert snell krashen, s. (1998). comprehensible output. system, 26, p175-182. retrieved from: http://www.sdkrashen.com/articles/comprehensible_output/01.html siemens, g (2006). knowing knowledge. retrieved from: www.knowingknowledge.com swain, m. (2007). keynote presentation slides, beijing foreign studies university 2007. retrieved from: http://www.celea.org.cn/2007/keynote/ppt/merrill%20swain.pdf white, c. (2003). language learning in distance education. cambridge university press. websites council of europe cefr http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/cadre_en.asp city & guilds english examinations: http://www.cityandguildsenglish.com/ city & guilds esol/isesol online courses: www.cgetutor.com [demo account login information available here: http://www.cityandguildsenglish.com/cat/120] uk border agency approved tests http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/applicationforms/newapproved-english-tests.pdf for level alignment of city & guilds examinations with cambridge examinations: www.cambridgeesol.org http://www.sdkrashen.com/articles/comprehensible_output/01.html http://www.knowingknowledge.com/ http://www.celea.org.cn/2007/keynote/ppt/merrill%20swain.pdf http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/cadre_en.asp http://www.cityandguildsenglish.com/ http://www.cgetutor.com/ http://www.cityandguildsenglish.com/cat/120 http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/applicationforms/new-approved-english-tests.pdf http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/applicationforms/new-approved-english-tests.pdf http://www.cambridgeesol.org/ asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, pin-hsiang natalie wu & wan-ting chuang l2 cmc motivation in task-based computer-mediated communications pin-hsiang natalie wu chien-kuo technology university, taiwan natalie@ctu.edu.tw wan-ting chuang national changhua university of education, taiwan abstract the internet and new technologies have enabled easy implementation of cross-cultural communications, which has also lead to new trends in l2 learning. studies of computer-mediated communication competence are rich in content, but discussions regarding l2 language learning are rare. in recent theoretical discussions, media factors, message factors, contextual factors including cultural background and function of cmc, had correlatively influenced the outcome of cmc interactions. however, the popularity of cross-cultural collaborative learning in english highlights the need for more attention to the possible ways to assess l2 learning via computermediated communication. in this study, second language cmc motivation (l2 cmc motivation) serves as a major factor, corresponding with other factors in a cross-cultural, web-based activity oriented for english learning. this study emerged from a larger research project in which a l2 learning activity involving participants from taiwan and japan had exchanged ideas using a web platform communication tool established by nicenet organization. the purpose of this paper is to understand how other factors involved in cmc interactions would correlate with l2 cmc motivation on the side of taiwanese students. items adapted from spitzberg’s (2006), were blended in a survey (cronbach’s á=.902) to understand the correlation between the three factors to the major one l2 cmc motivation. the results showed that the above four factors were strongly correlated. among message factors, expressiveness is especially related to l2 cmc motivation. regarding contextual factors, patterns of behavior and function also had significant influence on l2 cmc motivation. keywords: computer-mediated communication competence (cmcc), cmc motivation, l2 learning, cross-cultural, web-based background developed under the notion globalization and enabled by the advance of new technologies, applications of technological communications for collaborative learning projects for educational purpose are now popular and prevalent. teleconferencing, email system, social network, line and many other application tools enable synchronous and asynchronous computer-mediated communications (cmc) for computer users. these web-based activities are believed to support student learning and develop better skills in a wide array of areas (kozma, 2003) including cross-cultural encounters, intercultural competence, communicative competence and developing cultural awareness. cross-cultural communications are usually conducted via english, the language served as either a mother tongue or the second language for an increasing growing population. as a matter of fact, the learning of english could be seen as one of the major purposes of the use of cmc for a great amount of english as second language learners. when a non english native cmc user is proficient and expressive in the language he uses, other achievements can be examined. likewise, if a non english native cmc user’s english level is low, or the motivation to use or to learn english is not strong, it would influence his cmc motivation. in other words, for non english native users, cmc motivation should be discussed together with l2 motivation in any cmc-based project. motivation for learning english had hardly been discussed along side with motivation for cmc. this study discussed how motivation for learning english (l2 motivation) would influence a person’s asynchronous communications in a task-based activity. the research questions are: mailto:natalie@ctu.edu.tw asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, pin-hsiang natalie wu & wan-ting chuang 1. what is the relation between l2 motivation and cmc motivation? how do we combine items from the two to examine l2 cmc motivation? 2. combining l2 motivation and cmc motivation, how would the l2 cmc motivation influence other factors included in a computer-mediated communication competence (cmcc) model, in a task-based situation? 3. how are international attitudes related to l2 cmc motivation? theoretical framework this study examines related theoretical background and blended items from brian spitzberg’s computermediated communication competence (2006, 2007, 2009) model (cmcc model) and japanese scholar yashima tomoko’s (2004, 2006) discussions on l2 willingness to communicate (l2 wtc). brian spitzberg’s cmcc model spitzberg (2006, 2009) proposed various individual differences that moderate cmc uses and outcomes. in the cmcc model proposed in 2006, spitzberg measured the potential infinitely complex of a person’s computermediated communication competence in which cmc knowledge and cmc motivation predict achievement in the usage of cmc. a person needs to be motivated, alongside with sufficient knowledge, to conduct actual utilization of cmc (perse and ferguson 2000). cmc motivation can be indexed by a range of constructs such as willingness to use technologies for communication, openness to new technologies, gratification, online apprehension and communication apprehension. cmc motivation would also be influenced by personality traits and other social cultural contexts. even though based on a broad cluster of constructs, cmc motivation, to spitzberg, is the most important role in actual utilization of online communication and is defined as the ratio of approach to avoidance attitudes, beliefs, and values in a given cmc context. except that, a person has to have good skills to perform online communication. in a cmcc model, motivation, knowledge and skills will further be interfered with the media and message factors in the process of communications, to lead to a person’s competence. cmc skills are manifested on the following areas: attentiveness can be displayed through a variety of tactics, including the degree of message content, use and appropriateness of questions, social support and comforting sophistication of message content, and politeness and appropriateness of message content. composure can be displayed through avoiding cues of uncertainty, such as linguistic qualifiers used in message content, the proportion of valenced opinion expression of message content, the directive or imperatives used relative to inquiries, the use of compliance-gaining tactics, and task or topical redirection and topic initiation. coordination can be displayed through the deft management of the number of messages, the length of messages, the rapidity of response, and the content and task relevance of response. expressiveness can be displayed through the use of emotion and similar paralinguistic features of message content, the use of humor, and even the depth and breadth of self-disclosure (castella et al., 2000; whitty, 2003). tomoko yashima l2 willingness to communicate tomoko yashima (2002, 2004) built his l2 wtc theory on peter macintyre and richard clément (1998, 2002, 2003, 2007) in which variables influencing a person’s wtc in second language is presented in a heuristic model. examining the motivation for communication in the usage of second language in japanese context, tomoko hypothesized a serious of variables related to cross-cultural situations which he termed as international posture. the items included for the measurement of international posture are intercultural friendship orientation in learning english, interest in international vocation/activities, interest in foreign affairs, and intergroup approach avoidance tendency. as for the utilization of second language, two items, motivational intensity and desire to learn english, had been used in yashima’s investigation of japanese students’ willingness to communicate using english. the path from l2 competence to wtc, and from asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, pin-hsiang natalie wu & wan-ting chuang international posture to wtc, were significant, with lower level of anxiety, positive attitude toward intercultural communication or international interest, and perception of l2 communication competence, all led to a higher level of wtc. blending models in a survey this survey is designed to detect the motivation using second language for online communication. the blending of spitzberg’s cmc motivation and yashima’s l2 wtc is the crucial part of this survey. this part has been given the name l2 cmc motivation. cmc skills, with constructs proposed in spitzberg’s cmcc model, had been created into items in a given cmc context. the researchers want to understand if the path from cmc skills to l2 cmc motivation is significant. if significant, which construct included in cmc skills has the most significant influence on l2 cmc motivation. media factor had also been examined in terms of richness, interactivity, speed, accessibility and level of social presence (spitzberg 2006, 2009). the reason of including the media factor in this survey is to understand if the choice of media would affect l2 cmc motivation particularly because the current experiment is task-based. participants had not been given any freedom on the choice of the communication tool, and this might influence cmc motivation. nine items were included to examine the correlation between media factor and l2 cmc motivation. besides, yashima’s consideration for specific items included in international posture had also been included, termed attitudes toward online cultural exchange, for the path from attitudes toward cross-cultural interaction is significant to l2 cmc motivation. eight items were included in attitudes toward online cultural exchange and had also been revised in the given cmc context. l2 cmc motivation in order to fathom willingness to communicate via computer-mediated communication utilizing english, items included in cmc motivation and l2 learning motivation were blended for the part l2 cmc motivation. six items were included with consideration of desire to learn english, anxiety toward using english online, communication apprehension via english, online apprehension, satisfaction from the use of cmc to learn english, openness to the learning of english via computer technologies. cmc skills items of skills included in cmcc model had been revised to be in a given cmc context that fits the task. expressiveness, attentiveness, and coordination were constructs included to exam participants’ online communication skills in the task-based situation. media factor we had chosen a free, non-beneficial online classroom called nicenet (www.nicenet.org) for cross-cultural communication between participants of the two countries. nine items included in the survey were created to understand how media factor would influence l2 cmc motivation in the given context. attitudes toward online cross-cultural exchange constructs proposed in international posture including interest on foreign affairs and culture, international friendship, and time management, were made eight items to examine the correlation between online intercultural interaction and l2 cmc motivation. these items were clustered under the section attitudes toward online cross-cultural exchange. the reliability of the survey questionnaire is significant high (cronbach’s á=.902). participants and instructional design asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, pin-hsiang natalie wu & wan-ting chuang fifty participants, currently university students studying at chien-kuo technology university in central taiwan, and kansei gakuin university, japan, were recruited for the activity in fall 2011. three questions, all globally orientated, had been created by the researchers. the questions were posted online for comments and feedbacks from participants. participants had to write comments based on one’s own thoughts or research, and were required to give at least two feedbacks, one to taiwanese participant and the other to japanese participant. the researchers also logged in nicenet as teachers to give reminder, to supervise the whole communication process, and to make sure a smooth flow on the online interaction. the three questions are: 1. you are both esl students in the summer intensive program of new york university. you are in the same class and became friends. you decided to take a trip to miami and on the way there, your wallets were stolen. you have no money, no credit cards, and no cell phones. you are now stranded on the streets. 2. you are both on the committee of the united nations for the poor. someone gave your organization a donation of one million dollars. the only requirement is that the money be donated to one country and a particular group. please research and propose where the money should go. 3. you are both foreign students at harvard. you are both in the same class. now, you are both assigned to host a party for the american students at the university. the purpose is for the american students to know more about east asian cultures. what food will you serve? what program and entertainment will you prepare? the duration of the english learning, task-based cmc experiment was exactly two months. the survey questionnaire was given to taiwanese participants only, due to technical difficulty on the side of japanese participants. results cmc skills, media factor, and attitudes toward online cross-cultural exchange were found to be significant to the major factor l2 cmc motivation, with cmc skills to l2 cmc motivation (t=.473 p=.001), media factor to l2 cmc motivation (t=.452 p=.001), and attitudes toward online exchange to l2 cmc motivation (t=.496 p=.000). this means that factors mixing from spitzberg’s and yashima’s models in this survey were significantly correlated to each other. certain construct in different section had been examined via regression using spss. results showed that in cmc skills, the construct expressiveness was highly significant to l2 cmc motivation. this means that l2 competence is particularly influential to the expression in written english in computer-mediated communication. low competence will baffle students in cmc communication, leaving them unable to express clearly. regarding the section of attitudes toward online exchange, there is also one construct which was found to be significantly related to l2 cmc motivation. considering international friendship, two items “it was difficult for me to interact with japanese students of another culture” and “i am not sure what to say to japanese students of another culture using cmc” were significantly related to l2 cmc motivation. however, “i like to discuss things about food, clothing, and tradition with japanese students using cmc” did not have a significant influence on l2 cmc motivation. this means that participants hold a positive attitude toward international friendship but when it comes to specific cultural exchange context, l2 motivation will matter. discussion using internet is gradually becoming a prosperous and new sector not only for cross-cultural collaboration but also for the utilization of the learning of english. with the growing demand of studying english in almost every part of this world, and a rapid expansion of the non-native english speaking population, the relation asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013 – special issue – asiacall2012 proceedings, pin-hsiang natalie wu & wan-ting chuang between english learning and computer utilization will be closer and stronger (chapelle 2009). a closer examination of motivation both in cmc and wtc fields seem inevitably and therefore an integration of willingness to communication using english with computer-mediated communication factors appear to be necessary. it is notable from the results of this study that a combination of constructs from several studies, namely, the study of cmc (spitzberg 2006, 2009, tolmie & boyle 2000), the exploration of l2 wtc, and a close examination of the use of cmc for students in efl contexts (yashima 2002, 2004) worked well in a given cmc context. the results drawn from this study indicate that separate factors were significant correlated to each other, moving toward a much complex measurement of online behavior via english. specific items for the measurement of linguistic competence, like writing competence, reading competence and communication competence, can be examined particularly in their relationship to the utilization of cmcc. on the other hand, items included in the measurement of motivation toward international affair can be considered to be combined into l2 cmc motivation discussed in the current study in further research projects. references castella, v. o., abad, a. m. z., alonso, f. p., & silla, j. m. p. (2000). the influence of familiarity among group members, group atmosphere, and assertiveness on uninhibited behavior through three different communication media. computer in human behavior, 16(2), 141-159. chapelle c. a. (2009) the relationship between second language acquisition theory and computerassisted language learning. the modern language journal 93(1), 741-753. kozma, r. b. (2003). technology and classroom practices: an international study. journal of research on technology in education 36(1). retrieved from http://robertkozma.com/images/kozma_jrte.pdf macintyre, p. d. & richard, c. (1998) conceptualizing willingness to communicate in a l2: a situational model of l2 confidence and affiliation. the modern language journal 82(iv). macintyre, p. d., baker, s.c., richard c., and donovan l. (2003) talking in order to learn: willingness to communicate and intensive language programs. the canadian modern language review 59(4): 589607. macintyre, p.d. (2007) willingness to communicate in the second language: understanding the decision to speak as a volitional process. the modern language journal 92(iv). perse, e.a. & and ferguson, d.a. (2000). the benefits and costs of web surfing. communication quarterly 48(4), 343-359. spitzberg, b. (2006) toward a theory of computer-mediated communication competence. journal of computer-mediated communication 11(2). http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue2/spitzberg.html. spitzberg, b & chagnon, g. (2009) conceptualizing intercultural communication competence. in d.k. deardorff (ed.), the sage handbook of intercultural competence (pp. 2-52). thousand oaks, ca: sage. whitty, m. t. (2003). cyber-flirting: playing at love on the internet. theory & psychlogy, 13(3), 330-357. yashima, t. (2002) willingness to communicate in a second language: the japanese efl context. the modern language journal 86(i). yashima, t. & shimizu, k. (2004) the influence of attitudes and affect on willingness to communicate and second language communication. language learning 54(1), pp. 119-152. http://robertkozma.com/images/kozma_jrte.pdf http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue2/spitzberg.html citation asiacall online journal received: 01/09/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 06/10/2021 vol. 12, no. 5, 2021 accepted: 07/10/2021 pp. 54-76 online: 08/10/2021 citation | tran, t. m. l., & nguyen, t. t. h. (2021). the impacts of technology-based communication on efl students’ writing. asiacall online journal, 12(5), pp. 54-76. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.005 the impacts of technology-based communication on efl students’ writing tran thi my linh1, nguyen thi thanh ha*1 1 university of economics – technology for industries, vietnam *corresponding author’s email: nttha.khoann@uneti.edu.vn eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.005 abstract digital techniques play a significant role in stimulating efl students’ collaboration during the covid-19 pandemic. the shift from face-to-face interaction to technology-based communication is regarded to foster language learning, especially writing classes. an action research design was employed to explore the influences of technology-based communication on either students' writing performances or their perceptions towards the new teaching method application. data triangulation analyzed from three types of collecting instruments in terms of testing, questionnaire, and reflective journal indicates that the integration of paragraph punch, prowritingaid, and lms web-based platform boosts a more collaborative learning environment among online-engaging participants. the calculated mean scores indicated there was a decrease in students' difficulties regarding cognitive, emotional, and socio-cultural aspects after the intervention. besides, it was respectively measured a potential trend on online collaborative group's writing performance concerning the task response, coherence & cohesion or the idea for writing development. nevertheless, there was no significance in promoting students' lexical resources plus grammatical range and accuracy. the results also conveyed participants’ optimistic feelings on technology-based communication, their higher self-confidence in accordance with positive attitudes towards writing lessons thanks to their awareness of their promoting critical thinking as well as error identification. keywords: lms platform, paragraph punch, prowritingaid, technology-based communication, writing skills. 1. introduction technology is used in virtually every area of life, including education. as mentioned in the higher education curriculum, technology has become a new idea of teaching and learning activities (kern, 1995; quintero, 2008; cifuentes & shih, 2001; pumjarean et al., 2017; nasution & fatimah, 2018). universities have started offering technology-based courses where instructors educate students. according to alias & hussin (2002), chau & nguyen (2021), bui et al. (2021), ict has become a significant problem in many linguistic discussions nowadays. chung et al. (2005) claim that the growing usage of computer-based learning resources helps http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.005 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 55 students gather proof of their use of information technology inside their subject study (in this instance, communication skills) rather than needing to do it separately. van et al. (2021) state that when students utilize technology to communicate, such as email, they also demonstrate their communication abilities. the existence of coronavirus illness (covid-19) has had a profound effect on human life across the globe (nguyen et al., 2021). in education, the spread of this virus has had a fundamental influence. it exposes students to 'home-schooling conditions in every country, including the university of economics technology for industries (uneti). this circumstance exposes students to the growth of online learning and the distant delivery of instruction through digital platforms. this forced digital transition is the most secure method of halting the spread of coronavirus outbreaks. as a result, the right of students to education remains paramount without jeopardizing their mental health or safety. for english as foreign language (efl) students, navigating this online pedagogical environment throughout their term was also a problem. in the writing course at uneti, writing is a complicated skill that cannot be learned separately. generally, students need a thorough grasp of writing theories and practical assistance from the instructor throughout their writing practice (lin, 2009; ndoricimpa & barad, 2021; le, 2021). they need guidance, criticism, and perhaps improvement throughout the writing process. le (2021) and nguyen et al. (2021) share the same view that long-distance learning from home is ineffective in assisting students in improving their writing abilities. according to ly et al. (2021), this happens as a result of the short time available to students during virtual learning sessions with lecturers, errors in the presentation of content, and insufficient feedback on students' work. meanwhile, online learning caused students to feel disconnected from their classmates and lecturers, less assisted by their professors, and disheartened by the technical demands associated with online study (le, 2021). as a result, it requires suitable online writing tool platforms and websites to connect online learning activities between students and lecturers in order for students to get complete feedback and practice in online writing courses. elola & oskoz (2010) and ware & o'dowd (2008) shed light on the improvement of students' fluency and accuracy with the assistance of peer-reviewing, thanks to online collaborative writing. online discussions, stated by black (2005), have the prospect to boost student curiosity and promote collaborative learning while also promoting reflection and critical thinking. numerous studies by chung et al. (2005), cheung et al. (2006), yunus et al. (2012), khabbaz & najar (2015), pumjarean et al. (2017), ariyanto et al. (2019), and ly et al. (2021) have investigated the effectiveness of technologies such as paragraph punch, prowritingaid, and a web-based learning management system in increasing student involvement and simplifying the peer review process. students in online learning communities may create, share information, critical practice reflection, negotiate meaning, test synthesis, and build agreement to the central content. students' knowledge construction abilities may be honed via online collaborative writing assignments, debates, arguments, and group discussions. as a result, constructive criticism is said to enhance the quality of student-student or student-teacher discussion responses. the virtual learning environment has a variety of merits, including improved https://asiacall.info/acoj tran, t. m. l., & nguyen, t. t. h. vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 56 feedback timeliness, additional learning opportunities for both feedback providers and recipients, humanization of the environment, and community building via online participation. in the context of uneti, utilizing technology in teaching writing skills has not been drawn much attention. although lecturers are aware of the potential benefits of digital advances to the teaching and learning process, educators have not integrated technology into their writing classes. not until the outbreak of covid-19 has technology been applied into language classes. this urged the researchers to examine the effects of online writing tools concerning paragraph punch, prowritingaid, and lms platform on english – majored students' writing performance at the university as well as their perceptions towards writing english and technology-based communication. 2. literature review 2.1. writing as a process to give meaning to the multitude of thoughts racing through our brains, quintero (2008) defines writing as a process during which a writer connects lexis by using grammatical structures to make it meaningful. for mitch (quoted in quintero, 2008), it is a process of discovery and creation. writing requires students to think critically about the process of writing, including task responses, coherence & cohesion, lexical resources, and grammar range and accuracy acquired via language exposure. quintero (2008) notes that both instructors and students value excellent writing abilities. the process of teaching can be quantified as a process-oriented writing approach. it is more focused on the production of meaning than the task's primary goal. nowadays, many english instructors organize their courses using a process approach, which emphasizes the different phases of writing (harmer, 2004). it also demands instructors and students to plan, draft, edit, and finalize their work. planning: using essential words and terminology to start writing. harmer (2004) claims participants select what material to discuss before writing or typing. some participants may need extensive information, while others may just need a few notes (harmer, 2004, p. 4). so, while planning, the writer must consider the goal, audience, and content structure which are regarded as key elements driving to the writing stage. drafting: a draft is the initial version of writing work (harmer, 2004). during the writing step, competitors must persuade and demonstrate their ability to combine words logically. they may now reuse language and resources to enhance their paragraphs, improving their writing fluency. editing: it refers to students revising their work after getting instructor criticism. editing means that the text will be changed as many times as possible before it is finalized. according to harmer (2004), writers typically look it over to evaluate and locate its significance after writing a draft. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 57 final draft: students have to complete the final writing version based on instructor input. at this level, students are required to write w, considering grammar, topic, and vocabulary. according to harmer (2004), authors create their final version after editing their draft and making the required adjustments. 2.2. online collaborative writing definitions ede and lunsford (1990) define collaborative writing as any writing done with others. these include brainstorming, outlining, note-taking, organizational planning; writing; revising; editing; and publishing. farkas (1991) proposes four kinds of writing collaboration when two or more people firstly compose a text, secondly contribute components to a document, thirdly edit or review other's textual form and finally work interactively and conduct drafting. serial cooperation is added by jaszi (1994), which claims two or more individuals work sequentially to brainstorm, correct mistakes, and expound on common subjects at the same time. with the advent of the internet, cooperative writing has evolved to include the internet as a writing medium. that the human mind can control a networked computer as a mediator of communication may change the way writing is taught and learned. writing courses use technology-based communication because of the interactive, dynamic, and collaborative learning opportunities it provides (ede and lunsford, 1990). the prospect of networked computer technology along with the researchers' definition of collaborative writing may be extended to online collaborative writing. online collaborative writing is face-to-face interaction. however, any activities and communication happening before, during, or after the online collaborative writing process may be considered online collaborative writing, which definitely is part of technology-assisted collaborative learning. online collaborative learning benefits and difficulties in terms of cognitive aspects, lindblom-ylanne and pihlajamaki (2003) investigating ate whether a computer-mediated learning environment that enables students to share drafts and get feedback enhances their compositions. this qualitative research included 25 law students. interviews with students and teachers provided data for this research. the students gained knowledge, acquired critical and independent thinking abilities and self-regulatory skills. implementing a technology-mediated class was also linked to excellent essay scores. tuzi (2004) investigated the effect of electronic feedback on second-language authors' modifications. this research included 20 college authors. students drafted, reacted, and edited on a database-driven website intended for writing. students got spoken comments from friends and classmates, as well as face-to-face tutoring from university writing centers. interviews, observations, written drafts, and participant answers were used to gather data. the research recognized students’ preference towards vocal feedback, e-feedback but indicated their enhancement in revision via the process of focusing authors on uniting with new material to the https://asiacall.info/acoj tran, t. m. l., & nguyen, t. t. h. vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 58 original work. online feedback also influenced greater structural changes, such as sentence and paragraph alterations. kern (1995) notes that networked computer systems have issues with grammatical correctness, conversation coherence, and continuity. regarding emotional aspects, alias and hussin (2002) investigated the efficacy of e-learning activities in students' writing processes. a stratified sample of 20 college students participating in an efl writing course was chosen. the questionnaire was given out at the conclusion of each session, as were the logbooks containing student records of their online activities. a mood survey was also given at the start and conclusion of the program to assess the students' emotional changes. email and online conversation increased students' drive, confidence and decreased anxiety. however, alias and hussin's (2002) research only had 20 individuals, which might not be generalized to other groups. weasenforth and meloni (2002) utilize constructivist concepts to assess how well-threaded conversations meet constructivist educational objectives. this qualitative research included 52 foreign students from advanced esl reading/writing courses for three semesters. the research found that the technology reduced threatening emotions and increased motivation. concerning socio-cultural aspects, beuchor and bullen (2005) conducted a longitudinal study using a mixed-method approach to determine the amount and kind of interaction and interpersonal content in messages sent by online graduate efl students. the qualitative data includes discussion forum content analysis. quantitative data included counting and classifying content analysis units given to explanatory and response factors. this research included 16 doctorate students in education. the research found that fostering interactive and reactive online communications increases participation and debate depth, thereby facilitating online collective knowledge creation. the cultural problems of students' communication processes, for instance, interaction complexity and group cohesiveness, may influence their cognitive learning results. in an international languages class, chung et al. (2005) used computer-assisted communicative activities to examine language acquisition as a socially mediated process. this research included 26 high school students. the research matched korean and english-speaking classmates who worked together on chat homework tasks. the research found that online collaborative conversation helps cross-linguistic knowledge development. using the meaningmaking tools inside their local learning community, these students were encouraged to acquire and teach contextually relevant and acceptable language and social conduct. in other words, one partner's beliefs, language, and cultural practices may become the other's. specifically, students gained self-awareness in regard to others. according to cifuentes and shih (2001), qualitative research was performed to identify certain online teaching methods, advantages, and limits of online education, as well as cultural factors connected with cross-cultural cooperation. 37 taiwanese students were partnered with 37 american university pre-service instructors. data were gathered through correspondence printouts, formative assessments, reflective diary entries, and surveys of taiwanese partners. participants highlighted difficulties related to virtual teaching and learning, such as reliance on an unresponsive partner and a feeling of alienation. students were dissatisfied by the absence of quick or no peer response. a sense of alienation acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 59 caused by not knowing when an answer will arrive contributed to several students' complaints. curtis and lawson (2002) used a mixed-method approach to examine whether students' textual exchanges in an online learning environment revealed signs of collaborative learning. the research included 24 college students. the results showed that there are no visible difficulties in online contact since the majority of participants want to debate with what they agree, but they skim over concepts that contradict their background knowledge and are consequently unable to engage. 2.3. paragraph punch, prowritingaid, and lms platform as technology-based communication used in efl writing classrooms first and foremost, online writing assistance paragraph punch may help youngsters learn to write from home. this method aids students in organizing their ideas and learning to express themselves through writing. besides, paragraph punch is an online tool for improving paragraph writing skills (yunus, salehi, & nordin, 2012). providing students with writing processes from conception to publishing. one of the most obvious advantages is its free charge to utilize the trial version of this site. this site offers 15 writing topics, and 1,548 writing prompts to help students write. it teaches students to write paragraphs utilizing logic and facts as w as causes and effects. paragraph punch teaches learners efficient paragraph construction. on this site, prewriting is needed. the students choose their own subjects, which apparently encourages them to utilize current terms as well as offers questions to help students brainstorm. unlike traditional courses, when students collaborate with the teacher, students on this site use writing software. next, the program shows a sample topic sentence that could help start a paragraph. moreover, lessons involve creating sentences using pre-written words, which encourages writers to bring them up to sentences. the sentences must also be arranged in a paragraph. not only may overlong sentences be deleted, but paragraph punch also offers transition words as well. in addition, the program initially provides an example of a conclusion. the students are then asked to compose a conclusion. input objects may be moved around the screen, so this content may be edited by students. then they may save or print their work. several studies indicate that paragraph punch improves writing skills. lin (2009) states that paragraphpunch helps with spelling and writing, yunus, salehi and nordin (2012) claim that paragraph punch is a great way to teach writing to young children. paragraph punch teaches new writers how to create paragraphs step-by-step. lin (2009) investigated the effect of paragraph punch and other technological aids on the self-perception of writing difficulties among english-language learners. she mentioned many benefits of paragraph punch, including spelling check and process reinforcement. additionally, she discussed some of the software's shortcomings and the consequences of technology in the writing classroom (lin, 2009). nevertheless, this research maintains that it is crucial as the instructor's views of the software's value as a writing tool are no less significant than students' opinions, giving the teacher's pivotal role in the classroom. sharing the same view, yunus, salehi, and nordin (2012) examined preservice instructors' views of paragraph punch for helping novice writers. this program was intended to assist english language learners in developing and organizing paragraphs for essay https://asiacall.info/acoj tran, t. m. l., & nguyen, t. t. h. vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 60 writing. through a questionnaire survey of third-year students at a public institution in malaysia, this study ascertained their attitudes about the usage of paragraph punch as a possible writing aid. the data analysis revealed that respondents owned a favorable taste of this writing application for novice writers. the author additionally highlighted its design should be improved to be more interactive and visually appealing in esl writing. in the second place, prowritingaid is a new free online tool that checks the text for correctness (ariyanto, mukminatien, & tresnadewi, 2019). this program helps self-editing writers by assisting with spag evaluations (spelling, punctuation, and grammar). students may selfassess their writing skills by running this program and getting a report and score. to be more illustrated, prowritingaid is a useful tool for students who study at home. this program enables students to revise and test their work without waiting for comments. they may instantly verify their piece of writing for spelling, grammatical, and punctuation problems. additionally, students are corrected and explained their errors. corrective feedback comprises the sign, correct form, and metalinguistic information regarding a student's linguistic mistake (loewen & erlam, 2006). as a result, they may self-evaluate their writing, which enriches students' writing development. teachers and students alike praised prowritingaid and instructor comments in class, according to ariyanto, mukminatien, and tresnadewi (2019). it aided teachers in providing feedback and allowing them to devote more time to the content and organization of students' paragraphs and students in detecting, learning, and correcting their papers. prowritingaid has been recognized the benefits of online writing tools to efl students during the covid-19 epidemic in natution and fatimah (2018) and handayani (2020). those researchers investigated that the difficulties students encountered while learning to write stem from the instructors who were not innovative in their approach to teach writing. prowritingaid is tasked with the responsibility of resolving the issues. by incorporating professional writing assistance into the writing instruction process, students could become more engaging. the web was user-friendly and aided instructors in communicating with students about the contents. teachers may successfully educate students about writing by using professional writing aids, and students can study on their own to acquire the knowledge as well. last but not least, lms stands for learning management system, which is regarded a serverassisted software. to be more specific, lms can tackle database information about users, courses, and material for a specific purpose, for instance, a business or education. sidney pressey invented the lms in 1924, dubbed the "teaching machine. whether open-source or proprietary, lms software provides users with four primary features: content production, communication, assessment, and administration. as a result, instructors and administrators may effectively administer the lms depending on their unique requirements. in the educational context, lmss are developed in response to teachers' needs for managing students' paths of learning in an online classroom, monitoring their performance, creating and distributing content, organizing e-learning activities, evaluating, and providing tools for communication, collaboration, which means that lmss are robust technologies that teachers can use to create their own online courses, administrative purposes, documentation, reports on activities, virtual acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 61 teaching, and learning activities, e-learning, and provision of training materials to their students. additionally, this function of lms, what they referred to as an e-learning platform, is a very flexible technology that enables teachers or lecturers to submit course content and manage a large amount of online course information in a single integrated lms really offers space or atmosphere for virtual teaching, learning, and activities that is self-contained and devoid of time and space constraints. additionally, the use of lmss in the pedagogical field is well-known. its benefits have been experimentally shown; particularly, language learning via lms-based teaching materials impedes the procedure of becoming independent language learners (khabbaz & najjar, 2015). in malaysia, lms has aided higher-education students in improving their writing skills as well as their comprehension of certain subjects via explanations and examples provided by either classmates or professors (hamat et al., 2014). additionally, lms has enabled a number of advantages over conventional systems for teaching a foreign language, most notably in arranging individual work. the use of lms in writing class has resulted in good and encouraging student responses. this demonstrates that students in hong kong who used lms truly appreciated the incorporation of technology (cheung et al., 2006), in accordance with positive views about the use of lms platform in productive-skill courses in iran (ma'azi & janfeshan, 2018). meanwhile, research conducted in thailand by pumjarean et al. (2017) discovered that lms is a viable and affordable, and effective educational tool for improving efl students' writing and grammar abilities in a blended-elearning environment. 2.4 research questions this research will discuss firstly the influences of online writing tools in terms of paragraph punch, prowritingaid and lms platform on english – majored students' writing performance at uneti and secondly investigate students' perceptions towards writing english and technology-based communication. hence, three research questions were addressed. a) what are students' perspectives towards writing in english at uneti? b) to what extent does the use of paragraph punch, prowritingaid, and lms platform influence the students' writing performance at uneti? c) what are the students' perceptions towards the use of paragraph punch, prowritingaid, and lms platform in writing classes at uneti? 3. methods 3.1 pedagogical setting & participants the research included 18 uneti english-major freshmen which are evaluated to be at a preintermediate level of english proficiency via the entrance exam and their academic transcript at high school. their textbook is "writing" published by collins. they have to pass the v-step standardized exam at the end of the semester to accomplish this required subject. the writing exam assesses students' ability to construct basic phrases, compose memos, messages, postcards, letters, and emails. it lasts 35 minutes and has three tasks. task 1 is building sentences in which test-takers complete five sentences with suggested words or phrases. task https://asiacall.info/acoj tran, t. m. l., & nguyen, t. t. h. vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 62 2 is writing a memo or a message that test-takers have to complete an everyday writing task, such as a short note, a memo or a message. task 3 is writing a letter or a postcard: test-takers may complete a variety of communication tasks by writing a letter or email. 3.2 design of the study creswell (2014) defines action research as combining research with action. action research aimed at addressing issues, bringing about social change, or taking practical action should be done by all instructors at any time. to cope with multi-cultural groups, it included four steps: planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. creswell (2014) examines action research's main features. firstly, action research studies real-world problems and seeks to address them. secondly, action research helps them better understand and enhance their teaching methods. action research also includes numerous individuals and groups whose responsibilities may change and be negotiated. furthermore, action research is a cycle of issue contemplation, data gathering, and action. finally, action research findings are readily disseminated and utilized by teachers, school staff, parents organizations, and other stakeholders. on the basis of those typical characteristics, the researchers decided to investigate action research with the aim of exploring the use of technology-assisted communication on students' writing at uneti. 3.3 data collection & analysis and research procedure. data collection and analysis the first data collection instrument is a 42-item questionnaire that measured self-perception of writing problems on three scales: cognitive, emotional, and socio-cultural difficulties. writing in a foreign language requires integrating cognitive and linguistic elements of writing concurrently, making an apparent distinction between linguistic and cognitive characteristics. there were 25 questions assessing the cognitive dimension, 5 measuring the social component, and 12 measuring the emotional dimension. the questionnaire ranged from "strongly disagree" to "highly agree." for each item, the highest score (6) represented the most difficulty in writing, while the lowest score (1) indicated the least difficulty. when a neutral opinion is provided, almost all the questionnaire-takes may prefer to accept this view; thus, no definitive opinion is expressed (brown, 2001). to prevent this, the researchers gave responders an equal number of choices. a six-point likert scale included (1) strongly disagree, (2) disagree, (3) somewhat disagree, (4) somewhat agree, (5) agree, and (6) strongly agree. multiple versions of the questionnaire were evaluated, revised, and edited by lecturers from the faculty of foreign languages to ensure content validity. besides, the cronbach's alpha was calculated via spss version 22 at 0.81 to varify the reliability of the questionnaire, which is shown in table 1 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 63 table 1: reliability statistics of the questionnaire. cronbach’s alpha no. of items .81 42 cronbach’s alpha internal consistency α ≥ 0.9 excellent 0.9 > α ≥ 0.8 good 0.8 > α ≥ 0.7 acceptable 0.7 > α ≥ 0.6 questionable 0.6 > α ≥ 0.5 poor 0.5 > α unacceptable the second data set consisted of students writing tests. the researchers administered preand postvietnamese standardized writing tests of english proficiency (vstep) to the participants to determine the differences between students' writing performances before and after the intervention with technology-based communication. the writing tests were academically chosen from the exam bank designed and revised by faculty of foreign languages lecturers for writing 1. the tests were assessed and evaluated with four criteria in terms of task response, coherence & cohesion, lexical resource, grammatical range, and accuracy. another important data collecting tool is the reflective journal. all reflection diaries were thoroughly reviewed several times and then classified. on the first reflection notebook, the researchers started by making notes on possible themes relating to writing problems and problem-solving methods. following that, a separate list of topics for the second reflection diary was created. the two lists of emerged categories were found to be condensed when compared. first, the reflection journals were evaluated using this master list, and then additional categories were included as needed to support the research themes. to verify the data's reliability, the researchers had the coded data evaluated independently by one qualified qualitative analysis. research procedure the research was conducted as in the table below table 2: the procedure of the research week/ date class activities week 1 (march 29th – april 3rd) researchers: identified problem and planned the action research. introduced writing classes with technology-based communication. carried out the questionnaire and the pre-test. week 2 (april 5th – april 10th) writing instructions: teacher instructed students with specific topics writing tasks relating to the textbook. teacher guided students to use paragraph punch, prowritingaid, and lms. https://asiacall.info/acoj tran, t. m. l., & nguyen, t. t. h. vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 64 week 3 – week 10 (april 12th – june 19th) students: used lms to check for teacher's instruction, assigned tasks or requirements, online discussion, or conversation. practiced writing step-by-step with paragraph punch, completed the first draft. checked errors and mistakes on prowritingaid. peter checked their mates' drafts. discussed the comments and feedbacks to find the most appropriate way to fix the errors. wrote the second draft. posted both drafts on lms. wrote reflective journals every week. week 11 (june 21st – june 26th) carried out post-test. 4. results 4.1. students’ self-perceptions about writing in english. the participants completed a questionnaire in which they were asked to rate items on a questionnaire titled 'self-perceptions of writing difficulties' from strongly disagree to strongly agree. the questionnaire assessed three facets of writing difficulty: emotional, social, and cognitive. although some questions may span dimensions, they were classified in this questionnaire according to their literal meanings without regard for the interconnections between these three aspects of writing. three open-ended questions were added to the questionnaire to allow for a more in-depth analysis of english writing problems. table 2 presents descriptive statistics indicating the relative importance of specific items from the most difficult to the least in terms of three-dimensional aspects. table 3: descriptive analysis of self-perceptions of writing difficulties no. dimension items mean std. deviation rank 1 emotional i like to write in english 3.03 1.31 34 2 cognitive it is easy for me to get started writing english 3.92 1.28 15 3 cognitive it is easy for me to keep my english writing going and write smoothly 3.92 1.02 15 4. cognitive i write short and simple english sentences 3.88 1.30 20 5 cognitive it is easy for me to write my ideas into english paragraph 3.79 1.02 23 6 cognitive i find it difficult to generate ideas for writing 4.04 1.08 11 7 cognitive i find it difficult to use articles 3.50 1.45 28 8 cognitive i find it difficult to use prepositions 4.08 1.10 10 9 cognitive i find it difficult to use verb tenses within 3.04 1.12 33 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 65 a paragraph 10 cognitive i find it difficult to order words in english sentences 3.21 1.29 32 11 cognitive i have difficulty with word choice 5.01 .97 1 12 cognitive i find it difficult to usepunctuation 3.33 1.34 30 13 cognitive i use few idioms 4.50 1.69 5 14 cognitive i find it difficult to sp correctly 4.21 1.18 7 15 cognitive i find it difficult to generate ideas for writing 4.04 1.08 11 16 socio-cultural i find it difficult to adjust my way of writing in native language writing 4.97 1.07 2 17 cognitive i am aware of what sentence fragments are, but i still use them 4.00 1.14 14 18 cognitive i am aware of what sentence fragments are, and i don’t use them 3.58 1.35 26 19 cognitive i know what run-on sentences are, but i still use them 3.38 1.61 29 20 cognitive i know what run-on sentences are, and i don’t use them 3.38 1.44 20 21 cognitive i find it difficulty to go from one paragraph to another with smooth, w-connected transitions 3.79 1.21 23 22 cognitive i feel that i find it hard to write logically and systematically in english 3.92 1.25 15 23 cognitive i find it difficult to write a topic sentence 4.21 1.18 7 24 cognitive i find it difficult to focus on the main points 3.92 1.10 15 25 cognitive i find it difficult to organize ideas 3.88 1.44 20 26 cognitive i find it difficult to summarize my points to conclude the writing 4.17 1.13 9 27 cognitive when writing a paragraph, i find it difficult to write a topic sentence, body sentences, and a concluding sentence 4.04 1.08 11 28 cognitive what i write in the beginning and at the end of the paper is not consistent and logical 3.54 1.22 27 29 cognitive i stop many times to think about what to write during my writing process 4.78 .87 3 30 emotional i am anxious when writing in english 4.58 1.18 4 31 emotional i am confident in my english writing 1.64 1.02 41 32 emotional i have confidence in english writing 3.71 1.49 25 33 cognitive i don’t have enough time to finish my english writing papers 3.92 1.18 15 34 emotional i feel comfortable with reviewing my papers in english 3.33 1.31 30 35 emotional i like to use technology-based apps in my writing class 2.45 1.27 36 36 cognitive i am a skillful english writing 4.25 1.32 6 37 socio-cultural i feel comfortable with sharing my english writing with my peers 2.28 1.01 37 https://asiacall.info/acoj tran, t. m. l., & nguyen, t. t. h. vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 66 38 socio-cultural i like to share my english writing with my english teachers 1.68 .77 40 39 socio-cultural i feel comfortable with sharing my english papers with lecturers 1.92 1.06 39 40 socio-cultural i like to give feedback and comments to my peers’ papers 2.03 1.07 38 41 emotional i think my writing papers are well-written and meaningful 2.47 1.35 35 42 emotional i am motivated to learn english writing in the future 1.27 .46 42 participants agreed that the primary writing problem (m=5.01; sd=.97) was word choice. participants stated in their open-ended responses that they typically looked up unfamiliar english terms in the bilingual dictionary when they were unsure. however, students often reported that translations from a multilingual dictionary came out as a mishmash of words. adapting to native thinking patterns (m=4.97; sd=1.07) was the second most challenging aspect of writing. numerous participants stated that they struggled to adapt their native language writing styles to american thinking processes. students continued to think in their original language and utilized their first language's rhetorical tendencies while writing english essays. numerous students said that they struggled to transition from their native language's linear rhetorical aspects to english linear rhetorical ones. because writing patterns or styles are either linguistic or culturally entrenched, several respondents in this research discovered that it requires some effort to adjust to new thought patterns while communicating in written english. writing fluency (m=4.78; sd=.87) was the third most challenging kind of writing. students indicated that they often pause to consider what to write while writing english essays. they often ponder for long amounts of time yet come up with just a few words to describe a very complex concept; as a result, they have significant difficulties with fluency. the least difficult item is defined by the mean score of all items that are less than or equal to 3 (3.54 .44=3). participants generally struggled less with emotional and social elements of writing. for instance, students hardly find writing in international language tedious or meaningless (m=2.47; sd=1.35), nor did they hate technology-based apps (m=2.45; sd=1.27). students had no difficulties sharing writing with other english language learners (m=2.28; sd=1.01), providing feedback to others (m=2.03; sd=1.07), or reviewing with professional writers (m=1.64; sd=1.02). in general, participants dealt with the next eight elements of writing at the least frequency. the least challenging aspect of learning english writing was motivation (m=1.27; sd=.46). while participants are aware that they may not be excellent english writers, they are driven to improve their english writing skills in order to succeed in academic writing. confidence in native language writing (m=1.64; sd=1.02) was the second easiest writing acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 67 problem to solve. all participants said that they were more confident in their native language writing than they were in english writing. they had been writing in their original language for a lengthy period of time and were familiar with the structure, conventions, and vocabulary. sharing writing with english instructors was rated as the third least challenging writing problem (m=1.68; sd=.77). the majority of participants stated that they were used to writing for a grade and therefore had no reservations about allowing english instructors to view their work or sharing their essays with english teachers. the mean for cognitive, emotional, and socio-cultural elements of writing was calculated using the average score of all 18 participants on questions classified in each of these categories. table 4 demonstrates the mean score and standard deviation of three dimensions. table 4: rank on the overall mean score and standard deviation of three dimensions overal mean score std. deviation rank cognitive dimension 3.92 .54 1 emotional dimension 2.79 1.21 2 sociocultural dimension 2.56 1.02 3 further examination of the questionnaire data demonstrated that students struggled the most with cognitive elements of writing (m=3.92; sd=.54). the emotional dimension of writing (m=2.79; sd=1.21) was the second-ranked writing difficulty categorization, followed by the sociocutural component of writing (m=2.56; sd=1.02). 4.2. the influences of paragraph punch, prowritingaid and lms on students’ writing performance. the vstep standardized preand post-writing tests were analyzed to see if the participants scored substantially higher on the post-test. students' pre-test and post-test were graded using the four-criteria assessing rubric. table 4 shows the means and standard deviations for the pre and post-test administrations of the writing performance measure, as was the % increase from preto post-test for the participants. https://asiacall.info/acoj tran, t. m. l., & nguyen, t. t. h. vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 68 table 5: mean score, standard deviations and percent gain of the preand posttest n mean score std. deviation percent gains score on test before treatment 18 2.64 1.13 51% score on test after treatment 18 4.01 .42 when the time effect was examined for the online writing students, the tests of within-subjects effects revealed a significant main influence for treatment over time, f = 37.63, p=.00 (.01), partial eta square=.63. this indicates that the participants had substantially higher mean writing scores (performance) on the post-test than on the pre-test. figure 1 displays the distribution of scores on preand post-intervention test. this distribution represents the change in rating scores from pre-intervention and post-intervention test. figure 1: distribution of scores on preand post-intervention test comparing mean writing scores from pre-test to post-test, students' post-test writing paper demonstrated improvement in the following areas: ideas (from analyzing the topic and task, the restraints to addressing the requirement well); organization (from decent organization to well organized); and multiple opinions (from using insufficient to sufficient explanations, or details). additionally, when raters' feedbacks about students' writing weaknesses and strengths between pre-test and post-test writing samples, it was discovered that students made progress in terms of ideas (84%), organization (100%), multiple perspectives (92%), and adequate arguments (92%) (100%). students wrote more (the average amount of words written increased by 82% between pre-test and post-test). however, as shown by raters' remarks, students continued to struggle with word choice (100%) and grammar (articles and run-on sentences). 91.5% of participants continued to struggle with articles, while 77% struggled with run-on sentences. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 69 4.3. students’ perceptions towards the use of paragraph punch, prowritingaids and lms in writing classes. through the analysis from reflective journals, most e-writing participants said that they promoted their views, reasoning, and substance in writing by reading from the writings of other people, from comments and feedback on the technology-based discussion forum, and from journal entries reflecting the activity on those online resources. having comparable cultural backgrounds, the students were better able to grasp their roles and significance. many students reported learning the concepts of organization, word choice, transitional words, coherence and cohesion, and grammar from reading online native speakers' feedback. the survey revealed that, in general, they felt that they had built up their organization, since their organization was quite similar to many other organizations they had encountered. but most thought it would take longer to enhance their writing by choosing better words, or by editing and revising. even after considering a multitude of terms, they still found it difficult to choose the most suitable one. students still struggled with how to properly use articles in run-on sentences. one of the students reported that: i always write what i believe. my reasoning, thoughts, and examples are often subjective. reading other online posts frequently gives me additional arguments and instances to defend my own viewpoint. also, some peers may point out my poor arguments or thoughts and propose ways to modify them to include other viewpoints. other mates may grasp my meaning and culture better than i do. and then there are the online native-speaking instructors who give me advice on how to improve my grammar and organization. online practice with corrected academic feedback is extremely beneficial. i frequently make these unintentional errors, and self-editing these errors is difficult for me. online immediate feedback may help me improve my writing. in addition, these writing software programs assist writers in fixing fundamental grammatical mistakes and provide recommendations for improvement. statements regarding spelling and grammar check were written as follow: as soon as i recognize the word's pronunciation, paragraph punch may verify my spelling and grammar. i don't have to stress spelling and punctuation. the process of brainstorming ideas, creating drafts, rewriting, editing, and posting online helped six participants develop the habit of writing. paragraph punch and prowritingaids encourage me to compose a draft, rewrite, edit, and finally publish. it helps me develop the habit of writing. writing takes time, but when you complete it, you feel accomplished. all nine participants' data collected in the writing program and online discussion helped them see trends in their writing faults. this type of writing mistake awareness lets individuals selfhttps://asiacall.info/acoj tran, t. m. l., & nguyen, t. t. h. vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 70 evaluate their writing issues and find solutions. i used to think i had a problem with word choice. however, my paragraph punch error record and internet comments revealed that i have a lot of issues utilizing articles. my feeling of choosing the correct option is like speaking english with an accent. most of the participants said that reading others’ writing papers and responses on lms-based forum gave them numerous ideas and insights. online writing and conversation offered them more options for editing and enhancing their work than writing alone. moreover, online comments and recommendations provided opportunities for correcting grammar, sentence structure, and word choice. peer criticism and comments improved participants' knowledge of grammar rules. online peers' comments may help me identify poor reasoning and instances and provide alternative suggestions. some of my online peers even disagree with me. it helps me see things from a different viewpoint and get a better overall grasp of a situation. several students said they liked threads. they said a comment thread from every draft they uploaded online helped foster critical thinking abilities. the numerous suggestions/comments from discussion topics/concerns helped them improve their critical thinking abilities. participants typically have to read feedbacks and recommendations attentively, assess the input, and decide which suggestions to implement and which to reject. participants had to think critically while providing constructive comments on other people's drafts and subjects to assist their peers in improving their writing quality and providing recommendations for writing issue solving methods. the online comments encouraged participants to think critically about how to improve their writing for their peers. feedback and recommendations help me think about my exemplification in more critical ways and thoughts and select those that fit mine. to help me think critically and make choices, i sometimes study my subject on the internet. in short, students’ writing performance increased between pre-test and postassignments. paragraph punch, prowritingaid and lms as online tools contributed to students’ writing quality, organization, and utilization of various viewpoints. however, the technology-based communication had no effect on students’ word choice, articles or run-on sentences. almost everyone stated they felt more relaxed and confident while writing and chatting online. it was important to them that they were able to communicate and share their thoughts. they were writing in an online setting, they did not have to worry about embarrassing themselves. one respondent stated: my criticism helps me improve my writing skills and understand why i make recommendations. it makes me question why these ideas are superior. others may have acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 71 opposing views. they debate on the lms forum. like sharing ideas and resolving conflicts. they were able to think and write better after reducing their anxiety levels. it encouraged them to keep writing when they saw their ideas put down. so they started writing more like they were speaking, and they improved their online writing and conversation skills. participants are additionally more self-assured in their english writing. most participants were insecure about their english composition before the intervention. they gained confidence in their english writing after participating in internet forums and writing contests. they realized they could benefit themselves by using online english websites. a collaborative online learning community where everyone may edit, rewrite, and improve english writing was created by paragraph punch, prowritingaids and lms. incorporating technology-based into writing teaching seems to be gaining popularity among students. participants reported benefits in their writing processes as a result of technology-based techniques. cognitive, emotional and socio-cultural aspects were all benefited. grammar and spelling checks, writing process reinforcement, pattern recognition, strengthening various viewpoints, and critical thinking abilities are some of the cognitive merits. structure and logic were gained by the socio-cultural component. furthermore, the advantages of decreasing anxiety and boosting confidence were psychologically significant. the learning community discussed and exchanged problem-solving and writing techniques throughout the writing process. online conversation and engagement helped foster metacognitive and higher-level cognitive skills. it also highlighted students' roles in classrooms. the instructor just facilitated, not designed activities and objectives individually. students negotiated and contributed to their own learning objectives and activities. 5. discussion many of the top writing problems reported in this research match earlier results regarding students' writing difficulties, particularly linguistic (lindblom & pihlajamaki, 2003; lin, 2009, le, 2021) and rhetorical (tuzi, 2004; kern, 1995). students have unique writing requirements since they are transitioning from one writing culture to another. students have the greatest challenges in terms of cognitive dimension (handayani, 2020). writing fluency was rated third in writing difficulty. due to a lack of functional repertoire vocabulary, students had to pause often to choose an english term. students also tended to think in their native language before writing in english. they often had to pause to consider word choice, word order, phrase structure, and organization. however, culturally engendered rhetorical problems go beyond cognitive limitations (farkas, 1991). when students write, their vocabulary is restricted. they go to the bilingual dictionary because of the certainty in native language. using a multilingual dictionary does not completely address the issue since they must again select between various interpretations of the term. the research found word choice to be the most challenging to write. term choice demands authors to choose the word that best conveys the intended meaning. this https://asiacall.info/acoj tran, t. m. l., & nguyen, t. t. h. vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 72 pick considers the word's meaning, the communication's goal, and the audience. language must be chosen according to the goal and audience. this needs traditional and cultural information that may not be able to quickly learn (jaszi, 1994). the majority of students struggle with this re-learning process. this study's results also indicate that students' second most significant writing challenge is emotional deficit. this supports earlier research (alias & hussin 2002; weasenforth & meloni, 2002) showing students were challenged with writing due to emotional issues. writing anxiety is common among s due to a lack of confidence in english writing. emotional issues may negatively affect s' writing processes and performances. this study's results are consistent with prior research on students' writing problems. most participants blamed their writing problems on cognitive deficiencies. the research found that students exhibited second-level involvement in affective writing inadequacies and third-ranked needs in socio-cultural writing issues. few prior research focused on students' emotional or socio-cultural writing problems. this study's findings suggest that perceived writing problems are greatest in cognitive, second highest in emotional, and lowest in socio-cultural dimensions. the first reason is that most students' essays are graded and given feedback on cognitive elements of writing. generally, students' writing experiences and views concentrate on performance and product writing. the findings additionally show that when students are taught utilizing technology-based communication, there are statistically significant changes between preand post-test writing proficiency. students improved in amount of writing, structure, topic sentence, concepts, spelling, and utilization of different viewpoints. less fluency, organization, clear concepts, spelling, and numerous thoughts are associated with technology-based communication, according to prior research (cifuentes & shih, 2001; lindblom-ylanne & pihlajamaki 2003; tusi 2004). however, students' grammatical structures (run-on sentences and articles) and word choice did not improve. the findings partly support kern's (1995) conclusions that networked writing settings have grammatical drawbacks due to the rapidity of writings. the impact of technology-based communication on students' writing performance may be explained in many ways. it could be explained that they were led to producing a paragraph via personalized online tutoring writing courses and activities like paragraph punch, prowritingaids. students stated they improved their writing skills in these areas because they were led step by step through the process of writing. secondly, viewing their peers' online work and comments helped them revise and improve their own writing. thirdly, students thought online writing was like chatting to friends. thus they were less concerned about grammar and had stronger thinking-writing connections. in other words, seeing their thoughts in words encouraged them to keep writing and promote their writing skills. fourthly, post-test data revealed that online writing students still struggled with the greatest difficulties in word choice. students realized they had trouble with run-on phrases and articles. few students had difficulties picking the proper terms since they were unfamiliar with the process in their own language. the word choice is also entrenched in culture and customs language, and they had known how to select acceptable terms in writing. it might possibly be explained that they frequently thought in their first language then acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 73 transcribed their thoughts into english, causing difficulties in sentence structure and writing faults in run-on sentences. 6. conclusion this study's main goal was to explore how students' interactions, communication, knowledge construction, and peer collaboration impacted their writing ability in the context of shifting from teacher-centered instruction to a student-centered model using digital technology and advancement. the technology-assisted devices utilized in this research were paragraph punch, prowritingaids, and an online discussion forum (lms). to enhance english writing processes and results, technology-based communication offered limitless class time and a learning environment. the findings of the questionnaire revealed that most participants attributed their greatest writing problems to cognitive, emotional, and social limitations. after a technology-based communication intervention intended to address students' attitudes towards writing problems, socio-cultural, cognitive, and emotional elements of writing were decreased the most. there was an improvement in student writing performance. students improved in writing volume, organization, subject phrase, concepts, and various viewpoints. however, most students' grammar (run-on sentences and articles) and word choice did not improve. using technologybased communication in writing classes had some advantages. students felt they improved in many perspectives, critical thinking, identifying writing errors, spelling, grammar, implementing writing processes, and adapting to native writing conventions. participants emphasized the benefits of writing on the brain. on the other side, cognitive drawbacks included contradictory input, revision time, and difficulty. the writing software lacked originality and versatility. it took considerably more effort to establish an e-community for effective assistance and information exchange. initially, students were hesitant to share their english writing with their peers for fear of being judged or because they did not trust their peers' capacity to provide constructive or relevant comments and recommendations. gradually, students formed an e-learning environment where they not only helped each other write, but provided emotional support by demonstrating empathy and proposing problem-solving methods as well. students learned to use writing to communicate ideas, resolve conflicts, support others' emotional needs, and solve issues. online discussion and engagement improved metacognitive and higher-order cognitive processes. for further studies, teachers should continuously assess to determine if technology-based communication would assist in meeting students' needs and attain their own pedagogical goals. moreover, while using those digital communications in the writing process, students would considerably be affected by their mindset and emotion. hence, their writing habit or style would consequently be influenced. this could appropriately suggest lecturers directing students to be conscious of their target writing tasks and utilizing technology as a means of writing and interacting with others. last but not least, technology-mediated communication should be https://asiacall.info/acoj tran, t. m. l., & nguyen, t. t. h. vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 74 investigated more comprehensive insights for pedagogical purposes, not only in writing classes but in other language ones as well. references alias, n., & hussin, s. (2002). e-learning in a writing course at tenaga national university. tefl web journal, 1(3), 44-67. ariyanto, m. s. a., mukminatien, n. & tresnadewi, s. (2019). students’ and teachers’ perceptions towards the implemention of prowritingaid and teacher feedback. journal pendidikan: teori, penelitian, dan pengembandan, 49(10), 1353-1363. brown, j. (2001). using survey in language programs. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. beuchot, a., & bullen, m. (2005). interaction and interpersonality in online discussion forums. distance education, 26(1), 67-87. bui, t. x. t., ha, y. n., nguyen, t. b. u., nguyen, v. u. t., & ngo, t. c. t. (2021). a study on collaborative online learning among efl students in van lang university (vlu). asiacall online journal, 12(3), 9-21. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/32 chau, t. q., & nguyen , t. t. h. (2021). a theoretical study on the genuinely effective technology application in english language teaching for teachers and students. asiacall online journal, 12(5), 17-23. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/63 cheung, l., fong, n., & wong, c. (2006). a new english writing curriculum for tertiary students: the use of moodle to construct a community of learners. apera conference, (november), 1–9. chung, y., graves, b., wesche, m., & barfurth, m. (2005). computer-mediated communication in korean-english chat rooms: tandem learning in an international languages program. the canadian modern language review, 62(1), 49-86. cifuentes, l., & shih, y. d. (2001). teaching and learning online: a collaborative between u.s. and taiwanese students. journal of research on texhnology in education, 33(4), 456-475. curis, d. d. & lawson, m. j. (2001). exploring collaborative online learning. journal of asynchronous learning networks, 5(1), 21-34. creswell, j. w. (2014). educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative (5th ed.). boston: pearson education, inc. ede, l.s., & lunsford, a. a. (1990). singular texts/plural authors: perspectives on collaborative writing. carbondale: southern illinois university press. farkas, d. k. (1991). collaborative writing, software development, and the universe of https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/32 https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/63 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 5; 2021 75 collaborative activity. in m.m. lay & w. m. karis (eds.), collaborative writing in industry: investigations in theory and practice (pp. 13-30). amityville, ny: baywood publishing co. hamat, a., azman, h., noor, n. m., bakar, k. a., & nor, n. f. m. (2014). evaluation of an lms for productive language skills. procedia social and behavioral sciences, 118, 134– 139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.02.018 handayani, f. (2020). the potential of online writing tools for efl university students during the covid-19 pandemic. journal of english education, 6(1), 9-18. harmer, j. (2004). an introduction to the practice of english language teaching: how to teach writing (4th ed.). united kingdom: longman group uk limited. jaszi, p. (1994). on the author effect; contemporary copyright and collective creativity. in m. woodmansee & p. jaszi (rds.) the construction of authorship: textual appropriation in law and literature (pp. 29-56). durham: duke university press. kern, r. (1995). restructuring classroom interaction with networked computers: effects on quantity and characteristics of language production. modern language journal, 9(4), 157-176. khabbaz, m., & najjar, r. (2015). moodle-based distance language learning strategies: an evaluation of technology in language classroom. international journal of applied linguistics and english literature, 4(4), 205–210. https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.205 le, t. t. m. (2021). a case study of students’ views on effective online learning. asiacall online journal, 12(5), 24-33. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/73 le, m. t. (2021). students’ attitude towards using smartphones and portable devices for studying writing. international journal of tesol & education, 1(3), pp. 54-64. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11250/ijte.01.03.004 lin, s. m. (2009). how computer-mediated communication affects efl students' writing processes and writing performance. university of oklahoma. quintero, l. (2008). blogging: a way to foster efl writing. colombian applied linguistics journal, 10(1), 7-49. lindblom-yanne, s., & pihlajamaki, h. (2003). can a collaborative network environment enhance essay-writing processes? british journal of educational technology, 34(10), 1730. ly, t. n. l., nguyen, t. l., & nguyen, h. n. (2021). using e-learning platforms in online classes: a survey on tertiary english teachers' perceptions. asiacall online journal, 12(5), 34-53. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.004 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.02.018 https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.205 https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/73 http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11250/ijte.01.03.004 http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.004 https://asiacall.info/acoj tran, t. m. l., & nguyen, t. t. h. vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 76 nasution, a. & fatimah, s. (2018). the use of prowritingaid web in editing students writing. journal of english language teaching. 7(2), 362-368. ndoricimpa, c., & barad, d. p. (2021). does online instruction in discourse conventions of literary analysis affect l2 students’ critical stance in academic writing? a longitudinal study: a longitudinal study. asiacall online journal, 12(4), 66 87. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/66 nguyen, t. k., & nguyen, t. h. t. (2021). the acceptance and use of video conferencing for teaching in covid-19 pandemic: an empirical study in vietnam. asiacall online journal, 12(5), 1-16. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/77 pumjarean, w., muangnakin, p., & tuntinakkhongul, a. (2017). the development of blended e-learning using moodle’s lms for efl grammatical and writing instruction for first-year students in the english major. journal of education and social sciences, 7(1), 81–89. tuzi, f. (2004). the impact of e-feedback on the revisions of l2 writers in an academic writing course. computers and composition, 21(2), 217-235. van, l. k., dang, t. a., pham, d. b. t., vo, t. t. n., & pham, v. p. h. (2021). the effectiveness of using technology in learning english. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 24-40. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/26 weasenforth, d., & meloni, c. (2002). realizing constructivist objectives through collaborative technologies: threaded discussions. language learning & technology, 6(3), 58-86. yunus, m. m., salehi, h., & nordin, n. (2012). esl pre-service teachers' perceptions on the use of paragraph punch in teaching writing. english language teaching, 5(10), 138-164. biodata tran thi my linh who is keen on studying new theory in linguistic has been an english teacher in 15 years at university of economics – technology for industries, vietnam. here she has carried out 10 scientific research projects to help improvement teaching and learning english as a foreign language. nguyen thi thanh ha has been teaching higher education at university of economics – technology for industry for more than eight years. her main research interests are collaborative learning, mall, call, digital game-based learning and language learning strategies. https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/66 https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/77 https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/26 citation asiacall online journal received: 18/05/2022 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 13/06/2022 vol. 13, no. 3, 2022 accepted: 14/06/2022 pp. 1-8 online: 22/06/2022 citation | lian, a. (2022). where to from here? generating the new normal in this extraordinary century. asiacall online journal, 13(3), 1-8. doi: https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221331 where to from here? generating the new normal in this extraordinary century andrew lian1* 1 suranaree university of technology, thailand 1 ho chi minh city open university, vietnam 1 university of canberra, australia *corresponding author’s email: andrew.lian@andrewlian.com * https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5812-3017 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221331 keywords: asiacall, presidential keynote, new normal, ai, technology, biotechnology this is the first presidential keynote address delivered at an asiacall international conference. it will not be the last one. the presidential keynote address series was initiated in order to give voice to the leader of the organisation and to the leadership team. typically, keynote speakers and other featured speakers who address the conference in plenary session are external to the organisation and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of the leadership of asiacall. the asiacall presidential keynote address will remedy this situation, and i now cordially invite you to join me for the first asiacall presidential keynote address. like other presentations in this conference, i will talk about the future and will focus on certain key issues. let me begin with some more or less self-evident assertions about the 21st century. technology the technological revolution has changed everything with a breathtaking array of new developments. the most important technologies for the 21st century – at least the near 21st century (it is quasi-impossible to predict the new technologies of the mid to late 21st centuries) are likely to be: artificial intelligence (ai) with its focus on machine learning, deep learning and neural networks perhaps connected to renewed interest in expert systems where rules are no longer generated by humans but by ai itself. biotechnology which, if used properly, will enhance our lives in countless ways. its contribution to language education is already making itself felt. as language educators, we are beginning to recognize that our biology appears to have a strong influence on language processing and indeed language itself, and that we can use that to our advantage. as a simple example from language processing, it is becoming clear that the way our body is constructed does not enable us to process language input sequentially. we would simply drown in information (christiansen & chater, 2015). instead, our body appears to have learned to deal with this issue by bundling input in such a way as to overcome this biological limitation. another simple (though hypothetical) example is chunk length i.e. the length of what is commonly referred to as a chunk. this normally consists of something between 5 to 9 syllables or has a length of about 1.4 seconds irrespective of language. this universality may be accounted for (hypothetically) by the length of breath an average human takes. https://asiacall.info/acoj https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221331 mailto:andrew.lian@andrewlian.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5812-3017 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221331 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 2 at the other end of the spectrum, biotechnology is helping us with instrumental studies designed, for instance, to enhance perception and production of language (e.g. erp and fmri dichotic/diotic processing comparisons (cai et al., 2021; lian et al., 2020)). however, biotechnology has another aspect that is less positive. it can be used not only to improve life (e.g., health-related systems) but also to exploit people. for instance, it can lead to “people hacking” (yuval harari speaking on sixty minutes, 2021) where computer systems will be able to manipulate the minds of humans to the benefit of commercial and other organizations. the relationship between people and technology also has another very serious dimension. the developments of artificial intelligence will bring about massive changes in the ways in which we lead our lives. as a simple example the driverless car or truck will almost certainly be here in the mid-2030s. this means that over time there is a serious risk that the driving professions will be deeply affected, and millions of people will find themselves out of work. this is not the first time that this kind of phenomenon has occurred, but it is almost certain that nothing on this scale has been witnessed before. multiply the driving phenomenon with other professions and we have a job crisis of monumental proportions. this will create serious social disruption and will require a fundamental reorganisation of all aspects of society. technology also raises another issue: moore’s law and human intellect. the diagram below represents intellectual growth of humans as plotted against technological growth. the blue curve represents intellectual growth while the red curve represents technological growth. clearly the curves are very different from each other, with technological growth responding to moore’s law which states that technological power doubles approximately every two years. while we are dealing with very different notions of power/growth there is a risk that the growth in technological power may push us in directions that are not necessarily beneficial to humanity unless intellectual growth expands simultaneously. while according to the above diagram intellectual growth is in fact occurring, we are clearly not doing as well as technological growth and it would be of clear benefit if the rate of growth could be increased somewhat. of course, this growth will never be exponential. so, let me make two points. https://asiacall.info/acoj andrew lian vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 3 the first is that higher education has a critically important role to play. higher education is important, not because it trains us for specific jobs or careers (maybe that is not the role of higher education anyway) but because it (should) equips(s) us to deal with the unimagined and, ideally, perhaps even the unimaginable. my second point is that modern technology has an equally important role to play in our intellectual development. in addition to the multitude of ways in which it can facilitate or support learning, technology presents us with countless ways of spurring the imagination to investigate ways of thinking that were previously unimaginable before the advent of that technology. for instance, technology has now made available the possibility of studentgenerated learning materials based on students’ actual needs as determined by the students themselves at the time of the need (lian, 2014). this is something that was impossible to envisage as little as fifty years ago. yet technology can also limit us. this is because, like all other intellectually based systems, it organises the world for us to some extent and therefore limits the ways in which we think. use of technology must therefore always be carefully assessed in its context of usage so as to maximise its value. i would now like to move on to my second key point about current life: the post-covid condition (with apologies to jean-françois lyotard). the post-covid condition right now, we are all in the clutches of an all-invasive world-wide pandemic called covid-19. this happened with little warning, and the world had to react quickly and with no preparation to avoid a human and economic tragedy of unequalled proportions. everyone is now waiting for a vaccine so that we can enter the post-covid world, a world free from the disease, and get back to our normal lives. that would be great, but i feel that this is unlikely to happen. beating this pandemic will not be enough as a new one (or a new variety) will probably come along for several reasons, as we have already seen. on top of that, we already have a history of disease spreading around the world, starting with something as common as “the flu”, the bird flu, even ebola and so on. ideally, we would have to defeat new pandemics before they start – and that is a huge if not impossible challenge. perhaps more importantly, in addition to the health issues, this pandemic has triggered new understandings about how we can lead all aspects of our lives. we have already re-thought new ways of living our lives such as travel, group meetings, workplace location and activities, entertainment, education and many other things. in learning to do things differently and meeting new challenges, we may also have learned to do them better or even to develop entirely new ways of dealing with certain issues, e.g., online learning. in a sense, covid-19 has been something of an opportunity. so, in a way, we may never get back to the old normal in every aspect of our lives, at least in the foreseeable future. covid-19 has taught us to be vigilant all of the time about it and similar diseases, and to protect ourselves against the possibility of infection even if the danger has gone. consequences of covid-19 include, for example, the fact that people can work successfully from home (both employers and employees), that at least adult students can successfully study from home and that it is often possible to replace travel with online meetings. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 4 these new understandings are unlikely to change and will stay with us for ever. this is what people have also called the great reset – we must reset the world in order to survive. let me quote from something i wrote recently in a non-academic context: “as the world resets itself and, together, we co-construct the new normal for a life that will never be the same again, we will need, more than ever before, to rely on the fundamental human qualities of ingenuity, imagination, adaptability and resilience in order to lead safe, productive, sustainable, comfortable and satisfying lives”. our lives should be safe (or secure), satisfying and serene. and it is becoming clear that some patterns from the past will most likely be abandoned. many of us will work from home or in small-scale, dynamically reconfigurable, shared or co-working spaces not large, centralized buildings. working from home, while seemingly attractive, creates new problems. for instance, we will need to redefine “home”. at home, we will have to manage work, family children, pets etc. and this may lead to difficulties in the balance between personal and work commitments. home will no longer be primarily the place where we recover, relax and sleep in order to go back to work the next day. everything will happen at home. meetings will tend to be held online (from home) and the few important ones that require personal contact will often be conducted in shared spaces rather than large corporate buildings. and, because of the growth of telecommuting (working from home), local communities will grow in importance as we learn to inhabit virtual as well as physical spaces. in some sense, we may revert to something more like the village life of the past while still remaining involved in global activities. technology will enable all of this to happen, and the decentralization implies will affect everything. in particular, schools and universities may be less peopled and new community-based models of education may emerge. one of the possible implications of this is that the notion of the traditional classroom may be under threat and may need to be re-conceptualized. the classroom may no longer be so important as we almost certainly move toward personalized, blended, online and self-managed learning. actually, it is not all bad at least for education. although this virus is horrible, it has forced us to rely on technology to do things. in the world of education, no one has been exempted from this and people with no experience or desire to teach with technology have been plunged into the challenge of using it to teach. in the field of language teaching, specifically, people with no experience have suddenly been told to design tell (technology-enhanced languagelearning) systems from scratch and in a very short time (e.g., “let’s do it in 2 weeks”). surprisingly, in many instances around the world, instead of looking for expert help or turning to new teaching and learning approaches, many organizations decided to use a do-it-yourself approach and to improvise as best they could with their old approaches. sometimes this way of doing things worked and people felt good and sometimes it did not work and people felt bad – this had an impact on attitudes toward technology post-covid-19. the problem with this improvised approach is that the human, time and financial investments that went into these unprepared initiatives were huge. because of the size of the personal and financial investment that went into their preparation, it is difficult to throw away so much work and start again even though it may have been unplanned. now… we need a plan to move forward and deal with the hurried but valuable work that we did and either replace it with something better or keep the parts that worked. it is not enough to do nothing. one of the critically important features of using technology to teach is that it requires a clearly articulated learning and teaching theory. we cannot improvise as much as we https://asiacall.info/acoj andrew lian vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 5 do in a traditional classroom. the level of planning needs to be much higher. simply computerizing what we do in a traditional classroom will not be enough. real tell development is the antithesis of what happened when covid-19 hit. once we start to engage with it in a sensible manner, technology will reveal flaws and problems that we were unaware of and, ideally, requires us to rethink our theoretical understandings as well as our practices. this offers us a great opportunity to rethink and improve. but rethinking and improving is not just a matter of opinion – it is a matter of research. when covid-19 hit, people were often asked to brainstorm solutions. brainstorming is good but never enough. it needs to be informed. the best source of information is research but not research that simply repeats the past and that we know has failed in the past. we know it has failed because the field is fairly stagnant – we are not doing great right now. we need to seriously consider outliers: researchers are not in the mainstream of the field. why? because they can see things that the mainstream cannot see. they will help us to think laterally and innovatively, especially as we are now in a mass market for language education, especially english, where millions of students (both in class and out of class) need to be catered for. let me give you some examples from the research that my students and i have been doing at sut and elsewhere. this research has been ongoing since about 2014 and has resulted in the creation of what we have called the alert research group. it all began with professor dr. he bi (xinyi normal university for nationalities), one of my doctoral students who initiated an interesting and original, outlying, research stream that forms the initial driver of alert’s activities. the name alert stands for advanced language education research team. alert has a common, intertwined, theoretical framework and its research projects are generally circumscribed by the following theories: verbotonalism (asp & guberina, 1981; guberina, 1956) – perception/production. rhizomatic/autonomous language learning (lian, 2004, 2011) – self-managed autonomous learning self-organizing learning environments (mitra & dangwal, 2010) – teacherless project-based learning within a project-based framework. precision language education (lian & sangarun, 2017) identifying learning problems for each student – a form of research-based personalization and a critical epistemological framework for the construction of knowledge and learning (lian & sussex, 2018) – how do we know something? how do we learn? it draws on technology as needed (and it often does). clearly, these are not mainstream theories. here are some examples of the work done by the alert group. research began with work in pronunciation and trying to improve students’ prosody, intelligibility and comprehensibility – not turning them into native speakers but making them operational and empowering them for success. there were many offshoots to this research including enhancing listening comprehension, maximizing fluency and, believe it or not, enhancing academic writing in l2 learners. how was this achieved? in part through manipulation of the physical auditory signal that learners were exposed to. the techniques used were based on the principle that if you provide the brain with an optimized physical signal then the brain, on its own and without additional work by the student, will enhance language learning automatically. this principle is part of the verbotonal theory. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 6 did it work? it worked very well, and it has now been extended to some seven other projects in china, thailand, vietnam, indonesia and australia. results are published for some, and new results are expected to be published soon. we now need to conduct large-scale replications, but every project conducted has yielded more than the expected results (some are surprising and will need special investigation). wherever appropriate/possible a double-blind protocol was applied. in order to discover more about these phenomena, we are now also conducting instrumental studies scanning the electrical activity of the brain (with event related potentials and blood flow studies using fmri). these studies are being conducted in china. the work that we have been doing has not been limited to audio manipulation but has also incorporated autonomous learning and personalization of learning while focusing on perception issues. in developing all of these systems we have discovered two things: (a) in order to learn some things (not everything), students do not have to think about what they are doing or trying to learn in order to get good results. they just need to perform certain activities. like the old slogan about the value of physical exercise, you don’t have to like it, you just have to do it. in other words, the systems are teacher-less (and therefore teacher-proof) and, essentially, automatic. the second thing that we learned was that despite the fact that they did not have to “work” at what they were doing other than follow a routine of activities, in every case (b) students enjoyed doing the required work a. became more autonomous and b. were motivated to continue and in some cases, they claimed to be less anxious and/or more confident because they felt that significant improvement in their english had occurred. this research is leading to the development of automatic/teacherless systems for learning certain aspects of language. it began with pronunciation work (professor dr. he bi, professor dr. yan yang, dr. wen fengwei – all from china/thailand) and has now extended to listening comprehension (dr. luu thi mai vy, vietnam/thailand), fluency/accuracy studies (mr. zhang shaobing, china), academic writing (dr. lala bumela sudimantara, indonesia/australia); mr. luqman baehaqi, indonesia/australia) and mr cai xirui (china/thailand). the use of artificial intelligence approaches such as the development of expert systems based on neural networks and deep learning algorithms will enable the creation of fully automated systems that, within certain domains, will diagnose and monitor some of the students’ individual problems (especially in areas like pronunciation and prosody). these systems will be of great value in language learning in the post-covid period, freeing educational organizations from the obligation to provide classrooms and people who, in any case, will be less efficient than the teacher-less systems. classrooms and people can be saved for activities that cannot be automatic (so far). just as important, though, these studies will give learners opportunities to learn when and where and sometimes how they like. this is a good way of increasing the amount of critical support available for language learning at minimal cost, especially in today’s mass market. https://asiacall.info/acoj andrew lian vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 7 so where to from here? it is the job of the university and researchers in general, the people who attend asiacall international conferences, to lead intellectually. it is our job to create progress for our profession and to avoid stagnation. we need to work together to generate intellectually valid and valuable learning systems, beginning with research and drawing on the best that each of us has to offer. and to do so humbly, with the understanding that even though we may feel certain that we know what needs to be done and how to teach, we are all open to new ideas and new evidence of what works and what does not. maybe we should give serious consideration to formalizing our relationships with each other through the formation of one or more international centres so that we can move forward smoothly, perhaps a national or international centre for computerassisted language learning. in order to achieve all of this: • we need to be smart • we need to be forward-looking • we need to be brave • we need to be active • we need to be visible • we need to be heard • we need to connect to each other and to decision-makers, • we need to participate in the creation of the future and not portray ourselves as helpless victims of “the system” in short, we need to learn to be in control of our work and of our situation and if we do that, then the new normal is in our hands! references asp, c. w., & guberina, p. (1981). verbo-tonal method for rehabilitating people with communication problems. cai, x., lian, a.-p., puakpong, n., shi, y., chen, h., zen, y., ou, j., zheng, w., & mo, y. (2021). optimizing auditory input for foreign language learners through a verbotonal-based dichotic listening approach. asian-pacific journal of second and foreign language education (scopus; web of science esci; eric), 6(14). christiansen, m. h., & chater, n. (2015). the now-or-never bottleneck: a fundamental constraint on language. the behavioral and brain sciences, 2016, 1–72. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x1500031x guberina, p. (1956). l’audiométrie verbo-tonale. revue de laryngologie, 1–2, 20–58. lian, a.-p. (2014). on-demand generation of individualised language learning lessons. journal of science, ho chi minh city open university, 9(1), 25–38. http://ljunction.com/linksdb/filemgmt/visit.php?lid=18 lian, a.-p., cai, x., chen, h., ou, j., & zheng, w. (2020). cerebral lateralization induced by dichotic listening to filtered and unfiltered stimuli: optimizing auditory input for foreign language learners. journal of critical reviews, 7, 4608-4625 (scopus). https://dx.doi.org/10.31838/jcr.07.19.541 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 8 lian, a.-p., & sangarun, p. (2017). precision language education: a glimpse into a possible future (feature article). gema online® journal of language studies, 17(4), 1-15 (scopus). https://doi.org/10.17576/gema-2017-1704-01 lian, a.-p., & sussex, r. d. (2018). toward a critical epistemology for learning languages and cultures in 21st century asia. in a. curtis & r. d. sussex (eds.), intercultural communication in asia: education, language and values (vol. 24, pp. 37–54). springer international publishing ag. mitra, s., & dangwal, r. (2010). limits to self-organising systems of learning-the kalikuppam experiment. british journal of educational technology, 41(5), 672–688. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2010.01077 biodata professor andrew p. lian is professor of foreign language studies, suranaree university of technology, thailand; ho chi minh city open university, vietnam; professor emeritus, university of canberra, australia; president of asiacall, the asia association of computerassisted language-learning, a research and professional association focusing on the uses of technology to enhance second/foreign language learning in asian contexts. previous to this appointment, he was professor and chair of the department of foreign languages and literatures at western illinois university in the united states. prior to that, he had been professor of humanities and director of the center for the study of languages at rice university, houston, tx, usa, and professor and head of the school of languages and international education at the university of canberra in australia. he has held further professorial appointments and been head of department in two other universities in australia (james cook university and bond university). using video dubbing task to improve sentence stress for asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013; nguyen thi thu webquest – an effective web-based tool for teaching esp to english non-majored students nguyen thi thu the people’s police university, vietnam autumnwind20012002@yahoo.com abstract this article evaluates effectiveness of webquest integrated in the esp reading course to second-year students at the people’s police university (ppu) was in enhancing the students’ reading competence. an action research which utilizes both quantitative and qualitative was used to fulfill the aims of the study. data from questionnaires, pre-test, post-test and teacher’s observation sheet were analyzed and discussed. it will be suggested that webquest is an effective way to improve students’ reading competence. thus, this study is of value to teachers interested in utilizing web-based tools in their teaching of english in general and the teaching of esp in particular. keywords: esp, webquest, reading competence introduction the current globalization of trade and economy and the continuing increase in international communication in various fields have resulted in greater demand for english for specific purposes (esp). among all the four skills and knowledge integrated in esp curriculum, reading skill is often the priority in the esp curricula at universities throughout the country. besides, reading authentic materials is of great importance for those who have the desire for further study and for their future careers as it is one of the best ways to improve their english, understand and use the information in up-to-date sources in their respective fields of study. in reality, to develop reading, one of the most useful resources is the internet, with a large amount of varied authentic materials and easily accessible. furthermore, the internet-based activities can take advantage of integrated teaching approaches. to illustrate, collaborative and cooperative learning occurs when computer-assisted language learning (call) is used in language teaching and learning, (mccabe, 1998). learners use websites on the internet to perform cooperative tasks with their peers to complete work assigned by the instructor. it is the learning and teaching on the internet that enables the learnercentred approach (kumari, 1998). alexander & elana (2005:129) also claimed, “the internet helps to make esp lessons more rewarding and encourages opening the new way to bring about creativity and enthusiasm for learning”. additionally, the previous esp-related studies in the context of vietnam revolve mainly around paperbased syllabus designs, course designs, or syllabus valuation, etc. there has been a lack of researches on the integration of reading approaches and the web to facilitate esp learning. as an instructor of esp for several years, the author is fully aware of the problems hindering the success of esp teaching at the ppu which include lack of updated authentic materials, unsuitable teaching method, low-motivated learners, and teachers’ insufficient utilization of web-based resources and available teaching facilities in their teaching. this has challenged the quality of teaching esp in general and reading skills in particular. mailto:autumnwind20012002@yahoo.com asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013; nguyen thi thu thus, she feels the need and has the desire to integrate internet-based projects in her esp teaching. by integrating webquest in the esp intensive and extensive reading course, the researcher’s ambition is to make some renovation in her teaching in order to solve the prevailing problems of less effective teaching of esp reading and low motivation of the students at the ppu. brief overview of related literature 1. the internet and second language learning over the past few years, the internet has been widespread in numerous fields and domains. it has carried out great potentials for educational use, especially second language education. in this sub-division, the author wishes to focus on the benefits of employing the internet in the second language learning. among the benefits of internet use in the second and foreign language classroom, the most important are:  increased motivation and participation by students (warschauer, 1996).  more opportunities to interact with the target language and content area because students spend more time on task (kasper, 2000b).  greater integration of reading and writing skills and opportunities to practice them in meaningful contexts.  the possibility to implement pedagogy based on problem solving and critical thinking (warschauer, 1999).  more self-paced autonomous learning that is learner-controlled rather than teacher-controlled (mak, 1995). in addition to the benefits just cited, the internet provides the resources necessary to carry out authentic projects and analysis, and thus develop the communicative competence of esp students. such resources allow teachers to design simulation activities and role-playing using authentic material. in this manner, the internet facilitates the use of a specific language in an authentic setting. the internet can also be used to acquire information from language resources for a variety of purposes. for example, students can access current information from countries around the world. they can obtain geographical, historical, social/cultural, economic, and political information from the countries in which the target language is spoken. such resources allow teachers to design simulation activities and role-playing using authentic material. kimball (1997) pointed out that “internet-generated materials can be flexibly arrayed to engage students with topics and cognitive tasks relevant to students’ professional futures.” in short, the internet not only helps students widen knowledge and outlook, strengthens experience but also enables them to live in a real world in which they are the creators rather than the receivers only. with the above mentioned advantages of the internet, it can be concluded that the internet is an appropriate learning tool in a content-based esp syllabus. 2. webquest 2.1 definition bernie dodge an american professor of educational technology at san diego state university focused on the design, implementation and evaluation of computer-based learning environments since 1995 and created a learning model which has been widely used as an effective internet-based educational tool at schools, colleges and universities for over a decade and is now one of the most popular and most effective internet–based project models/ approaches. this approach clearly describes the process of the partly asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013; nguyen thi thu online learning experience which challenges, motivates and engages learners. in an early article about this method, bernie dodge defined a webquest as follows: an inquiry-oriented activity in which most of all of the information used by learners is drawn from the web. webquests are designed to use learners’ time well, to focus on using information rather than looking for it, and to support learners’ thinking and levels of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. (dodge, 2001). educators thought that the original definition was not enough to cover the meaning and theoretical underpinnings of the webquest concept. march (2008), a co-creator of webquest, therefore conceptualized and expanded the definition of webquest as a scaffolded learning structure that uses links to essential resources on the world wide web and an authentic tasks to motivate students‘ investigation of a central, open-ended question, development of individual expertise and participation in a final group process that attempts to transform newly acquired information into a more sophisticated understanding. webquests motivate students to engaging the world in a well-informed manner. in a webquest, learners work in groups, where members have to analyze and master a particular aspect of an issue. each member becomes an ‘expert’ in their role, later contributing to an in-depth understanding of the given aspect of the final group task. 2.2 structures of a webquest model webquest should be designed with a purpose in mind for students to perform when surfing the net. for this reason, a typical webquest usually follows a structural pattern:  introduction. this stage is used to give a brief introduction of the webquest. it involves background information on the topic of the webquest and in the language context, often introduces key vocabulary and concepts which learners will need to understand in order to complete the task involved.  task. the task section explains clearly and accurately what the learners will have to do as they work their way through the web quest.  process: this part guides the learners through a set of activities and research tasks, using a set of internet-based resources.  resources: the resource stage lists useful web sites that will help learners to complete the task as well as widen their knowledge in the field of concern.  evaluation: this part explains clearly how the final outcome will be graded and evaluated. it can involve learners in self-evaluation, comparing and contrasting what they have produced with other learners, and giving feedback on what they feel they have learnt and achieved.  conclusion: this section helps to close the quest. it reminds the students about what they have learned, and perhaps encourages them to extend the experience into other fields (gavin dudeney & nicky hockly, 2007). the structure of a webquest is flexible depending on the topic, the content, the subjects of the webquest and the author’s purposes in designing the webquest. 2.3 webquests – a pedagogical perspective a webquest combines the benefits of the constructivist approach, inquiry-based learning approach, project-based approach and cooperative learning. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013; nguyen thi thu constructivist approach a webquest is in fact a constructivist lesson format. mary (1998) stated constructivism as ‘both a philosophy and a theory of learning’. by changing the focus of the classroom from teacher dominated to student-centered using a constructivist approach we could yield positive results. using webquest, learners have to activate the mental processing which results in understanding and the creation of meaning from their own experiences (grand, 2002). it is the constructivist learning approach and the profound influence of technology on education that require the utilization of authentic activities to give the learning situation a purpose and meaning (reeves et al., 2002; matejka, 2004; baccarini, 2004). inquiry-based learning torrus (2005) believed: “a webquest for teaching and learning a second language is an inquiry oriented activity placed in a relevant thematic context, in which the development of the task implies using web resources and developing high order thinking processes in a collaborative environment. at the same time, it provides the students the opportunity to learn and put into practice some linguistic skills, supported by a set of linguistic and procedural scaffolding. project-based learning (pbl) pbl is an instructional student-centered educational approach in which students work in teams to explore real-world problems and create presentations to share what they have learned. (warschauer., 2000). the following can be seen as reasons for using internet-based projects in the classroom: 1. there are a structured way for teachers to incorporate the internet into the language classroom, on both a short-term and a long-term basis. no specialist technical knowledge is needed either to produce or to use internet-based projects. however, it is certainly looking around on the internet to see if something appropriate already exists before sitting down to create your own project. 2. more often than not, they are group activities and, as a result, lend themselves to communication and the sharing of knowledge, two principal goals of language teaching itself. the use of projects encourages cooperative learning and therefore stimulates interaction. 3. they can be used simply for language learning purposes, but can also be interdisciplinary, allowing for cross-over into other departments and subject areas. this can often give them a more ‘real-world’ look and feel, and provide greater motivation for the learner. 4. they encourage critical thinking skills. learners are not required to simply regurgitate information they find, but have to transform that information in order to achieve a given task. (gavin dudenney & nicky hockly, 2007: 44) webquest for content-based language learning webquests are activities specially suited to content-based language learning; students perform a real world task using authentic materials related to a topic within their academic discipline (maria, 2002). according to torrus (2005), webquests are activities that meet the requirements of the three essential conditions for language learning “exposure, use and motivation”. march (1997) supported the point as saying that “the pedagogical principles of a webquest are to assign small groups of students with a challenging inquiry, provide access to an abundance of online resources, and scaffold the learning process to promote higher order thinking”. webquests can meet the four criteria for content-based activities below: 1. learning activities should provide more than one perspective on the content area. this is met by webquests, which offer a large number of web pages with information on different aspects of a topic (marco, 2002). 2. activities should present authentic content without oversimplifying it (spiro and jehng 1990). asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013; nguyen thi thu 3. activities should incorporate visuals and other aids for making associations, since that facilitates deeper thinking (craik and lockhart 1972). the web pages used in webquests contain not only text, but also pictures, sound, and even animation. 4. activities should encourage the sq3r formula: surveying, questioning, reading, recalling, and reviewing materials under study (schmeck 1986). 2.4 webquest design the process of designing a webquest is a thoughtful endeavour that does not require much computing skills or much detailed technical knowledge as numerous templates are provided. also, it is relatively easy to produce a professional-looking and workable design using any modern word processor. the skillset for making a webquest is similar to that for planning internet-based lessons, and might be defined as: research skills, analytical skill and word processing skills. (gavin dudeney & nicky hockly, 2007). mastering the above necessary skills, a webquest designer need to follow the basic steps in webquest design and creation: 1. first, planning beforehand: it may be of great value for those who want to design a webquest to visit some already designed pages. webquest creation should start with the decision on a topic based on the students’ needs or interests or just because it fits with their curriculum. teachers should also be aware of the consistency of the online resources, indiscriminately gathering and organizing this raw material in a kind of inventory. additionally, before beginning the webquest, the main question – the quest in itself that lies behind the webquest must be posed. 2. second, the first draft is produced in order to give the webquest a shape. at this stage, all the possible cognitive transformation tasks that could be involved in the quest are brainstormed even though the first step in the quest is simple information gathering. it may be highly useful to classify the web resources by means of a definite criterion (i.e. information classification into topics, job-roles, perspectives, levels, etc.) and rigorously examine them for educational purposes. it would be useful at this stage to revisit the web for better resources or to change the webquest topic in itself. special attention should be paid to establish a basic knowledge of the subject so that students can engage 3. third, the last step is actually writing the webquest. an html editor like frontpage or dreamweaver can be used. creating a web page may be much easier when using a template that guides the teacher into the creation of the webquest. the most challenging aspect of this part is to ensure a really engaging introduction that catches students’ attention and drives them naturally into the task/question. a general introduction should be clearly stated at the very beginning so that later on it may derive into more specific roles for students to develop. transformative thinking tasks are better introduced after students have completed their assigned roles, that is, when students are prepared to share different knowledge. the conclusion also needs to pose a semantic sense that returns to the initial reasoning and engages learners into critical thinking of the skills developed through the activities they undertook. 4. finally, once the webquest has been implemented and revised, a server needs to be found to deliver the final version of the quest. alternatively, some web pages offer free space where the quest can be published or even saved in the hard disk of a central computer as a kind of intranet, when access to the net is inadequate or inexistent. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013; nguyen thi thu methodology 3.1 research questions in order to fulfill the research aims, this study is conducted based on the following questions: 1. does the utilization of webquest help improve reading skills of second-year students at the ppu? 2. what is the students’ attitude towards the webquest-based learning and teaching of esp reading? 3. what are the difficulties of the students and teacher at the ppu in the employment of webquest in the reading course? 3.2 research method the action research in this study was guided by the combination of kemmis’s model and beatty’s model which will be shown in the figure below. the model of action research in this study in the research, the author played the role as the practitioner who designed the webquest, guided carried out the esp program, observed and reflected it. the action research was carried out at the ppu involving the use of webquest in the teaching of esp reading to second year students. the pre-questionnaire was delivered among 398 second-year students four months before the course. 44 students in class b2c1-d18 among these 398 students were randomly chosen for the research. based on the students’ background, internet and computer experience and skills as well as their needs and expectations concerning esp obtained from the pre-questionnaire, the webquest-based reading syllabus was designed using intensive and extensive reading approaches. all 44 students involved in the study took the pre-test before the course. these students are equally divided into two groups: control group and treatment group. after 75 periods (6 weeks) of employing the web-based course, the post-test and online survey was administered to 22 students in the treatment group to collect information for data analysis in order to answer the research questions. the action research, especially the process of designing and implementing the esp reading program with the integration of webquest was a hard job as it required great time and efforts on different steps. hence, it is necessary to give a brief description of all the instruments and participants in each step of the study. instruments participants number of participants steps in the action research pre-questionnaire 2 nd year students in the academic year of 2009-2010 398 planning asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013; nguyen thi thu pre-test treatment group 22 planning post-test treatment group 22 reflecting observation sheet teacher/ researcher 1 acting/ observing post-questionnaire treatment group 22 reflecting figure 1: a summary of all instruments and participants used in the action research step 1: planning in this sub-part, students’ learning goals and objectives together with their needs and expectations were taken into consideration based on the pre-questionnaire. the pre-questionnaire was administered four months before the web-based course to all 398 second year students at the ppu in the preliminary research. the questions revolve around the students’ background of english, learning habits and hobbies, computer and internet experience, etc. it was also essential for the teacher to discover possible problems in the class and find out the remedy to these problems beforehand. in short, the job of planning involves preparing materials and methods. the students’ needs and expectations were taken into consideration in order to have a practical and applicable web-based reading program. the findings from the pre-questionnaire, therefore, helped to ensure the validity and reliability of the program. step 2: acting the design of the webquest named english for police in the reading course with full awareness of students’ learning goals and objectives together with their needs and expectations for the esp reading program based on the information from the pre-questionnaire, the researcher designed and a web-based reading course in which was integrated. designing the webquest-based course, the author’s ambitions are to: (1) improve their reading competence both intensively and extensively as well as the understanding police-related terms; and (2) have students get used to the use of webquest with the availability of authentic materials. in this research, the webquest was considered as the teacher’s website, which consisted of five components: introduction; task; process; resources; and conclusion. a brief overview of the course was presented in page introduction; reading tasks were given in page task. step-to-step directions for each task were shown in page process and the links needed to refer to read both intensively and extensively were suggested in page resources. page conclusion closed down the reading program and asked students to do the online-questionnaire. there were totally six units in the reading course corresponding to the six specialized topics: (1) the police; (2) crime prevention and protection; (3) criminal procedures; (4) criminal investigation and (5) traffic policing. with each unit, the students could link the above five components in the webquest to see what and how they had to do their tasks. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013; nguyen thi thu figure 2: the screenshot of the webquest’s homepage intensive reading (ir) and extensive reading (er) program in the course ir and er were incorporated in this course. to improve students’ ir skills, not only in-class activities but also out-of-class ones were carried out on the hope of having students work in teams to fulfill the tasks. the students, as team members, downloaded the worksheet of each topic’s instruction from the webquest. reading the worksheet, students individually identified the purposes of the reading by highlighting the key words and phrases needed searching for in the texts. after that, they began to survey the texts to find out their organizations, headings, sub-headings, etc so that they could skim the texts for main ideas and scanned the texts for answers to the questions in the worksheet. the students could easily find out the definitions and methods of surveying, skimming and scanning which were hyperlinked in the webquest. after finishing individual work, students worked in teams to compare the answers with other team members to finally decide on the team’s worksheet before sending to the teacher’s email by the deadline. to practice er, as a home assignment, each team chose a topic that they were interested in from the lists of topics for extensive reading in the webquest. the team could visit relevant websites in page resources in the webquest or surf the internet to read about the topic. the team members then worked together to make a powerpoint presentation on the chosen topic and prepared for the in-class presentation in the next meeting. step 3: observing the job of observation in this research was done during the employment of the reading course. participant observation was used in the study by the teacher/researcher to record impressions and reflections on the ways in which the students were related to the webquest in their esp learning. the teacher’s observation focused on finding out the students and the teacher’s difficulties in this web-based course. the researcher also took field notes on the attitude, feelings, participation, activities, and possible problems of each individual and the five teams in the treatment group. step 4: reflecting in this action research, while observing the implementation of the web-based course, the teacher reflected on the student’s participation and attitude towards the program, the difficulties and obstacles hindering the asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013; nguyen thi thu teacher and the students, the level of effectiveness of the program and the outcomes. these were recorded in the observation sheet. it was then followed by the revising steps in which the teachers found out solutions to the difficulties and obstacles so as to have better preparation for the next circle of the action research. summary of the findings from the pre-test and post-test the data of the pre-test and post-test analyzed by spss software reveal that the students who were employed in the web-based esp reading course made much improvement in their reading competence. this proves that the integration of the webquest in the teaching of esp reading at the ppu was effective. from the post online questionnaire the findings were also enhanced by the positive feedback of the students towards the use of webquest through the online survey carried out after the course. the responses to the post-questionnaire show that the majority of students had positive attitude towards the newly-designed reading program and were satisfied with it as: the course was useful and interesting; the webquest was rich in content and welldesigned; the web-based course helped the students improve their reading competence and internet skills, enriching their vocabulary and specialized knowledge, and motivating the students to read extensively. in addition, they also gave some suggestions for a better integration of webquest in the esp teaching of reading at the ppu such as: the time for the course should be longer. they also revealed that that would continue to use webquest after the course and tell others about it and expected to have more webquestbased programs for learning other subjects at the ppu. the responses also indicate certain difficulties encountered by the students during the course. these can be listed as: difficulty in reading long texts online; lack of time in fulfilling all the tasks; and problems with internet access from the observation the difficulties found out from the teacher’s observation sheet were generally in accordance with those discovered from the students’ responses to the online questionnaire. these difficulties were described more specifically in different stages of the course because the observation and reflections on the students, the program and the role of the teacher were recorded weekly. the observation sheet and the online survey also helped the researcher to investigate possible problems facing the teachers during the employment of the web-based reading course. however, these problems are not so serious and can be avoided in the future research in the field. discussions during the acting step, the researcher/ teacher made great efforts in playing different roles at the same time as an observer, a facilitator, and an advisor while keeping an eye towards the students’ participation, encouraging students by giving them complements on their efforts or reminding them to finish the tasks on time, or giving them support or suggestions involving their difficulties in their learning of esp reading. however, there exist some weaknesses revolving the job of the participants, the design and the employment of the course during the four previous stages in cycle 1 of the action research. these can be the lack of support from colleagues in designing the webquest and difficulties in dealing with the students’ problems and managing the whole course. in fact, the students were sometimes overwhelmed by the burden of work they had to finish each weak; in reality, the reading texts were sometimes too long. several students who are not used to reading long texts online felt hard to concentrate on their reading. the researcher/ teacher could not foresee the possible problems which would happen to the quality of the internet. thus, in order to have a better cycle of future action research, importance should be attached to the cooperation among colleagues in designing and implementing the webquest-based course, the length asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013; nguyen thi thu of the reading texts, time budget, the quality of the wi-fi system at the ppu in all the stages of the second circle of the action research, especially the planning stage. conclusion the integration of webquest in the teaching of esp reading helped to increase students’ motivation and participation; improve students’ internet skills; provide students with more opportunities to expose authentic materials, interact with the target language and content area; enhance students’ problem solving and critical thinking; and develop students’ self-paced autonomous. and most importantly, the web-based reading course, as a result, improves students’ reading competence, enriches their vocabulary and specialized knowledge, and motivates them to read extensively. webquest, thus, appear as a very suitable integration to immerse the students in the teaching and learning of esp reading and in a real professional in which a whole project involving technology is done. references alexander, i. c., elena a. d., (2005). the breakthrough of the internet to empower esp teaching and learning at tomsk polytechnic university. global journal of english. education. australia. beatty, k. (2003). teaching and researching computer-assisted language learning. hong kong: pearson education. blasszauer, j.(2003). webquests: blending learning philosophy and practice. novelty a journal of english language teaching and cultural studies in hungary (pp 1-12). boswood.(1997), t. (ed.). new ways of using computers in language teaching, tesol. bush, m. d. (1997). implementing technology for language learning. in m.d. bush & r. m. terry (eds.). technology-enhanced language learning. lincolnwood: national textbook company. gavin dudeney & nicky hockly (2007). how to teach english with technology. educational technology & society. pearson. kasper, l. (2000a). content-based college esl instruction. mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates. klaus brandl (2002). integrating internet-based reading materials into the foreign language curriculum: from teacher – to student – centered approaches. (pp. 87-107). september 2002, volume 6, number 3. university of washington. krajka, j. (2001a). online lessons using the internet to help the coursebook. call the challenge of change. exeter: elm bank publications, (pp 151-159). krajka, j. (2002). the internet as a course book in efl. unpublished ph.d. thesis. poznan: adam mickiewicz university. krashen, s. (1982). principles and practice in second language acquisition. new york: prentice-hall. kumari, s. (1998). teaching with the internet. journal of information technology for teacher education.7 (3), (pp. 363-377). levy, m. (1997). computer-assisted language learning. context and conceptualization. oxford: clarendon press. marco, m. (2002). internet content-based activities for esp. english teaching forum, 40(3), (pp.20-25). maria josé luzón marco (spain) (2002). internet content-based activities for english for specific purposes. english teaching forum magazine, january 2002, volume 40, number 3. mccabe, m. (1998). lesson from the field: computer conferencing in higher education. journal of information technology for teacher education. 7 (1), (pp.71-84). robinson, p. (1991). esp today: a practitioner's guide. hemel hempstead, herts.: prentice hall. stringer, e.t. (1999). action research. (2nd ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2013; nguyen thi thu susman, gerald (1983). action research: a sociotechnical systems perspective. ed. g. morgan. london: sage publications. (pp 95-113). zlatkovska, emilija. (2010). webquest as a constructivist tool in the efl teaching methodology class in a university in macedonia. corell: computer resources for language learning 3, (pp 14-24). wallace, m.j. (1998). action research for language teachers. cambridge, cambridge university press. warschauer, m. (1996a). virtual connection. online activities and projects for networking language teachers. university of hawaii press. warschauer, m., & healey, d. (1998). computers and language learning: an overview. language teaching asiacall online journal received: 08/08/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 22/09/2021 vol. 12, no.5, 2021 accepted: 28/09/2021 pp. 34-53 online: 29/09/2021 citation | ly, t. n. l., nguyen, t. l., & nguyen, h. n. (2021). using e-learning platforms in online classes: a survey on tertiary english teachers' perceptions. asiacall online journal, 12(5), 34-53. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.004 using e-learning platforms in online classes: a survey on tertiary english teachers' perceptions ly thi ngoc linh1, nguyen thi lam2, nguyen huu ngoc3* 1 hoang hoa tham high school, vietnam 2 people’s security university, vietnam 3 ton duc thang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam *corresponding author’s email: nguyenhuungoc921@gmail.com eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.12.05.004 abstract e-learning platforms have been widely applied in many tertiary institutions during the crisis of the covid-19 pandemic for their favorable advantages. this study employed a survey design to (1) explore certain e-learning platforms used by teachers in online classes and (2) discover their perceptions towards those tools. the open-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, both conducted online, were the two primary research instruments in the study. the questionnaires discovered that english teachers from different tertiary settings were applying various information communication technology tools to their online classrooms for three distinctive purposes: providing information or delivering lessons, generating communication between teachers and students, and boosting collaboration among students. the data set gathered from the interviews revealed that teachers had positive perceptions towards the tools they were using and that their choices were reasonable based on the regulated environment, the functionality of the tools, teachers’ information technology literacy, the appropriateness of the lesson contents and the utmost convenience the tools offered. keywords: e-learning platforms, online classrooms, tertiary english teachers’ perceptions 1. introduction the coronavirus pandemic has unprecedentedly set in since the end of 2019, causing widespread damage on a global scale. according to a current report by the worldometer website, among over 190 countries across the world that are extensively affected by the virus, the number of infected patients exceeds 195 million, with the death cases reaching up to 4.2 million. in particular, in vietnam, during the pandemic crisis, to reduce the spread of the virus and diminish its adverse consequences, certain remedial measures have been taken under the directives of the prime minister in almost every aspect of life. education is not an exception, either. as a result of prolonged school lockdowns, tele-education, as an inevitable recourse proposed by the ministry of education, has been massively applied throughout the country to ensure the continuity of schooling. although the virtual model of education is not a new concept mailto:nguyenhuungoc921@gmail.com acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 35 in the era of technological development, it was not until the pandemic broke out that this teaching and learning method started to grow in popularity, especially in tertiary levels. the statistics provided by moet (2021) showed that up until july 2021, more than 43,000 schools have promptly switched over to virtual teaching and learning, in which tertiary institutions make up nearly 60%. therefore, the shift towards distance education has led to significant changes in teachers’ pedagogical approaches, as teachers are the spearhead of teaching (hoang & le, 2021). while teachers in traditional classrooms can perform teaching activities through direct interactions with students, in online classes, they have to use e-learning platforms to reap the ultimate effectiveness of an online-delivered lesson (schulten, 2020). in addition, according to nguyen (2021), the integration of technology into virtual classroom environments is an ultimate necessity in the era of a technology-driven world. in his view, technological tools greatly facilitate the process of communication and interactions among students in their online classes. in order to explore certain e-learning platforms employed by the teachers during their online teaching as well as delve into their perceptions towards those platforms, this study entitled “using e-learning platforms in online classes: a survey on tertiary english teachers' perceptions” was conducted. 2. literature review 2.1 e-learning 2.1.1 definition of e-learning the definition of e-learning has been modified and developed to suit technological innovation and the needs of learners. in the broadest sense, fee (2009, p. 16) defines e-learning as "an approach to learning and development: a collection of learning methods using digital technologies, which enable, distribute and enhance learning." it can be said that digital supports play an important part in enabling and boosting learners' learning experience in a digital environment. according to ratheeswari (2012, p. 52), e-learning is a system in which formal teaching processes can take place in or out of the classroom using electronic resources such as computers or the internet. booth fee (2015) and ratheeswari (2012) agree that technological assistance plays a pivotal part in facilitating the learning process. regarding e-learning in tertiary education, the organization for economic co-operation and development (oecd) narrows down the definition of e-learning by emphasizing the importance of using information and communications technology (ict) to enhance and/or support learning. in this sense, ict can be used as a useful tool to support the learning process in traditional classes and in an online environment. (oecd, 2005, p. 11). ict tools widely vary from the most basic use of computers, emails, lecture notes online to web-based solutions such as online courses, online discussion, assessment, and online projects. in this paper, the definition of e-learning adapted from the two authors' theories, fee (2009) and ratheeswari (2012), helps students improve their learning beyond the classroom through devices including computers or the internet. https://asiacall.info/acoj ly, t. n. l., nguyen, t. l., & nguyen, h. n. vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 36 2.1.2 classification of e-learning as stated by sangrà et al. (2012, pp. 146-149) in their research, they classify e-learning into four main groups, including (1) technical – driven: use of technological support to deliver learning; (2) delivery-system – oriented: accessibility of learning through various electronic means; (3) communication-oriented: e-learning as an effective approach to enable communication, interaction and collaboration between learners and teacher or their peers and (4) educational – paradigm – oriented: learning process facilitated by utilizing latest multimedia technologies and the internet to better students' learning experience. in other words, e-learning is a method to deliver educational content by making full use of electronic tools to facilitate communication, interaction and collaboration during the learning process. liaw and huang (2003, pp.27-32) describe e-learning on the ground of the following features: ● multimedia environment ● integration of various kinds of information ● collaborative communication ● networks for accessing information ● implementation of different kinds of computer operating systems in a similar way, wilson (2012, p. 162) illustrates these components as strands with a detailed explanation as follows: table 1 the characteristics of e-learning components (wilson, 2012, p. 162) strand characteristics administration/ information provision ● course documents are provided online ● appointment booking may be provided online communication ● communication is generally based exclusively on online ● discussion occurs through forums ● there may be the use of web conferencing collaboration ● use of social media tools ● co-creation of multimedia online according to wilson (2012), there are three main factors relating to e-learning: administration or information provision, communication, and collaboration. the first one focuses on delivering course documents to students and arranging class appointments provided online. the second element relates to some online learning activities such as instructor-student or student-student communication, discussions or web-based conferences. the last factor is that teachers can make full use of social media tools to facilitate collaboration among students. besides, in terms of acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 37 collaboration, tsourela et al. (2015) adds that learners can actively and cooperatively take part in the learning process to create knowledge, not just passing the course and getting the certificate. this is supported by sangrà et al.(2012), liaw & huang ( 2018), who agree that information provision, communication, and collaboration are the three main components of e-learning. it is obvious that e-learning makes the learning process more active, interesting and enjoyable (liaw et al., 2007), allow learners to receive a more flexible and effective way to access the learning resources and encourage a high interaction and collaboration level between teachers and students or among students (tao et al., 2006). 2.2 e-learning platforms liu et al. (2013, p. 230) stated that e-learning platforms exploit various devices (desktop, laptop, mobile services), network technologies (wifi, cellular services) and software platforms (operating system, network protocols and services) to enable the role of the three main users – teacher, student and administrator (ouadoud et al., 2016). any e-learning platform should have three main roles, namely (1) the student's role (studying the course, completing the assignment and accessing collaborative working); (2) the teacher’s role (designing and delivering online courses, following the progress of learners, monitoring activities); (3) administrator’s role (managing the site and monitoring all education process). ouadoud, chkouri, nejjari, & el kadiri (2016) indicated that the e-learning platform is a computer device that groups several tools and ensures the educational lines. indeed, e-learning platforms vary in different applications, including google app platforms such as gmail, google classroom, google meet, and so on, along with social networking sites like zalo, facebook, viber and so forth. as enis (2013) pointed out, the popularity and functionality of google app sites help increase collaboration among students and faculty. ravi shankar (2012) added that online platforms (google classroom, google meet, and so on) are designed to provide learners free and flexible access to learning regardless of geographical, physical, and time boundaries. social network sites are construed as "networked communication platforms in which participants (1) have uniquely identifiable profiles that consist of user-supplied content, content provided by other users, and/or system-level data; (2) can publicly articulate connections that can be viewed and traversed by others; and (3) can consume, produce, and/or interact with streams of usergenerated content provided by their connections on the site.” (boyd & ellison, 2013, p. 158). it can be seen that students can receive momentous benefits from social web-based sites. gikas & grant (2013) also shared the positive viewpoints to these tools providing useful platforms where students can interact, communicate, and share emotional intelligence and look for people with other attitudes. moreover, social media sites create room for students to interact, share the contents with peers, and also assist in building connections with others (cain, 2008). gewerc, montero, and lama (2014) concluded in their study that social networking sites provide ample chances for collaboration and visibility. in addition to collaboration, these social media platforms have become effective tools putting instructors and learners collaborate into a rich, interactive environment (huffman, 2013). the collaboration and connection between teachers https://asiacall.info/acoj ly, t. n. l., nguyen, t. l., & nguyen, h. n. vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 38 and learners or among learner peers were also illustrated in a positive way through social networking sites such as facebook, twitter, ning and so on in the research paper, which was scrutinized by tran (2021). 2.3 integration of e-learning platforms into online classes with the blooming of multimedia and information technologies in the last decades, particularly the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic, the traditional teaching and learning process has undergone dramatic changes. the introduction and expansion of various e-learning platforms have been launching many changes at the tertiary level, particularly in terms of educational delivery and support processes (dublin, 2013). liu et al. (2013, pp. 230-231) addressed six functions that should be ensured when integrating e-learning platforms: communication, collaboration, class management, assessment, learning activity management, and learning object management. ● communication: facilitating the exchange of information between teachers and students or between students and students. e-learning platforms are used to support asynchronous communication (email, discussion board) and synchronous communication (instant message, video conference). ● collaboration: encouraging cooperation among students to complete learning activities or achieve educational goals (projects, games). ● class management: supporting teachers in planning and organizing learning activities. e-learning platforms are applied to manage students' profiles, assist project group formation, and submit assignments or group reports online. ● assessment: allowing teachers to evaluate and understand students' processes and also to provide feedback online. ● learning activity management: facilitating teachers to design learning activities. ● learning object management: helping teachers to create and delivering learning objects to students. as for a wide range of functions, teachers can choose the most suitable e-learning platforms to meet the different learning objectives, effectively deliver the lessons to the students and actively manage the learning activities as well. 2.4 perceptions of e-learning platforms from previous studies according to michener, delamater and myers (2004, p. 106), perception is referred to as "constructing and understanding of the social world from the data we get through our senses." in another way, perception is defined as the way people regard, understand or interpret something (oxford dictionary, 2012). in other words, when people perceive something, they consider and give their opinions on that thing based on their experiences. in this research, teachers’ perceptions were illustrated through their experiences using e-learning platforms. teachers have evaluated advantages and disadvantages while choosing these tools in teaching acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 39 and learning as well—some previous studies conducted to investigate teachers' perceptions on using e-learning platforms during the covid-19 pandemic. specifically, almahasees et al. (2021) researched "faculty's and students' perceptions of online learning during covid-19" with 50 faculty members and 280 students. from the findings, members from the faculty showed that they had used some e-learning platforms in teaching, such as zoom (40%), microsoft team (60%). besides, facebook pages were used as a tool to exchange information and communicate between teachers and students. one more thing, teachers shared that they have got ample computer literacy to be ready for online classes thanks to being trained thoroughly for teaching virtually; however, teachers need to have thorough preparation to ensure stimulating interactive online classes. another research performed by mounjid et al. (2021) indicated a contradictory opinion on teachers' it skills. 145 teachers (41.7%) admitted that they lack the technical knowledge for online education and 136 teachers (39.1%) feel under a large amount of pressure due to increasing workload. consequently, online teaching in their research has had little effectiveness for students. additionally, the lack of staff's limited technology skills gained a high percentage in the research conducted by zalat et al. (2021). priyadarshani and jesuiya (2021) studied teachers' perceptions of online teaching methods during covid-19 at the open university of sri lanka. the research was conducted with 39 teachers who were involved in virtual teaching. the teachers pointed out some of the popular e-learning platforms used in online classes, including zoom with the most used (51%), microsoft team with the second most prevalent (35,9%) and google classroom with the least used (2.5%). moreover, 77.5% of the teachers responded that they have enough confidence in their ict knowledge. in comparison, there should have completed online courses without preparation for teachers to decrease their overwhelming teaching duties. 2.5. research questions in order to achieve the above-mentioned purposes, the two following research questions were formulated. a) what types of e-learning platforms do teachers use in their online classes? b) what are teachers' perceptions of those platforms? 3. methodology 3.1 research settings and participants to ask for teachers’ participation in the study, the researcher designed online questionnaires and then randomly delivered them to groups of teachers on social networking sites. this means the sampling method was convenience sampling. the number of responses collected was 48, meaning that there was voluntary participation of 48 english teachers from five universities located in hcmc, namely banking university (8%), ton duc thang university (28%), van lang university (17%), nguyen tat thanh university (22%), saigon university (25%). according to the survey, the teacher participants aged all above 24 have had at least two-year https://asiacall.info/acoj ly, t. n. l., nguyen, t. l., & nguyen, h. n. vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 40 experiences in english teaching at the universities. in addition, they admitted that they had had little experience in online teaching prior to last year's coronavirus pandemic outbreak. 3.2 design of the study the study was a survey design that was carried out based on both qualitative and quantitative methods. firstly, the open-ended questionnaire was primarily created on the platform of google forms and was directly delivered through its link to groups of tertiary teachers on networking sites with the aim of investigating certain e-learning platforms currently applied in their online classes. the questionnaire consisted of 17 questions, divided into two parts. in part a, there were three questions about the teachers' background information: age, teaching experience, and current educational institutions. in part b, the teachers were asked to list out certain e-learning platforms they were currently employed to provide information for their students, maintain communication with them, and create collaboration among students in their online classes. secondly, one-on-one interviews were also conducted online via zoom cloud meetings to explore the teachers' choices of the platforms and the reasons for their preferences. eight teachers voluntarily agreed to share in the interviews. the time and date for each interview meeting were decided based on the teachers’ convenience. the interviews lasted from 40 to 55 minutes. 3.2 data collection and analysis the statistics collected through the online questionnaire were then analyzed and illustrated in the form of bar charts by using microsoft excel version 2016, whereas the data gathered from the interviews was descriptively presented into themes so as to reach the research objectives. 4. results and discussion this chapter illustrates the descriptive statistics presented in bar charts with the aim of displaying the participant responses from the questionnaire analyzed regarding information provision, communication and collaboration, respectively. moreover, insightful perceptions of the eight interviewees about using such e-learning platforms were included to clarify the objectives of the research. the results' discussion section would be followed to investigate the correlation between the analyzed results and the theoretical grounds presented in the part "introduction" and "literature review." 4.1 results 4.1.1 results from the questionnaire 4.1.1.1 information provision the chart below represents several e-learning platforms the teachers use to provide students with essential information prior to their online classes. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 41 figure 1. e-learning platforms are used to provide students with learning documents. a closer glance at the chart reveals that the teacher participants were using a variety of platforms at the administration or information provision stage. among them, gmail and google classroom are the two most preferred platforms. specifically, gmail accounts for 72.92% of the teachers’ choices, followed by google classroom with over a half. the proportion of teachers currently using facebook and zalo takes up approximately one-fourth while the two lowest percentages go to viber or google drive with roughly 4% and 8%, respectively. in the questionnaire, one open-ended question asked the teachers to specify the kind of information they provided to the students by using the above platforms. the responses were diverse among the teacher participants. in detail, all of the teachers claimed that e-learning platforms had become effective tools to inform announcements on online class discipline, progress scores, make-up classes, etc. most of the teachers (45 teachers) pointed out that they were taking advantage of their e-learning platforms to provide students with learning materials such as teachers’ visual slides, e-textbooks, answer keys to exercises. 40 out of 48 teachers shared that the tools are used to send class syllabi to students, and half of the teachers wrote that they were informing the students of class meeting schedules through these e-learning platforms. also, via the questionnaire, it was found out that teachers were employing the aforementioned platforms at different frequencies. https://asiacall.info/acoj ly, t. n. l., nguyen, t. l., & nguyen, h. n. vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 42 figure 2. frequency of using the e-learning platforms for information provision the data result indicates that the teachers prefer google classroom and gmail to the other platforms. additionally, the highest number of teachers (24 teachers) always use gmail to send their students tasks or assignments while only one teacher sometimes does. google classroom stands at the second position of the teachers' choices, with 14 out of 26 teachers favoring this tool. facebook and zalo show a similar number of teachers who usually use these tools for material distribution. on the other hand, viber and google drive are the two least frequently used platforms by teachers. 4.1.1.2 communication similarly, regarding communication, there were some common e-learning platforms reported to be used by the teachers to enhance the communicative connection between teachers and students as well as among students to exchange information related to the lessons. the chart below shows the percentages of different e-learning tools used as means of communication. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 43 figure 3. e-learning platforms used to communicate in online classes it is clear that zoom and google meet are used more frequently than the other platforms during teacher’s lesson delivery (45.83% and 43.75% in the order). facebook and zalo show the same proportion with 25% each. ms team, meanwhile, has the lowest rate with just over 10%. the responses from the questionnaire reveal that communication takes place in various forms during teachers' online classes. it is statistically shown that most of the participants (44 teachers) disclosed that they were utilizing the e-learning tools mentioned above to deliver the lessons online. it, accordingly, means that two-sided communication between teachers and students is constantly created through direct or indirect interactions during the lessons. more than half of the teachers responded that they were using certain e-learning platforms to create opportunities for their students to communicate in speaking lessons. what is more, about one-third of the participants shared that they were making use of these platforms to let their students discuss the problems related to the learning tasks in pairs or groups. the frequency of using the above tools to create different kinds of communication is varied, which is shown in the following chart. https://asiacall.info/acoj ly, t. n. l., nguyen, t. l., & nguyen, h. n. vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 44 figure 4. frequency of using the e-learning platforms for communication as can be seen, zoom is the platform that most teachers always use to conduct distance teaching, whereas facebook and zalo are not invariably employed in online classes. google meet and ms team came as a second and third priority in teachers' choices of the tools for communication. on top of that, google classroom, which is a decent means of indirect communication between teachers and students, is preferred by a few participants in their every online lesson. 4.1.1.3 collaboration pertaining to collaboration, below is an array of platforms that teachers opt for in their online teaching. figure 5. e-learning platforms used to create collaboration among students acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 45 from the statistics, there are only four platforms perceived to be used by teachers in their virtual classrooms. apparently, zoom was principally used by teachers to create collaboration, followed by google platforms. by contrast, social media tools such as facebook and zalo took a back seat with 20.83% and 25%, respectively. as shared in the questionnaire, the teacher participants informed that the purpose of using these means was to create collaborative group work. specifically, nearly 70% of the teachers admitted that they let their students use the platforms to do exercises in groups, while 44.6% believed that these tools were useful for students to exchange cross-group feedback on writing. only small numbers of teachers were making use of the platforms to have students carry out group projects (18%) and create group powerpoint slides for oral presentation (22%). these networked platforms were analyzed with a various range of frequencies in the following figure. figure 6. frequency of using the e-learning platforms to create collaboration it is clear that zoom is the most preferred platform for collaboration purposes, with 18 responses from the totality of 48 teachers. on the other hand, facebook and zalo are infrequently used to facilitate collaboration among students in online classes. although not always used, google platforms are chosen by more teacher participants when it comes to what means should be used to support students' collaborative work. 4.1.2. results from the interviews overall, the teacher participants had positive perceptions towards the platforms they were using in their online classes. the choices for the e-learning platforms were primarily derived from the functionality of the tools, the convenience they offer, the suitability of the lesson content, and the school's requirement. https://asiacall.info/acoj ly, t. n. l., nguyen, t. l., & nguyen, h. n. vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 46 4.1.2.1. teachers’ perceptions of platforms used for information provision first, it was quantitatively shown that gmail and google classroom were the teachers' two most favorite means of providing information. the interview discovered that teachers' preferences for these platforms stem from their systematic storage of information. i always send learning materials and anything similar to my students via gmail. they are kept in place in gmail, so whenever the students want to find the materials again, they can quickly and conveniently do it by sorting out my email address on the platform. (t6) google classroom is such an ideal channel to provide my students with learning schedules or class syllabi. i usually create a topic in google classroom, where i upload anything related to the lesson for the day. in this way, the lesson content and other related documents are arranged logically in alignment with the topics of the teaching day. the students, hence, can visit and access them easily. (t4) furthermore, some other interviewees shared that they put gmail on top priority over the other platforms because of its formality. the point is, in essence, to create discipline-based virtual classrooms at the tertiary level where formality is a must. i choose gmail rather than social networking platforms such as zalo or facebook simply because gmail offers a more formal environment for education. i see that facebook or zalo are just mostly used for playing, not studying. (t2) a few teacher participants, by contrast, favored certain social networking sites such as zalo, facebook or viber because of the instantaneous conveyance of information brought by the platforms. honestly, zalo is so popular that everyone has an account. i can send a message on the zalo group with my students and receive responses and feedback on the spot. zalo is such a useful tool for sending information related to the lesson to my students. (t6) some of my students informed me that they did not have a gmail account. however, all of them have facebook accounts. therefore, i decided to use this social networking site to post the class meeting time as well as other necessary announcements. (t5) 4.1.2.2. teachers’ perceptions of platforms used for communication communication is perceived to take up most of the online class time. in the interviews, it is clear that there are three primary reasons accounting for the teachers’ preferences for these elearning tools. first, some teachers stated that they were merely allowed to use certain platforms to conduct online teaching as requested by their schools. as a teacher from ton duc thang university shared, english teachers in his departments were required to choose either zoom or google meet to deliver their lessons online. meanwhile, another teacher from van lang university claimed that she was supposed to use ms team as it was the only platform on which the whole university's online teaching system was running. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 47 in my university, we have to use ms team and have no other choices. my school supplied each teacher with a paid account, and we can use it free of charge with full features available, which is so convenient… (t3) second, the limited features of the tools discourage the teachers from choosing them during their online teaching. a teacher interviewee confirmed that she would rather choose google meet than zoom because the former is more convenient in terms of meeting time limits. my school didn’t make us choose any platforms to teach online. we were free to choose whatever suited us. in my case, i am using google meet to teach as it's free and does not limit the meeting time. many others are using free zoom accounts, and it's so inconvenient. the meetings stop every 40 minutes, which interrupts the flow of the lesson… (t7) by contrast, another teacher participant favored zoom over google meet since the first platform was more functional than the latter, as in her opinion. my department suggested using either zoom or google meet for online teaching. however, i like zoom more. i find it more convenient to teach via zoom. it has many useful features that helpfully facilitate the teaching and learning process. for example, in zoom, i can share audios with the students with ease or divide them into groups for discussion using the function called breakout rooms. google meet does not have such features, though... (t4) third, the teacher’s it literacy is also a decisive factor in the teachers’ choices of the tools. strikingly, some teachers confessed to their fear of technology in distance teaching. as a result, they were unwilling to employ certain platforms with complicated features. honestly, i am so terrible at it. it was so challenging to start teaching online. i tried out different tools and chose the simplest one, which is google meet. i know zoom is better because it has more functions. but it was so hard for me to handle some technical problems. i tried teaching by zoom once, and one student just kept doodling on the screen i was sharing. i didn’t know how to stop it, so i gave up using zoom since then… (t2) concurring with the view, some other teachers also admitted their inability to use technology in teaching online and claimed that they were “technophobes”. consequently, they resorted to asking for help from other people to teach them how to use the basic functions of the platforms. a teacher from saigon university was a case in point. from her sharing, she had to seek support from her twelve-year-old son on the use of google classroom to post materials about the lessons. understandably, those with telltale signs of nervousness about technology are middle-aged teachers, who are far behind the times compared to younger teacher participants. 4.2.3. teachers’ perceptions of platforms used for collaboration regarding collaboration, the suitability of the lesson contents was perceived to be the fundamental reason why there was a variation in the teachers’ choices of the platforms. https://asiacall.info/acoj ly, t. n. l., nguyen, t. l., & nguyen, h. n. vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 48 in my online classes, i use a mix of platforms when i want to assign students some work to do together. it depends on what task or assignment it is and how big it is. if there are just speaking activities, i would choose zoom to invite the students into different rooms for the practice. if it is a writing task, i would let them write together using google docs. (t4) the kinds of collaborative tasks will determine which platforms i use accordingly. for example, there are some projects in my class in which the students are supposed to present orally in front of the class. then i let them work in groups in the breakout rooms to work on the visual slides together with the help of google slides… (t7) moreover, according to the teachers, students can collaborate during online classes or outside of class time. this means students can cooperate directly or indirectly using certain platforms they prefer whenever they can. i sometimes assign some tasks as homework requiring the students to do outside the class hours jointly. they are free to use any social networking sites they prefer, such as zoom, facebook or zalo, to contact and work together as long as they complete the tasks in the end. my students self-plan suitable time and tools to work with and accomplish their assignments. (t5) 4.2. discussion in this section, analyzed results grouped into three aspects: information provision, communication and collaboration, would be discussed to explore teachers' preferences of using e-learning platforms and simultaneously investigate advantages and disadvantages of using these tools through teachers' perceptions. the results from the questionnaire with respect to information provision indicated that six e-learning working sites (google classroom, gmail, facebook, zalo, viber, google drive) more or less receive teachers’ and students’ inclination. furthermore, these platforms were chosen as announcement tools or material distribution ones. the teachers’ responses made close connections with wilson’s (2012) and liu et al. 's (2013) theories about the first component, information provision or administration, mentioned in the "literature review” part. responses from the teachers’ interviews showed that there are different perceptions in choosing these tools. many teachers chose their favorable platforms like gmail or google classroom because of these tools' usefulness and formality. however, many universities indeed set a rule to deliver necessary documents to students via gmail and google classroom. the two tools, therefore, have become teachers' must-use choices. additionally, many of the teachers choose google classroom and gmail because they perceive the others which are suitable for recreational purposes in lieu of learning aims. consequently, they expressed doubtful perceptions about social networking platforms such as facebook or zalo. by contrast, social media platforms were perceived positively by some younger teacher users thanks to their quick feedback with the aim of exchanging information. this result is consistent with the theory that cain (2008) discussed in part "literature review." in general, acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 49 these e-learning tools used for online-delivered lessons or documents show extremely effective functions and aid students in accessing learning materials efficiently. this result from the interviews is in accordance with schulten's (2020) opinion stated in part "introduction." in relation to communication, teachers reported in the questionnaire that both google app platforms and social networking tools create an active learning environment for students to interact and communicate content related to the lessons, which is similar to gikas & grant's (2013) viewpoint about the strong points of these tools. as huffman (2013) mentioned in the theoretical section, students were sent to interactive learning environments thanks to social media sites. this was proven in the interviews when teachers gave their answers on using these tools. teachers also express insightful perceptions in terms of strengths and weaknesses when considering choosing the learning platform in online classes. teachers choose google meet instead of the other tools because it increases accessibility without time restriction, which is in line with ravi shankar's (2012) concept stated in part "literature review” about the advantage of google app platforms. sometimes problems arise from technology users who lack advanced knowledge to work with innovative platforms easily. this finding is intimately linked to the findings shown in the studies of mounjid et al. (2021) and zalat et al. (2021) but yielded the seemingly contradictory finding with findings presented in the research of almahasees et al. (2021) and priyadarshani and jesuiya (2021) mentioned in the second part. the teachers, hence, encounter difficulties in handling and manipulating top-notch functions of e-learning platforms. regarding the last component, collaboration, four out of six e-learning platforms took teachers' options as tools to support students in dealing with group work or pair work in the questionnaire result. generally speaking, google docs/ google slides, facebook, zalo, and zoom have become effective tools to comprehensively create a dynamic learning environment and promote students' collaborative ability. the findings are completely suitable with the theory liu et al. (2013) implied in part "literature review” about functions of e-learning platforms. besides that, the teacher respondents from the interview clearly show that students’ choice of learning platforms depends on their needs. for example, students choose google docs or google slides because these applications allow multiple editors to simultaneously make changes to the same document at the same time. students find this feature extremely useful and flexible to develop cooperation. in conjunction with these tools' usefulness, students can visually see all contents that other students are manipulating. this finding is closely related to gewerc, montero, and lama's (2014) conclusion specified in part "literature review." what is more, students can approach these tools like zoom, facebook or zalo to work together whenever the time is convenient for the whole group. this result is in correspondence with ravi shankar's (2012) concept given in the part “literature review." https://asiacall.info/acoj ly, t. n. l., nguyen, t. l., & nguyen, h. n. vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 50 5. conclusion in summary, the study found out that there is a wide range of e-learning platforms used by tertiary teachers in their online classes for different purposes, namely information provision, communication and collaboration creation. generally, the participants have positive perceptions of these tools and make reasonable choices to use them to facilitate the process of online teaching and learning depending on the school’s requirement, the functionality of the platforms, teachers’ it literacy and the suitability of the task types. based on these findings, it is pedagogically implied that teachers should be sufficiently equipped with it-related knowledge and skills so that they are better prepared for their distance teaching. this can be achieved through practical workshops organized by the departments or schools to provide training about necessary it skills and particular platforms they are supposed to use in their virtual classrooms. in addition, it is advisable for teachers to give students adequate instructions on certain e-learning platforms prior to the start of online classes to ensure students' efficient use of the tools in their learning. however, more than anyone, students also need to search for and equip themselves with fundamental it knowledge to take full advantage of the e-learning platforms. finally, as it is hard for teachers to manage students' learning progress in large-sized online classes, students are encouraged to take active roles in collaborative work when assigned by their teachers so that distraction and procrastination can be avoided to the fullest extent. regarding the limitation of the study, as the study was limited to the tertiary contexts in vietnam, the findings are not used to generalize the research issue. therefore, it is internally valid within the given contexts and just makes a humble contribution to the research on the same field. references almahasees z., mohsen k. & amin m. o. (2021). faculty’s and students’ perceptions of online learning during covid-19. front. educ, 6, 1-10. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2021.638470 boyd, d.m., ellison, n. b. (2007). social network sites: definition, history, and scholarship. journal of computer-mediated communication, 13, 210–230. doi:10.1111/j.10836101.2007.00393.x cain, j. (2008). online social networking issues within academia and pharmacy education. american journal of pharmaceutical education. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.5688/aj720110. dublin, l. (2003). if you only look under the street lamps… or nine e-learning myths.the elearning developers journal. retrieved from http://www.elearningguild.com enis, m. (2013). mobile evolution. library journal, 138(2), 34–36. fee,k. (2015). delivering e-learning: a complete strategy for design, application and https://doi.org/10.5688/aj720110 http://www.elearningguild.com/ http://www.elearningguild.com/ acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 51 assessment. kogan page. gewerc, a., montero, l., & lama, m. (2014). collaboration and social networking in higher education. comunicar, 21(42), 55–62. doi:10.3916/c42-2014-05 gikas, j., & grant, m. m. (2013). mobile computing devices in higher education: student perspectives on learning with cellphones, smartphones & social media. internet and higher education mobile, 19, 18–26. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2013.06.002. hoang, n. t., & le, d. h. (2021). vocational english teachers’ challenges on shifting towards virtual classroom teaching. asiacall online journal, 12(3), 58-73. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/39 huffman, s. (2013). benefits and pitfalls: simple guidelines for the use of social networking tools in k-12 education. education, 134(2), 154-160. liaw, s., & huang, h. (2018). exploring the world wide web for online learning: a perspective from taiwan. educational technology, 43(3), (pp. 27-32). retrieved july 23, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/44428833 liaw, s.-s., huang, h.-m., & chen, g.-d. (2007). an activity-theoretical approach to investigate learners’ factors toward e-learning systems. computers in human behavior, 23(4), 1906–1920. retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2006.02.002 liu r.w. c., lo k.k.y & yiu s. m. (2013). evaluating and adopting e-learning platforms. international journal of e-education, e-business, e-management and e-learning, 3 (3), 229-233. doi: 10.7763/ijeeee.2013.v3.229 michener, h. a., delamater, j. d. & myers, d. j. (2004). social psychology. australia: thompson wadsworth (5th ed.), 384. mounjid et al. (2021). teachers’ perceptions and the challenges of online teaching/learning in morocco during covid-19 crisis. arab world english journal, 7, 38-52. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awej/call7.3 nguyen, v. m. (2021). english language-learning environments in covid-19 era: efl contexts, english-language environments, technology-based approach, english language learning . asiacall online journal, 12(3), 39-46. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/21 oecd (2005), e-learning in tertiary education: where do we stand? (summary in japanese), oecd publishing, paris. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264009219-en ouadoud m., chkouri my., nejjari a. & el kadiri ke. (2016). studying and analyzing the evaluation dimensions of e-learning platforms relying on a software engineering approach. international journal of emerging technologies in learning (ijet). 11(1), 11-20. retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v11i1.4924 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2013.06.002. https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/39 http://www.jstor.org/stable/44428833 https://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awej/call7.3 https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/21 https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264009219-en https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264009219-en https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264009219-en https://asiacall.info/acoj ly, t. n. l., nguyen, t. l., & nguyen, h. n. vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 52 ouadoud, m., chkouri, m.y., nejjari, a., el kadiri, k.e. (2016). studying and comparing the free e-learning platforms. 4th ieee international colloquium on information science and technology, 581–586. doi: 10.1109/cist.2016.7804953 priyadarshani, h. d. c, & jesuiya, d. (2021). teacher's perception on online teaching method during covid-19: with reference to school-level teachers at faculty of education, the open university of sri lanka." shanlax international journal of education, 9(2), 132140. doi: https://doi.org/10.34293/education.v9i2.3662 ratheeswari, k. (2012). innovative development and scope of e-learning. in a.c. lal kumar & m. rajesh kumar (eds). current scenario of transformation in teacher education, 52-56. ravi shankar, p. p. (2012). coursera: free online learning for the world. australasian medical journal, 5(11), 600–601. sangrà, a., vlachopoulos, d. & cabrera, n. (2012). building an inclusive definition of elearning: an approach to the conceptual framework. international review of research in open and distance learning. 13. 145-159. doi: 10.19173/irrodl.v13i2.1161 schulten, k. (2020). coronavirus resources: teaching, learning and thinking critically. the new york times. tao, y. h., yeh, c. r., & sun, s. i. (2006). improving training needs assessment processes via the internet: system design and qualitative study. internet research, 16 (4), 427–449. tran, t. q. (2021). social networking: a collaborative open educational resource. international journal of tesol & education, 1(2), 148-157. eoi: http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11250/ijte.01.02.008 tsourela, m., garifallos, f., dimitrios, p. & tarabanis, k. (2015), “value co-creation in education: scope, methods and insights”, international journal of advance research and innovative ideas in education, 1 (2), 2395-4396. wilson, a. d. (2012). categorising e-learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(1), 156–165. zalat, m. m., hamed, m. s., bolbol, s. a. (2021). the experiences, challenges, and acceptance of e-learning as a tool for teaching during the covid-19 pandemic among university medical staff. plos one, 16(3). retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248758 biodata nguyen thi lam is an ma student at university of social sciences and humanities. she has https://doi.org/10.34293/education.v9i2.3662 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248758 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 05; 2021 53 also been working as a teacher of faculty of foreign languages & informatics at university of people’s security. she has taught english courses for non-majored english students for over five years. her interests are english teaching methodologies and applied language. ly thi ngoc linh is an ma student at the university of social sciences and humanities. she has also been working as an english teacher at hoàng hoa thám high school. she has taught english to 10-grade, 11-grade, 12-grade students for about ten years. her interests are webbased learning and applied language. nguyen huu ngoc is an ma student at university of social sciences and humanities. he has also been working as a teacher of the faculty of foreign languages at tôn đức thắng university. he has taught english courses for non-majored english students for over five years. he is interested in e-learning teaching. citation asiacall online journal received: 01/07/2021 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 22/07/2021 vol. 12, no.4, 2021 accepted: 23/07/2021 pp. 66 87 online: 24/07/2021 citation | ndoricimpa, c., & barad, d. p. (2021). does online instruction in discourse conventions of literary analysis affect l2 students’ critical stance in academic writing? a longitudinal study. asiacall online journal, 12(4), 66-87. does online instruction in discourse conventions of literary analysis affect l2 students’ critical stance in academic writing? a longitudinal study clément ndoricimpa1*, dilip p. barad1 1english department, m.k bhavnagar university, gujarat state, india *corresponding author’s email: ndoricimpac@gmail.com abstract the purpose of this study is to explore l2 students’ longitudinal development of critical stance patterns in academic writing as a result of their exposure to online instruction in the discourse conventions of literary criticism. the data consisted of a 75661-word longitudinal corpus of 63 essay assignments, collected over 7 weeks’ instruction via pre-, duringand post-instruction google classroom submissions. applying martin & white’s (2005) appraisal taxonomy, the data was analyzed for frequency and wording differences using manual coding of attitude, graduation, and engagement markers through uam corpus tool. the results show a significant longitudinal decrease in the use of linguistic resources which express personal feelings and make the construed evaluative meanings forceful and compelling. this shows that the teaching and the learning methods employed in the online instruction may have impacted l2 students’ ability to develop a formal style of academic writing; the results also indicate a less significant longitudinal increase in the use of linguistic resources that construe a register-appropriate critical stance, such as the use of attitude sub-types of judgment and appreciation. this shows that the teaching and learning methods employed in the online instruction may not have impacted l2 students’ ability to develop a register-appropriate critical stance. these findings have far-reaching implications for the use of online mode to make explicit the discourse conventions of literary criticism to l2 students. they show the extent to which the integration of certain teaching and learning methods in online instruction has an impact on l2 students' academic writing. keywords: critical stance, discourse conventions of literary criticism, evaluation, longitudinal corpus, online instruction 1.introduction academic writing plays a crucial role in university students’ life in academia. not only is it hard to imagine students’ experience in academia without essay assignments, research reports, research papers, etc., but writing is also a key to students’ success in a particular discipline. indeed, the success of students in a particular discipline is partly dependent upon their success in writing different tasks that are given to them (hyland, 2013). many studies have shown that writing a successful text requires students to follow the discourse conventions of the discipline in which they write (lancaster, 2012, 2014, 2016; wilder, 2002, 2005, 2012; wilder & wolfe, 2009, etc.). while it is reasonable for students to adopt disciplinary discourse conventions in writing, it also has been shown that these discourse conventions are challenging for many students, particularly students writing in english as a foreign language (miller, mitchell & pessoa, 2017). this is because of three main factors. first, as hyland (2013) points out, students' https://asiacall.info/acoj mailto:ndoricimpac@gmail.com acoj-issn 1936-9859 clément ndoricimpa & dilip p. barad vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 67 prior writing experience does not prepare the student for the literacy demands of disciplinary discourse communities. second, the disciplinary discourse conventions are not often tacitly taught to students even though teachers invoke them when assessing students' written texts (wilder, 2002). third, students’ writing in english as a foreign language may have difficulties in grammar, structures of arguments due to the fact that different language seems to have different ways of organizing ideas and arguments (hyland, 2013). to help students gain access to disciplinary discourse conventions, many researchers working within composition and rhetoric, systemic functional linguistics, critical discourse analysis, etc. have analyzed the nature of these conventions (e.g., bruce, 2008, 2010, 2016; crosthwaite & jiang, 2017; lee & deakin, 2016; wilder & wolfe, 2009; wu, 2007, etc.). these researchers demonstrate that these disciplinary discourse conventions are exceedingly associated with construing critical stance in academic text. construing a critical stance involves adopting a stance toward ideas or the subject matter at hand, toward the status of knowledge, and towards other positions, views, or voices (hyland, 2005; lancaster, 2016; white, 2003; etc.). therefore, many researchers analyze the rhetorical or linguistic features associated with enacting a critical stance in disciplinary writing. for example, wilder's (2002, 2005, 2012) studies analyze the rhetorical features of literary analyses by university students. the study by bruce (2016) examines linguistic features associated with enacting critical stances in essays written by students majoring in sociology and english studies. these analyses of linguistic and rhetorical features associated with critical stance are motivated by pedagogical needs to help students become aware of how these features are realized in academic texts. as a result, these analyses have led to the creation of eap and wid (writing in discipline) courses to demystify to students how critical stance patterns are enacted in disciplinary writing. pedagogically, it has been shown that the deconstruction of successful academic texts in terms of critical stance features alongside explicit teaching of this feature improves students' success in writing in a particular discipline (wilder & wolfe, 2009). however, while a considerable number of studies deconstruct critical stance patterns in successful academic texts for pedagogical needs (e.g., bruce, 2016; humphrey & economou, 2015; miller, mitchell & pessoa, 2017, etc.), less is known regarding how l2 students develop critical stance in academic writing as a result of online instruction in the discourse conventions of a particular discipline. addressing this gap would contribute to shedding light on the effectiveness of online instruction in discourse convention of a particular discipline in producing a desired academic genre. therefore, this study investigates whether online instruction in the discourse conventions of literary analysis over time affects l2 students’ development of critical stance in academic writing. it uses students’ corpus collected longitudinally to examine whether online instruction in the discourse conventions of literary analysis influence students’ development of critical stance in academic writing. 2. literature review 2.1. critical stance in disciplinary writing there has been a significant body of studies on the concept of critical stance in disciplinary writing (e.g., aull & lancaster, 2014; bruce, 2014, 2016; jiang & hyland, 2015; lancaster, 2012, 2016; etc.). in these studies, there is an agreement that construing critical stance in academic writing involves different things in different disciplinary contexts. in other words, it involves engaging with the epistemological beliefs or values of a particular discipline. in the discipline of education, it involves, as humphrey & economou (2015, p.46) point out, "the challenging of a theoretical notion or aspect of research in an external source, and the acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 68 positioning of the reader to accept an authorial alternative/counter position". as rothery & stenglin (2000) suggest, literary analysis involves challenging conventional interpretations of literary work under analysis, evaluating the techniques/strategies employed by writers (novelists, poets, etc.), and positioning readers to accept an authorial interpretation of the portrayal of characters. in this regard, many studies conduct a linguistic and rhetorical analysis of critical stance in a published research paper and successful essay assignments by undergraduate and postgraduate students writing in a particular discipline. for example, in the study by rothery & stenglin (2000), an appraisal analysis of a successful response to a literary text is conducted. the analysis reveals that successful responses to literary texts employ linguistic resources of judgement to evaluate characters in terms of behavior and attitude, linguistic resources of appreciation to evaluate the aesthetic qualities of the literary work under analysis, and linguistic resources of engagement to interpret the characterization in the work under analysis from the perspective of a particular literary theory. another similar study to the study by rothery & stenglin (2000) is the study by bruce (2016). in this study, bruce conducts a genre and linguistic analysis of successful essays by university students in literature. the analysis shows that successful essays in literature employ critical statements of ground conclusion, concession contra-expectations and reason result, and the linguistic markers of hedging and attitude. in the study by wilder (2012), a rhetorical analysis of successful literary analyses by undergraduate students is conducted. the findings reveal that successful literary analyses employ special topoi. topoi is a term used by fahnestock & secor (1988, 1991) and perelman & olbrechts-tyteca (1969) to mean commonly held warrants or unstated premises that seek to connect with an audience’s hierarchy of values (in wilder, 2005). topoi, as fahnestock & secor (1991) argue, invoke the shared assumption of literary scholars, and make literary arguments convincing to their intended audience. specifically, the results indicate that successful literary analyses predominantly employ appearance/reality topoi to invoke the apparent meaning of the literary text under analysis before arguing for the real meaning. another similar study to the study by wilder (2012) is the study by lancaster (2016). in this study, lancaster conducts a linguistic deconstruction of critical stance in unsuccessful literary analyses by one upper-level university students and literary analyses from michigan corpus of upper-level student corpus (micusp). the findings indicate that literary analyses from micusp employ more linguistic resources that realize the appearance/reality topoi than unsuccessful literary analysis by one upper-level university student. in summary, the reviewed studies show how critical stance is linguistically and rhetorically construed in successful literary analysis. it is obvious that these studies adopt different perspective to examine critical stance in successful literary analysis. the study by wilder (2012) follows a rhetorical approach to the analysis of critical stance in literary analyses, while the study by rothery & stenglin (2000) adopt a systemic functional linguistics perspective, particularly appraisal theory by martin & white (2005) to analyze how critical stance is construed in literary analyses. the objectives of these analyses are to inform pedagogy in english studies. in other words, teachers in the discipline of english studies can draw on these analyses to make explicit the linguistic and rhetorical resources associated with critical stance to students. however, although these analyses are conducted for pedagogical need, they do not inform us on how students majoring in english studies develop the linguistic and rhetorical resources associated with critical stance. in other words, these analyses do not show how students learn to construe critical stance in their literary analyses. therefore, it is still uncertain the extent to which instruction in the linguistic features associated with critical stance help students develop register-appropriate critical stance in academic writing. qualitative and acoj-issn 1936-9859 clément ndoricimpa & dilip p. barad vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 69 quantitative analyses of the longitudinal impact of online instruction in the discourse conventions of literary criticism on the production of critical stance patterns are important in determining the usefulness of making explicit the linguistic and rhetorical resources associated with the discourse conventions of literary criticism to students over a period of time. 2.2. online instruction in disciplinary discourse conventions disciplinary discourse conventions concern the ways in which knowledge is built and arguments are developed in a particular discipline. wilder (2012) points out that these discourse conventions are reflected in the linguistic and rhetorical features of successful academic texts produced by professional academic writers or undergraduate and postgraduate students writing in a particular discipline. therefore, a number of studies are conducted to explore the ways in which instructions in disciplinary discourse conventions impact students’ quality of writing, improve students’ critical awareness in academic writing and affect students’ ability to construe register-appropriate critical stance (e.g., crosthwaite & jiang, 2017, wilder & wolfe, 2009; wingate, 2012, etc.). for example, the study by wingate (2012) explores the impact of an online writing course in the discipline of management on students' critical awareness. this online course was guide by the constructionist theory of learning and genre approach to academic writing. in other words, the online writing course in this study exposed students to the discourse conventions of the discipline of management through research papers and successful essays. in this study, wingate used a questionnaire as a research method to explore the impact of the course on students’ critical awareness. the results reveal that the components of the course that exposed students to the ways texts are organized were highly useful, while the components of the course that raised students’ critical awareness were not useful. this seems to suggest that the online writing course in the study by wingate (2012) impacted students’ ability to organize an academic text, but it did not raise students’ critical awareness. the reason for these results, as wingate (2012) suggest, is that the online course was detached from regular subject teaching. the study by wingate, andon & cogo (2011) investigates the usefulness and the impact of a blended (online and offline) instruction in the discourse and epistemological features of the discipline of applied linguistics on undergraduate students' writing quality. this online and offline course was guided by academic literacies and genre approach to academic writing, and it was embedded in the teaching of applied linguistics. in other words, participants in this study were exposed to the ways in which knowledge is built and arguments are developed in the discipline of applied linguistics. the results from holistic assessment of students' submissions and from questionnaire show that students made progress in the quality of writing from the first submissions to the final submissions, and students felt that the writing course helped them improve their academic writing. the results in this study agrees with the findings in the study by wilder & wolfe (2009). in this study, wilder & wolfe employed a quasi-experimental research design to examine whether an offline explicit instruction in the discourse conventions of literary criticism helps students produce rhetorically effective discourse or hampers students' enjoyment, expression, and engagement in literature. the results indicate that students in the experimental group produced essays of higher quality and engaged more effectively with the special topoi of literary criticism than students in the control group. this suggests that the offline instructions in the discourse conventions of literary criticism improved students’ quality of writing. in summary, the reviewed studies show the extent to which an online or offline instruction in the discourse conventions of a particular discipline impact students’ writing quality. it is clear in these studies that many factors affect the effectiveness of the instructions in disciplinary acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 70 discourse. one of these factors is the detachment of the instructions from subject teaching. however, although these studies contribute to understanding the importance of embedding academic writing in the teaching of disciplinary knowledge, they do not inform us on which linguistic features or rhetorical features contribute to the progress in the quality of writing by students. they indicate a holistic progress in the quality of writing as a result of online or offline instruction in disciplinary discourse conventions, but they do not indicate which discourse and epistemological features contribute to this progress. therefore, this study examines whether there is a progress or a regress in the use of discourse and epistemological features that construe a register-appropriate critical stance as a result of an online academic writing course. to meet this objective, this study draws on appraisal theory from systemic functional linguistics. 2.3. theoretical framework: appraisal theory the theoretical framework applied in this study to investigate whether there is a progress or a regress in the use of discourse and epistemological features that construe a register-appropriate critical stance is appraisal theory (martin & white, 2005). this theory extends sfl account of interpersonal meaning and consists of three linguistic systems: attitude, graduation and engagement. 2.3.1. attitude system attitude system include all the linguistic resources (semantic region) that are used to construe emotions and feelings, to evaluate human character or behavior according to ethical norms, and to assess the value of entity (martin and white, 2005). according to martin and white (2005), the system of attitude differentiates three attitude types: affect, judgement, appreciation. affect deals with personal emotions/feelings. it groups emotions/feelings into four major sets having to do with dis/inclination, un/happiness, in/security and dis/satisfaction. dis/inclination covers emotions concerned with intention/desire and fear. un/happiness covers emotions concerned with “affair of the heart”sadness, hate, happiness and love. in/security covers our feelings of peace and anxiety in relation to our environment, including of course the people sharing them with us. dis/satisfaction deals with our feelings of achievement and frustration in relation to the activities in which we are engaged, including our roles as both participants and spectators. all these four sets of emotions have positive and negative polarity. judgement deals with meaning construing our attitudes to people, the way they behavetheir character. judgement can be divided between those dealing with social esteem and those oriented to social sanction. judgements of social esteem have to do with normality (how unusual someone is), capacity (how capable they are), and tenacity (how resolute they are). judgements of social sanction have to do with veracity (how truthful someone is) and propriety (whether someone behaves according to social-cultural norms). similarly, all these forms of judgements have positive and negative polarity. appreciation deals with meanings construing our evaluations of things, for example, the worth of a literary text and process in a culture. appreciations can be divided into three sub-systems reaction, their composition, and their valuation. rothery & stenglin (2000) points out that each of these sub-systems corresponds to one of the three metafunctions of language: ideational meaning, interpersonal meaning and textual meaning. reaction corresponds to interpersonal meaning. it describes an emotional impact of an entity/thing, such as a literary work, message in the literary work, etc. on literary critics/readers. positive reaction includes linguistic resources such as captivating, interesting, stunning, beautiful, etc. negative reaction includes linguistic resources such as boring, questionable, debatable, predictable, etc. composition is aligned with textual meaning. it describes the texture of a thing, such a literary work, in terms acoj-issn 1936-9859 clément ndoricimpa & dilip p. barad vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 71 of its complexity and balance. positive composition includes detailed, rich, etc. negative composition includes simplistic, irregular, ambiguous, cyclic, etc. valuation corresponds to ideational meaning. it evaluates the worth of a particular literary work, for example, its social contribution to understanding a particular idea. it also evaluates the message conveyed in a particular literary work. positive valuation includes linguistic features, such as innovative, significant, important, unique, etc. negative valuation entails linguistic resources, such as insignificant, overdue, useless, shallow, etc. 2.3.2. graduation system graduation system has to do with linguistic items which intensify meaning or grade values. martin and white (2005) identifies two graduation types. first, graduation according to prototypicality (focus) involves sharpening or softening the boundaries of a categorical meaning (e.g., he is a true friend; it was an apology of the sort). second, graduation according to force involves scaling of intensity (e.g., very interesting, somewhat interesting) and scaling of amount or extent of entities (e.g., i have many worries about your performance; there is a paucity of information on the matter). xie (2016, p.3) argues that graduation “may function to evoke attitudinal reading out of experiential meanings”. for instance, by scaling down an apology given by someone as in “it was an apology of the sort.”, the readers are invited to have a negative attitude towards the proposition. 2.3.3. engagement system the system of engagement is concerned with the linguistic mechanism by which the writer/speakers incorporate various positions in their texts and take a stance towards those positions. these various positions may be single-voiced (mono-glossic) and multi-voiced (hetero-glossic). mono-glossic assertions are those, as martin & white (2005) point out, which do not recognize other voices. on the other hand, hetero-glossic options include linguistic mechanisms by which writers/speakers expand or contract dialogic space for alternative positions or voices (white, 2003). 2.4. research question this study investigates l2 students’ longitudinal development of critical stance patterns in academic writing as a result of their exposure to online instruction in the discourse conventions of literary criticism. it addresses the following research question. rq: is there any variation in the distribution of critical stance patterns in l2 students’ written literary analyses pre-, duringand post-online instruction in the discourse conventions of literary criticism? 3. research methods 3.1. research context the present study is situated in the department of english at maharaja krishnakumarsinhji bhavnagar university (mkbu). the department of english at this university offers postgraduate courses in literature studies. these courses generally include those related to world literature (indian writing in english, british literature, american literature, african literature, etc.) and to literary critical theories (existentialism, feminism, new critical theory, etc.). this postgraduate program requires regular writing activities. the writing activities include written thinking activities, and lengthy essay assignments, which students can present orally in class. however, although teachers and researchers across disciplines in india acknowledge the difficulties university students face in writing effectively, academic writing courses are not acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 72 included on the curriculum of undergraduate and postgraduate level in all disciplines-arts, humanities, social sciences, etc. (e.g., evangeline & ganesh, 2016; vijayakumar, 2018; etc.). in addition, there is no provision of english for academic writing course that helps students transition from general writing to disciplinary-specific writing. two assumptions may underpin this no provision of english academic writing course in indian educational context. the first assumption is that students may learn disciplinary-specific way of writing tacitly. the second assumption is that students who have difficulties in academic writing may attend academic writing workshops. indeed, many universities in india organize academic writing workshops and encourage students to attend them. however, academic writing workshops provide students with knowledge of how to organize an academic text, but they do not help students learn disciplinary-specific way of writing. therefore, this study explores whether online instructions in the discourse conventions of literary criticism impacts students’ ability to produce a registerappropriate critical stance or affect students’ quality of writing. this study is relevant as it may inform teachers across disciplines in india the usefulness and the importance of teaching disciplinary-specific way of writing to university students. 3.2. participants the participants in the present study were selected as follows. first, after the writing course was designed, the researchers made video recordings that introduced the content of each unit of the course. second, a google classroom website was created. third, a video recording that introduced the course was uploaded on the google classroom website. the introduction of the course was intended to explain to students the reasons and the objectives of the course. fourth, students were requested to watch the video recording and to read the content of the introduction, and if interested, to register for the course. before registering, students were asked to do a diagnostic writing task which required them to analyze a literary work from a particular literary theory. therefore, 42 postgraduate students registered for the course. some of these students were in the first year, and others were in the final year of a two-year program of english studies in the department of english at mkbu. however, all the students who registered did not take or did not comply with all the requirements of the course. of 42 students, 21 students satisfied all the requirements of the course. this means that only 21 students were able to watch the video recording, to read the content of the course, and to do all the assignments. as a consequence, the data were collected from 21 postgraduate students who complied with all the requirements of the online instruction. it is important to note that students in this study writes in english as a second language. nevertheless, they are generally considered as competent users of english, having been instructed through it in their three-year undergraduate program and having learned english as a subject in their pre-university studies. in addition, although the researchers did not measure this competence with reliable english texts, bhavnagar university admits students who have a score of 48% and above on english tests to its postgraduate programs (see on https://www.mkbhavuni.edu.in). 3.3. online instruction in the discourse conventions of literary criticism 3.3.1. the structure of the online instruction the online instruction was planned as follows. first, it comprised 5 units. the design of the contents of the 5 units was guided by genre approach to teaching academic writing and by academic literacies. in other words, the contents of the online instruction exposed students to the ways in which knowledge is built in the discipline of english studies and to the discourse and epistemological practices of literary criticism. second, it consisted of video recordings of 5 to 20 minutes, which introduced each unit of the module. these introductory videos were intended to help participants know what is included in each unit, what was expected of them, acoj-issn 1936-9859 clément ndoricimpa & dilip p. barad vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 73 and online submissions details. third, it consisted of assessment rubrics to evaluate each submission. last, it comprised an individualized online feedback on each online submission. in summary, the intervention comprised the contents of 5 units, 5 introductory videos, assessment rubrics, and individualized feedback. 3.3.2. implementation of the online instruction the intervention lasted 7 weeks from 16th january 2021 to 8th march 20215 weeks were for independent learning and individualized online feedback on each online submission and two weeks were for completing the final submission. this self-regulated learning was guided by the integration of the following methods. watching introductory videos and reading the contents of the online instruction: upon the weekly upload of the introductory video and the content of each unit on google classroom website, students were asked to watch the video and read the content of the unit. the upload followed a sequential pattern from unit one to unit five. this sequential pattern was followed for two reasons. first, each unit was designed to help students learn specific types of discourse and epistemological practices of literary criticism. second, it was possible to evaluate whether students have understood the content of the unit through multiple-choice questions and writing task. they were given four days for reading the content of each unit and for doing the abovementioned tasks. therefore, the content of the unit contained explanations of the requirements for writing a literary analysis and an excerpt from a successful essay in literature. the explanations were intended to help students understand the ways in which literary critics critically engage with the portrayal of characters and the message conveyed in the literary text under analysis. they were also intended to help students understand how literary critics assess the techniques used by writers to articulate a particular theme and show an understanding of the literary theory in the interpretation of the message articulated in literary work under analysis. then, students were asked to read the excerpt from successful essay and to comment on the ways in which these explanations were realized in the excerpt. the content of the second and the third unit contained explanations of discourse and epistemological features of literary analyses. in these two units, students were presented with extracts from published paper in literature and successful essays by university students. these extracts were used to demonstrated the linguistic and discourse markers that are usually used to meet the requirements explained in the first unit, as well as the style of citing and referencing. these markers included linguistic markers of critical stance and language used to develop arguments in literary analyses. the contents of the fourth and the fifth units contained explanations of the ways in which arguments in an essay and research paper are organized. in these two units, students were presented with an example of an essay and research paper and were asked to comment on the ways in which the introductions of an essay and research paper provide background information on with the essay or the research paper focuses. students were also asked to comment on the ways in which arguments are developed and the ways in which critical stance is expressed in the body sections of the two genres. last, students were asked to comment on the ways in which the conclusions of the two genres summarize the content of the body section, consolidate the position taken in the introduction or answer the research question formulated in the introduction, etc. online submission and individualized online feedback: online submission and individualized online feedback were organized in sequential pattern. this was done in order to ensure that the researchers can track a longitudinal development of students’ ability to construe a registerappropriate critical stance in their literary analyses. in this regard, in the first unit, students were presented with a short story and were asked to write two paragraphs which demonstrated their acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 74 critical engagement with the portrayal of characters and with the message conveyed in the short story. after they submitted the two paragraphs on google classroom, the researchers took two days to evaluate each submission and to give individualized feedback. in the second unit, students were asked to revised the two paragraphs according to the content of the second unit and were given individualized feedback. in the third unit, students were asked to edit the two paragraphs submitted in the first unit according to the content of the third unit and were also given individualized feedback. in the fourth unit, students were asked to extend the two paragraphs submitted in the first unit and to write an essay which included the introduction, the body, and the conclusion and were also given individualized feedback. in the fifth unit, students were asked to add an abstract and a list of references and were also give individualized feedback. each submission was evaluated on the basis of assessment rubric, which was uploaded on google classroom website. students were asked to read the assessment rubric before writing each submission. in summary, the implementation of the online instruction was guided by the integration of the above-outlined methods. students were independent learners in that they were not told the number of hours a week they should read the content of each unit. they were free to read the content of each unit as many times as they wanted, provided that they complete all the tasks within four days in a week. the introductory videos, the contents of the online instruction and the assessment rubrics can be accessed via the following website: https://classroom.google.com/c/mju2njcxmdk2ndaw. 3.4. collection of data the data were collected longitudinally at three pointspre-instruction, meaning a diagnostic writing task before students were exposed to the course (point 1), during-instruction, meaning immediately after the fourth unit (point 2), and post-instruction, meaning the final writing task (point 3). the assignments at point two were selected for one reason. it was after the fourth unit that students were asked to write an extended essay which comprised the introduction, the body and the conclusion. therefore, the assignments at this point were selected in order to match the format of assignments at point 1 and at point 3. at these two points, students were asked to write an extended essay. the written assignments collected at each point were used to constitute three corpora. the first corpus included 21 essay assignments collected at point 1 and this corpus was called “pre-instruction corpus 1 (pic 1)”. the second corpus included 21 essay assignments collected at point 2 and this corpus was called “during-instruction corpus 2 (dic 2)”. the third corpus included 21essay assignments collected at point 3 and this corpus was called “post-instruction corpus 3 (pic 3)”. the collection of data at these three points made it possible to fit a developmental line which could shed light on the linear progression, u or reverse-u shaped behavior (meunier, 2016 cited in crosthwaite & jiang, 2017). table 1 presents the size of each corpus. table 1. longitudinal corpora longitudinal corpora texts words sentences pic 1 21 17582 1025 dic 2 21 14774 832 pic 3 21 43305 2401 total 63 75661 4258 acoj-issn 1936-9859 clément ndoricimpa & dilip p. barad vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 75 3.5. analysis of data in this study, a discourse analytic research method was employed to examine critical stance patterns in the longitudinal corpus. this analysis of critical stance patterns drew on appraisal system (martin & white, 2005) through manual coding using uam corpus tool (o’ donnell, 2007). the appraisal analysis of longitudinal corpus was conducted as follows. first, the researchers converted the corpus into plain text (with extension txt), compatible with uam corpus tool. second, after uploading the corpus into the application (uam corpus tool), the researchers conducted three layers of appraisal analysis. the first layer involved drawing on the appraisal sub-system of attitude to examine the ways in which students critically evaluated the portrayal of characters, the message conveyed and the techniques used by writers to articulate a particular theme in the literary work under analysis. the second layer entailed drawing on the appraisal sub-system of graduation to explore the ways in which students amplified evaluative meanings in their assignments. the third layer involved drawing on the appraisal sub-system of engagement to examine the ways in which students position readers to accept their interpretations and critically engage with alternative interpretations of the portrayal of characters. these three layers of analysis contributed to understanding the differences in construing critical stance in the longitudinal corpus. by examining the ways in which students selected linguistic and discourse resources to evaluate entity, people's behavior, and to negotiate other positions, the three layers of analysis shed light on the variation in the register-appropriate critical stance in the longitudinal corpus. 3.6. coding of the data the coding of the three layers of appraisal system drew on martin & white’s (2005) taxonomy. it was conducted as follows. first, the researchers coded the attitude typesaffect, judgement, appreciation, and their sub-categories, the attitude mode as inscribed or evoked and the attitude polarity as negative or positive. in order to code these resources, the researchers had to read each assignment multiple times in order to interpret accurately the critical stance patterns that occurred in the assignment. the researchers had also to read back-and-forth between clause and text levels and to resort to co-textual relations to examine how one linguistic item could influence the interpretation of another linguistic item or to capture how a particular linguistic item could have different interpretation when it occurred in different co-textual relations. example [1] presents the coding of attitude, in which “patriarchal” explicitly embodies the writer’s negative evaluation of “arrangement of social order. patriarchal is a descriptive term and therefore does not carries an evaluative meaning. the negative evaluative meaning it inscribes results from the linguistic items it occurs within the same sentence, e.g., “horrific form” and “unsafe position”. [1]: women were subject to horrific [appreciation: reaction -] forms of sexual violence during partition which suggests the unsafe [appreciation: reaction -] position of women in the patriarchal [appreciation: valuation -] arrangement of social order (pic 3). second, the researchers coded the graduation type as force and focus, the graduation orientation as up-scaling and down-scaling, and the graduation effect as evoking and non-evoking attitude. if the graduation resources evoked attitude, then we coded the attitude type and its polarity. if the graduation resources did not evoke attitude, then we coded the graduation orientation. examples [2] and [3] illustrate this coding. [2]: retelling of a story becomes very interesting [force: intensity, up-scaling] to interpret when it is said from a different perspective (pic 1). acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 76 [3]: the river churning presents [focus: fulfilment, up-scaling], [appreciation: valuation +, evoked] how the state intervention on the bodies of women affected their lives (pic1). third, the researchers coded the engagement resources. in order to code these resources, the researchers had to interpret whether propositions in the assignments were mono-glossically or hetero-glossically formulated based on the clausal level. if the propositions were heteroglossically formulated, the researchers coded the sub-categories of hetero-glossic resources. example [4] and [5] illustrates this coding. [4]: partition violence positioned women as objects of possession and vehicles to carry the burden of hostility of opposed groups of men (pic 3) [mono-glossic proposition]. [5]: moreover, the above lines can be read as an insightful presentation of jenny’s experience of comprehending reality [hetero-glossic proposition, expand: entertain]. the researchers coded these resources using uam corpus tool. to ensure reliability of the coding, appraisal resources were coded at one-month interval. this involved coding the data manually using uam corpus tool and after one month, the researchers coded again the resources manually using uam corpus tool. this was done to make sure that there was an inter-rater agreement at one-month interval. 3.7. statistical analysis after coding the data, the number of occurrences of appraisal resources was calculated per 100 words. then, the mean and the standard deviation along with the significance of differences in the longitudinal corpus were calculated through spss (version 16.0). 4. results and discussions 4.1. longitudinal variation in critical stance patterns in l2 students’ written literary analyses previous studies show that projecting a critical stance is a highly valued features of literary analyses (e.g., macken-horarik, 1996, 2003; rothery & stenglin, 2000; wilder, 2012, etc.). rothery & stenglin (2000) show that project a critical stance involves the use of attitude markers to critically evaluate the portrayal of characters and the message convey in the literary work under analysis. it also entails the use of graduation and engagement markers to position readers to accept authorial interpretations and to critically engage with alternative interpretations of the message conveyed in the literary work under analysis. in this regard, the results were reported as follows: (1) findings from the analysis of the distribution of attitude markers, (2) results from the analysis of the distribution of graduation resources, and (3) findings from the analysis of the distribution of engagement markers. 4.1.1. longitudinal distribution of attitude resources in l2 students’ literary analysis table 2 presents longitudinal distributions of attitude resources in the three corpora collected at three points, namely pre-instruction corpus (pic 1), during-instruction corpus (dic 2), postinstruction corpus (pic 3). the results reveal a longitudinal rise in the use of attitude sub-types of judgement and appreciation and a reverse-u shaped reduction in the use of attitude subtype of affect as seen at pic 1, dic 2 and pic 3. table 2 shows that the use of judgement resources by students increased at pic 3 (m = 1.01) from pic 1 (m = 0.74, mean difference = -0.27, pvalue = 0.142), the use of appreciation increased at pic 3 (m = 0.82) from pic 1 (m = 0.70, mean difference = -0.11, p-value = 0.272), while the use of affect resources decrease at pic 3 (m = 0.44) from pic 1 (m = 0.53, mean difference =0.08, p-value = 0.319). however, the increase in the use of judgement and appreciation resources from pic 1 to pic 3 is not acoj-issn 1936-9859 clément ndoricimpa & dilip p. barad vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 77 statistically significant, while the decrease in the use of affect resource from pic 1 to pic 3 is statistically significant. therefore, the less significant increase in the use of attitude sub-types of judgement and appreciation may not be suggestive of an impact of the online instruction in the discourse convention of literary criticism, and the significant reverse-u shaped decrease in the use of attitude sub-type of affect may be suggestive of the impact of the online instruction. to be more specific, the resources of judgement and appreciation are employed to evaluate the behaviors of characters according to ethical norms, the strategies and techniques used by writers (novelists, poets, etc.) to convey a particular message, and the aesthetic qualities of the literary work under analysis. rothery & stenglin (2000) demonstrate that successful literary analyses are characterized by the use of the resources of judgement and appreciation. in addition, the content of the online instruction, the online assessment rubrics and the individualized online feedback focused on the use of these linguistic markers. therefore, the less significant increase in the use of these resources presumably suggest that the teaching and learning methods employed in the online instruction may not have impacted l2 students’ ability to construe a register-appropriate critical stance. the resources of affect are used to articulate an emotional response to the literary work under analysis. rothery & stenglin (2000) show that successful literary analyses are characterizes by a near absence of the resource of affect. furthermore, the individualized online feedback emphasized the need to use impersonal style and the need to avoid expressing emotional feelings in academic writing. therefore, the significant reverse-u shaped decrease in the use of affect suggests that the individualized may have impacted l2 students’ ability to avoid expressing emotional feelings in their literary analysis. table 2. longitudinal distributions of attitude resources attitude markers mean per 100 words standard deviation pairwise comparison (bold = statistically significant, p<0.05) affect (pic 1) m = 0.53 (dic 2) m = 0.88 (pic 3) m = 0.44 (pic 1) sd = 0.45 (dic 2) sd = 0.60 (pic 3) sd = 0.28 pic 1<dic 2 md = -0.34 p = 0.017 pic 1>pic 3 md = 0.08 p = 0.319 dic 2>pic 3 md = 0.43 p = 0.006 judgement (pic 1) m = 0.74 (dic 2) m = 0.77 (pic 3) m = 1.01 (pic 1) sd = 0.60 (dic 2) sd = 0.45 (pic 3) sd = 0.50 pic 1<dic 2 md = -0.03 p = 0.848 pic 1<pic 3 md = -0.27 p = 0.142 dic 2<pic 3 md = -0.25 p = 0.106 appreciation (pic 1) m = 0.70 (dic 2) m = 0.83 (pic 3) m = 0.82 (pic 1) sd = 0.42 (dic 2) sd = 0.40 (pic 3) sd = 0.36 pic 1<dic 2 md = -0.12 p = 0.435 pic 1<pic 3 md = -0.11 p = 0.272 dic 2>pic 3 md = 0.005 p = 0.958 acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 78 within the attitude subcategories of judgement and appreciation, then subcategories that are predominantly used in successful literary analysis are judgement subtypes of capacity and propriety and the appreciation subtype of valuation, composition and reaction. therefore, it is important to report on the distribution of these subcategories in order to see whether there may be any important variation in the longitudinal corpus. 4.1.1.1. longitudinal distribution of judgement sub-categories in the corpora table 3 presents a longitudinal distribution of judgement sub-categories in the three corpora collected at three points. the results show a less significant increase in the use of judgement sub-category of capacity as seen at pic 3 (m = 044) from pic 1 (0.28, mean difference = -0.15, p-value = 0.152). the resources of judgement of capacity are predominantly employed to evaluate writers' strategies to convey a particular message in successful literary analysis (rothery & stenglin, 2000) as in [6] [6]: divakaruni has skillfully demystified [judgement: capacity +] the story of mahabharata by de-glamorizing the male characters and making it suit the assertion of the female self of the twenty-first century india (pic 3). the results also show a less significant increase in the use of judgement sub-category of propriety as seen at pic 3 (m = 0.46) from pic 1 (m = 0.23, mean difference = -0.22, p-value = 0.065). the resources of judgement sub-category of propriety are employed to evaluate the behavior of characters according to ethical norms (rothery & stenglin, 2000) as in [7] and [8]. [7]: velutha, the god of small things, transgresses [judgement: propriety-] the established norms of society by having an affair with a woman of high caste (pic 3). [8]: government officials were corrupt, manipulative [judgement: propriety-] of villagers, and could arrest anyone they chose for any reason, more often than not for their own benefit (pic 1]. table 3. longitudinal distribution of judgement sub-categories judgement sub-types mean per 100 words standard deviation pairwise comparison (bold = statistically significant, p<0.05) capacity (pic 1) m = 0.28 (dic 2) m = 0.38 (pic 3) m = 0.44 (pic 1) sd = 0.44 (dic 2) sd = 0.29 (pic 3) sd = 0.21 pic 1<dic 2 md = -0.09 p = 0.430 pic 1 <pic 3 md = -0.15 p = 0.152 dic 2<pic 3 md = -0.06 p = 0.412 propriety (pic 1) m = 0.23 (dic 2) m = 0.29 (pic 3) m = 0.46 (pic 1) sd = 0.27 (dic 2) sd = 0.28 (pic 3) sd = 0.38 pic 1<dic 2 md = -0.060 p = 0.421 pic 1<pic 3 md = -0.22 p = 0.065 dic 3<pic 3 md = -0.16 p = 0.122 in addition, macken-horarik (2003) shows that the predominant use of the resources of propriety enable literary analysts to recontextualize the characterization in the literary work under analysis in terms of ethical struggle and therefore to construct an ethical stance. the content of online instruction, the individualized online feedback, and the assessment rubrics emphasized the need for students to critically evaluate the portrayal of characters and the techniques used by writers to convey a particular message in the literary work under analysis. therefore, it can be inferred that the less significant increase in the use of the resources of capacity and propriety probably suggest that the teaching and the learning methods employed in the online course may not have impacted students’ ability to construe a register-appropriate acoj-issn 1936-9859 clément ndoricimpa & dilip p. barad vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 79 critical stance in their literary analyses. two factors may have contributed to these results. first, the online instruction did not include follow-up discussions. these follow-up discussions would have contributed to checking whether students had understood the content of the online course, the assessment rubric, and the individualized online feedback. in addition, the online instruction was detached from regular teaching of english literature. embedding the online instruction into regular teaching of english literature would have helped students understand the ways in which a critical evaluation of the portrayal of characters and the techniques used by writers to articulate a particular theme is construed in literary analyses. these results seem to agree with the results in the study by wingate (2012). in this study by wingate, the results indicated that the online writing course did not impact students’ critical awareness in academic writing because the online instruction was not embedded in subject teaching. 4.1.1.2. longitudinal distribution of appreciation sub-categories in the corpora table 4 presents a longitudinal distribution of appreciation sub-categories in the three corpora collected at three points. the results indicate a less significant increase in the use of appreciation sub-category of reaction as seen at pic 3 (m = 0.23) from pic 1 (m= 0.16, mean difference = -0.07, p-value = 0.152). the resources of reaction are predominantly used to express a critical personal response to the portrayal of characters and to the message conveyed in the literary work under analysis (rothery & stenglin, 2000). example [9] illustrates this use. [9]: it seems that this story is a good [appreciation: reaction +) example for television represents the world of illusion rather than reality (dic 2). table 4. longitudinal distribution of appreciation sub-categories appreciation sub-type mean per 100 words standard deviation pairwise comparison (bold = statistically significant, p<0.05) reaction (pic 1) m = 0.16 (dic 2) m = 0.30 (pic 3) m = 0.23 (pic 1) sd = 0.14 (dic 2) sd = 0.19 (pic 3) sd = 0.17 pic 1<dic 2 md = -0.13 p = 0.023 pic 1<pic 3 md = -0.07 p = 0.154 dic 2>pic 3 md = 0.06 p = 0.284 composition (pic 1) m = 0.13 (dic 2) m = 0.01 (pic 3) m = 0.07 (pic 1) sd = 0.19 (dic 2) sd = 0.06 (pic 3) sd = 0.07 pic 1>dic 2 md = 0.11 p = 0.012 pic 1>pic 3 md = 0.06 p = 0.212 dic 2<pic 3 md = 0.05 p = 0.016 valuation (pic 1) m = 0.41 (dic 2) m = 0.51 (pic 3) m = 0.50 (pic 1) sd = 0.30 (dic 2) sd = 0.37 (pic 3) sd = 0.30 pic 1<dic 2 md = -0.10 p = 0.436 pic 1<pic 3 md = -0.09 p = 0.264 dic 2>pic 3 md = 0.001 p = 0.984 the results also indicate a less significant increase in the use of the resources of valuation as seen at pic (m = 50) from pic 1 (m = 41, mean difference = -0.09, p-value = 0.264). the resources of valuation are predominantly employed to evaluate the strategies and techniques acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 80 employed by the writers to convey a particular message or to explore a particular theme as in [10] (rothetery & stenglin, 2000). [10]: in the play, the chorus is an expedient [appreciation: valuation +] device used brilliantly to provide the commentary on the way communal provocation instigates mindless mob violence (pic 3). in addition, the results show a significant decrease in the use of the resources of composition as seen at pic 3 (m = 0.07) from pic 1 (m = 0.13, mean difference = 0.06, p-value = 0.212). the resources of composition are also predominantly used to explore the strategies used by the writers to convey a particular theme and to evaluate the aesthetic qualities of the literary work under analysis as in [11] [11]: their sexual attraction and relation are beautifully woven [appreciation: composition +] in more than one level, it represents a union that openly defies all society constructed restrictions and leads to a sense of fulfilment and contentment [pic 3]. the content of the online instruction, the individualized online feedback, and the online assessment rubrics focused on the linguistic features that are used to critically evaluate the strategies used by writers to articulate a particular message in their literary work and on the linguistic resources that used to critically engage with the message conveyed in the literary work under analysis. therefore, the less significant increase in the use of the resources of reaction and valuation and the significant decrease in the use of the resources of composition probably suggest that the teaching and the learning methods employed in the online instruction may not have impacted students’ ability to evaluate the strategies and techniques employed by the writers to convey a particular message or to explore a particular theme. the two factors outlined earlier (in 4.1.1.1) may have contributed to these results. 4.1.2. longitudinal distribution of graduation resources in l2 students’ literary analysis table 5 presents a longitudinal distribution of graduation resources in the three corpora collected at three points. the results show a significant decrease in the use of graduation resources of force as seen at pic 3 (m = 0.91) from pic 1 (m = 1.18, mean difference = 0.266, p-value = 0.046). table 5. longitudinal distribution of graduation resources in the corpora graduation type mean per 100 words standard deviation pairwise comparison (bold= statistically significant, p<0.05) force (pic 1) m = 1.18 (dic 2) m = 1.21 (pic 3) m = 0.91 (pic 1) sd = 0.56 (dic 2) sd = 0.50 (pic 3) sd = 0.27 pic 1<dic 2 md = -0.032 p = 0.859 pic 1>pic 3 md = 0.266 p = 0.046 dic 2>pic 3 md = 0.270 p = 0.022 focus (pic 1) m = 0.044 (dic 2) m = 0.006 (pic 3) m = 0.017 (pic 1) sd = 0.11 (dic 2) sd = 0.03 (pic 3) sd = 0.05 pic 1>dic 2 md = 0.038 p = 0.146 pic 1>pic 3 md = 0.027 p = 0.374 dic 2<pic 3 md = -0.010 p = 0.449 acoj-issn 1936-9859 clément ndoricimpa & dilip p. barad vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 81 the results also show a less significant decrease in the use of graduation resources of focus as seen at pic 3 (m = 0.017) from pic 1 (m = 0.044, mean difference = 0.027, p-value = 0.374). the resources of graduation are employed to make the construed evaluative meaning compelling, forceful (hood, 2004, 2010; lancaster, 2012, 2014, 2016, etc.) as in [12]. [12]: retelling of a story becomes very [graduation: force) interesting [appreciation: reaction+] to interpret when it is said from a different perspective (pic 1). the content of the online course, the individualized online feedback, and the online assessment rubrics emphasized the need for students to tone down evaluative meanings in their literary analysis. therefore, the significant decrease in the use of graduation resources of force presumably suggest that the teaching and learning methods employed in the online instruction impacted students’ ability to construe a less compelling and forceful evaluative meaning. 4.1.3. longitudinal distribution of engagement resources in l2 students’ literary analysis table 6 presents longitudinal distributions of single-voiced (monoglossia) and multi-voiced (heteroglossia) statement in the corpora collected at three points. the results indicate a less significant decrease of single-voiced statements in the corpora as seen at pic 3 (m = 3.35) from pic 1 (m = 3.64, mean difference = 0.29, p-value = 0.142). single-voiced statements are those, as martin & white (2005) point out, which do not recognize other voices. they are presented as facts (lyon, 1977, p.794). in addition, single-voiced statements function to make the construed evaluative meanings assertive and are less valued in academic writing (xie, 2016). the individualized online feedback insisted on the need for students to avoid making unwarranted interpretations. therefore, the less significant decrease of single-voiced statement from pic 1 to pic 3 presumably suggest that the teaching and learning methods in the online instruction may not have impacted students’ ability to avoid making literary interpretations within single-voices formulations. table 6: longitudinal distributions of voices in the corpora voices mean per 100 words standard deviation pairwise comparison (bold = statistically significant, p<0.05) monoglossia (pic 1) m = 3.64 (dic 2) m = 3.49 (pic 3) m = 3.35 (pic 1) sd = 1.03 (dic 2) sd = 1.37 (pic 3) sd = 0.71 pic 1>dic 2 md = 0.15 p = 0.655 pic 1>pic 3 md = 0.29 p = 0.142 dic 2>pic 3 md = 0.14 p = 0.403 heteroglossia (pic 1) m = 1.68 (dic 2) m = 2.38 (pic 3) m = 1.96 (pic 1) sd = 0.94 (dic 2) sd = 0.72 (pic 3) sd = 0.63 pic 1<dic 2 md = -0.699 p = 0.004 pic 1<pic 3 md = -0.286 p = 0.096 dic 2>pic 3 md = 0.412 p = 0.048 the results also show a significant reverse-u shaped increase of multi-voiced statements across the corpus as seen at dic 2 (m = 2.38) from pic 1 (m = 1.68, mean difference = -0.699, pvalue = 0.004), at pic 3 (m = 1.96) from dic 2 (mean difference = 0.412, p-value = 0.048) and at pic 3 from pic 1 (mean difference = -0.286, p-value = 0.096). multi-voiced statements are those which are employed to make readers accept authorial interpretations and to critically engage with alternative interpretations (martin & white, 2005). the content of the online acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 82 course, the individualized online feedback, and the online assessment rubrics focused on the importance of the use of linguistic resources to make multi-voiced statements. therefore, the reverse u-shaped increase of multi-voiced formulations from pic 1, dic 2 to pic 3 seem to suggest that the teaching and learning methods employed in the online instruction may have impacted students’ ability to recognize multiple literary interpretations. however, multi-voiced statements are divided into different categories. therefore, it is important to report the results on the distributions of those categories in order to see whether there is a significant variation in the longitudinal corpus. table 7 presents longitudinal distributions of multi-voiced statements in the corpora collected at three points. the results indicate a less significant increase in the use of dialogic contractions as seen at dic 2 (m =1.20) from pic 1 (m = 0.95, mean difference = -0.253, p-value = 0.208), at pic 3 (m = 1.11) from dic 2 (mean difference = 0.082, p-value = 0.662) and at pic 3 from pic 1 (mean difference = -0.162, p-value = 0.333). dialogic contractions include linguistic mechanisms by which writers/speakers use to contract dialogic space for alternative viewpoints and therefore to show confidence and authoritativeness in the construed meanings or interpretations (lancaster, 2012). example [13] and [14] illustrate this use. [13]: although higher-class female characters like rahel, ammu and mammachi are physically healthy, they are not the decision-makers in the family or society [contract, disclaim: counter] (pic 3). [14]: it is obvious that communal unrest arises from highlighting the differences between these two religious groups [contract, proclaim: concur] (pic 3). table 7. longitudinal distributions of multi-voiced statements in the corpora multivoiced statements mean per 100 words standard deviation pairwise comparison (bold = statistically significant, p<0.05) contract (pic 1) m = 0.95 (dic 2) m = 1.20 (pic 3) m = 1.11 (pic 1) sd = 0.81 (dic 2) sd = 0.62 (pic 3) sd = 0.34 pic 1<dic 2 md = -0.253 p = 0.208 pic 1<pic 3 md = -0.162 p = 0.333 dic 2>pic 3 md = 0.082 p = 0.662 expand (pic 1) m = 0.72 (dic 2) m = 1.16 (pic 3) m = 0.79 (pic 1) sd = 0.44 (dic 2) sd = 0.60 (pic 3) sd = 0.45 pic 1<dic 2 md = -0.442 p = 0.011 pic 1<pic 3 md = -0.066 p = 0.544 dic 2>pic 3 md = 0.375 p = 0.063 the less significant increase in the use of dialogic contractions seem to indicate that the teaching and learning methods employed in the online instruction may not have impacted students' abilities to construe evaluative meaning in a confident and authoritative manner. the results also show a significant reverse-u shaped increase in the use of dialogic expansions as seen at dic 2 (m = 1.16) from pic 1 (m = 0.72, mean difference = -0.441, p-value = 0.011), at pic 3 (m = 0.79) from dic 2 (mean difference = 0.375, p-value = 0.063) and at pic 3 from pic 1 (mean difference = -0.066, p-value = 0.544). dialogic expansions include linguistic acoj-issn 1936-9859 clément ndoricimpa & dilip p. barad vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 83 resources that writers/speakers use to expand dialogic space for alternative positions (martin & white, 2005). in addition, dialogic expansions are linguistic mechanism by which speakers/writers avoid construing an empty or descriptive critical stance (xie, 2016). in literary analysis, some dialogic expansions, such as entertainment options, are used to signal that the interpretation of the portrayal of characters or events in the literary work under analysis is one among multiple interpretations and, therefore to make allowance for those alternative interpretations (bruce, 2016). in addition, lancaster (2016) shows that entertainment options are found within the rhetorical strategies that wilder (2012) calls "appearance/reality topoi". wilder argues that this rhetorical strategy is employed to invoke the apparent meaning of the literary text under analysis before arguing for the real meaning. she also says that this rhetorical strategy is an important characteristic of the discourse practices of literary criticism because her analysis of students’ successful assignments and published research papers reveals that appearance/reality topoi is the most frequently used rhetorical strategies in those texts. example [15] illustrates this use. [15]: ramnik and javed confess their actions, the hesitation of javed and ramnik suggest that each individual survives with a human identity that is beyond externally imposed communal identity [expand: entertain] (pic 3). therefore, the significant reverse-u shaped increase in the use of dialogic expansions probably suggest that the teaching and learning methods employed in the online instruction may have impacted students’ ability to recognize alternative multiple interpretations in their literary analysis. 5. conclusion the analysis of variation in the distribution of critical stance patterns in the longitudinal corpus show the extent to which teaching and learning methods employed in the online instruction have impacted students’ ability to construe a register-appropriate critical stance in their literary analysis. the results show a less significant increase in the use of attitude sub-categories of judgement and appreciation to evaluate the behaviors of characters and the strategies used by writers to convey a particular theme. since the content of the online instruction, the individualized online feedback, and the assessment rubric emphasized on the importance of the use of linguistic resources of judgement and appreciation, it was expected a significant increase in the use of these resources. therefore, it can be concluded that the teaching and learning methods employed in the online instruction may not have impacted students’ ability to develop a more register-appropriate critical stance. the findings also show a significant reverse-u shaped decrease in the use of attitude sub-category of affect. since the content of the online instruction and the individualized online feedback insisted on the use of impersonal style, it can be inferred that the teaching and learning methods may have affected students’ ability to avoid expressing personal feelings in their literary analyses. moreover, the findings show a significant decrease in the use of graduation sub-type of force, which includes linguistic mechanism by which writers/speakers make their construed evaluative meanings forceful and compelling (xie, 2016). since the individualized online feedback insisted on the need for students to tone down evaluative meanings in their literary analyses, the decrease in the use of graduation sub-type of force suggests that the individualized feedback have impacted students’ ability to construe a more register-appropriate critical stance. the findings also show a less significant decrease in the use of single-voiced statements and a significant reverse-u shaped increase in the use of multi-voiced formulations. since the individualized online feedback insisted on the need for students to avoid making unwarranted interpretations, it may be concluded that the less significant decrease in the use of single-voiced acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 84 statements presumably suggest that the individualized feedback may not have affected students’ abilities to develop an avoidance of making assertive interpretations. in addition, since the content of the online instruction, the individualized online feedback and online assessment rubrics focused on the linguistic resources that are employed to engage with alternative interpretations, the significant increase in the use of multi-voiced statements seems to suggest that the online instruction may have affected students’ ability to make appropriate literary analyses. in summary, the results paint the following picture of the impact of the online instruction on students’ ability to construe a register-appropriate critical stance in their literary analysis. first, the individualized online feedback may have affected students’ ability to avoid using features that are not valued in literary analyses, such as expressing personal feelings in the interpretation of literary work and making construed evaluative meanings forceful and compelling. second, the content of the online instruction, the individualized online feedback, and the online assessment rubrics may not have impacted students’ ability to construe critical stance in their literary analysis, for example, the use of attitude sub-categories of judgement and appreciation to construe a register-appropriate critical stance. third, the teaching and learning methods employed in the online instruction may have impacted students’ ability to engage with alternative interpretations. these results seem to suggest that the teaching and learning methods employed in the online instruction may have improved students’ formal writing style, but they may not have developed students’ ability to construe critical stance in their literary analyses. two main factors may have contributed to these results. first, the online instruction did not include follow-up discussions. these follow-up discussions would have contributed to checking whether students had understood the content of the online course, the assessment rubric, and the individualized online feedback. in addition, the online instruction was detached from regular teaching of english literature. embedding the online instruction into regular teaching of english literature would have helped students understand the ways in which a critical evaluation of the portrayal of characters and the techniques used by writers to articulate a particular theme is construed in literary analyses. nevertheless, these results have far-reaching implications for the effectiveness of online instruction. this study shows that online instructions guided by the integration of a set of teaching and learning methods has an impact on students' writing style. it shows that self-regulated learning, individualized online feedback, and online assessment rubrics may affect students’ ability to develop a formal style of academic writing. therefore, future studies may explore the effectiveness of online instruction in the discourse conventions of a particular discipline by integrating others methods, such as the use of followup online discussions, the embedding of the online instruction into regular subject teaching, and peer feedback. they may also employ blended teaching and learning methods where offline classroom discussions are held and online feedback are given. acoj-issn 1936-9859 clément ndoricimpa & dilip p. barad vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 85 references aull, l. l., & lancaster, z. (2014). linguistic markers of stance in early and advanced academic writing: a corpus-based comparison. written communication, 31(2), 151-183. doi: 10.1177/0741088314527055 bruce, i. j. (2008). cognitive genre structures in methods sections of research articles: a corpus study. journal of english for academic purposes, 7(1), 39-55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2007.12.001 bruce, i. (2010). textual and discoursal resources used in the essay genre in sociology and english. journal of english for academic purposes, 9, 153-166. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2010.02.011. bruce, i. (2016). constructing critical stance in university essays in english literature and sociology. english for specific purposes, 42, 13-25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2015.10.005 coffin, c., hewings, a., & north, s. (2012). arguing as an academic purpose: the role of asynchronous conferencing in supporting argumentative dialogue in school and university. journal of english for academic purposes, 11(1), 38-51. doi: 10.1016/j.jeap.2011.11.005. crosthwaite, p., & jiang, k. (2017). does eap affect written l2 academic stance? a longitudinal learner corpus study. system, 69, 92-107. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2017.06.010 evangeline, j. c. k., & ganesh, k. (2016). a need analysis of technical writing skills of engineering students in india. in shs web of conferences (vol. 26, p. 01090). edp sciences. fahnestock, j., & secor, m. (1988). the stases in scientific and literary argument. written communication, 5(4), 427-443. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088388005004002 fahnestock, j., & secor, m. (1991). the rhetoric of literary criticism. in c. bazerman & j. paradis (eds.), textual dynamics of the professions: historical and contemporary studies of writing in professional communities (pp. 77-96). madison: university of wisconsin press. hood, s. (2006). the persuasive power of prosodies: radiating values in academic writing. journal of english for academic purposes, 5(1), 37-49. doi: 10.1016/j.jeap.2005.11.001 hood, s. (2010). appraising research: evaluation in academic writing. london: palgrave macmillan hood, s. (2012). voice and stance as appraisal: persuading and positioning in research writing across intellectual fields. in stance and voice in written academic genres (pp. 51-68). london: palgrave macmillan. humphrey, s. l., & economou, d. (2015). peeling the onion–a textual model of critical analysis. journal of english for academic purposes, 17, 37-50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2015.01.004 hyland, k. (2005). stance and engagement: a model of interaction in academic discourse. discourse studies, 7(2), 173-192. doi: 10.1177/1461445605050365 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2007.12.001 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2015.10.005 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2017.06.010 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0741088388005004002 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2015.01.004 acoj-issn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 86 hyland, k. (2013). esp and writing. in paltridge, b. & starfield, s. (eds.). the handbook of english for specific purposes (pp. 95-114). oxford: blackwell. lancaster, z. (2012). stance and reader positioning in upper-level student writing in political theory and economics (unpublished doctoral dissertation). the university of michigan. lancaster, z. (2014). exploring valued patterns of stance in upper-level student writing in the disciplines. written communication, 31(1), 27-57. doi: 10.1177/0741088313515170 lancaster, z. (2016). expressing stance in undergraduate writing: discipline-specific and general qualities. journal of english for academic purposes, 23, 16-30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2016.05.006 lancaster, z. (2016). using corpus results to guide the discourse-based interview: a study of one student's awareness of stance in academic writing in philosophy. journal of writing research, 8(1), 119-148. doi: 10.17239/jowr-2016.08.01.04. lee, s. h. (2008). attitude in undergraduate persuasive essays. prospect: an australian journal of tesol, 23(3), 43-58. https://researchoutput.scu.edu.au. lee, j. j., & deakin, l. (2016). interactions in l1 and l2 undergraduate student writing: interactional metadiscourse in successful and less-successful argumentative essays. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2016.06.004 macdonald, s. p. (1994). professional academic writing in the humanities and social sciences. carbondale and edwardsville: southern illinois up. macken-horarik, m. (1996). construing the invisible: specialized literary practices in junior secondary english. unpublished phd thesis, university of sydney. macken-horarik, m. (2003). appraisal and the special instructiveness of narrative. text-the hague then amsterdam then berlin, 23(2), 285-312. retrieved from www.researchgate.net. martin, j. r., & white, p. r. (2005). the language of evaluation: appraisal in english. new york: palgrave macmillan. miller, r. t., mitchell, t. d., & pessoa, s. (2017). emergent argument: a functional approach to analysing student challenges with the argument genre. journal of second language writing, 38(1), 42-55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2017.10.013 o’ donnel, m. (2007). uam corpus tool: software for corpus annotation and exploration. universidad autónoma de madrid. perelman, c., & olbrechts-tyteca, l. (1969). the new rhetoric: a treatise on argumentation. notre dame, [ind.]: university of notre dame press. rothery j. and stenglin, m. (2000). interpreting literature: the role of appraisal. in researching language in schools and communities: functional language perspectives, l. unsworth (ed.), 222-224. london: cassel. vijayakumar, c. (2018). achieving academic proficiency standards in higher education through corpus-based language teaching. journal of english language teaching , 60(5), 310. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2016.05.006 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2016.06.004 http://www.researchgate.net/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2017.10.013 acoj-issn 1936-9859 clément ndoricimpa & dilip p. barad vol. 12; no. 4; 2021 87 white, p. r. (2003). beyond modality and hedging: a dialogic view of the language of intersubjective stance. text-the hague then amsterdam then berlin-, 23(2), 259-284. wilder, l. (2002). “get comfortable with uncertainty” a study of the conventional values of literary analysis in an undergraduate literature course. written communication, 19(1), 175-221. https://doi.org/10.1177/074108830201900106 wilder, l. (2005). “the rhetoric of literary criticism” revisited: mistaken critics, complex contexts, and social justice. written communication, 22(1), 76-119. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088304272751 wilder, l. (2006). " into the laboratories of the university": a rhetorical analysis of the first publication of the modern language association. rhetoric review, 25(2), 162-184. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327981rr2502_3. wilder, l., & wolfe, j. (2009). sharing the tacit rhetorical knowledge of the literary scholar: the effects of making disciplinary conventions explicit in undergraduate writing about literature courses. research in the teaching of english, 44(2), 170-209. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27784356 wilder, l. (2012). rhetorical strategies and genre conventions in literary studies: teaching and writing in the disciplines. southern illinois university: southern illinois university press. wingate, u., andon, n., & cogo, a. (2011). embedding academic writing instruction into subject teaching: a case study. active learning in higher education, 12(1), 69-81. doi: 10.1177/1469787410387814 wingate, u. (2012). using academic literacies and genre-based models for academic writing instruction: a'literacy’journey. journal of english for academic purposes, 11(1), 26-37. doi: 10.1016/j.jeap.2011.11.006 wu, s. m. 2007). the use of engagement resources in high-and low-rated undergraduate geography essays. journal of english for academic purposes, 6(3), 254-271. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2007.09.006 xie, j. (2016). direct or indirect? critical or uncritical? evaluation in chinese english-major ma thesis literature reviews. journal of english for academic purposes, 23, 1-15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2016.05.001 biodata clément ndoricimpa is a phd research scholar in applied linguistics at m.k. bhavnagar university, gujarat state, india. his research fields include critical discourse analysis, academic writing, disciplinary writing, media discourse, and newspaper discourse. prof. dilip p. barad is a teacher of english literature and language at postgraduate level at m.k bhavnagar university, gujarat state, india. he has an experience of 24 years teaching students belonging to various faculties like commerce, management, computer science, humanities, and social sciences. his areas of interest are call, innovative use of ict in teaching english literature and literary theories. https://doi.org/10.1177%2f074108830201900106 https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088304272751 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327981rr2502_3 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2007.09.006 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2016.05.001 citation asiacall online journal received: 01/07/2022 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 30/07/2022 vol. 13, no.4, 2022 accepted: 31/07/2022 pp. 7-31 online: 09/08/2022 citation | truong, n. k. v., & le, q. t. (2022). utilizing youtube to enhance english speaking skill: efl tertiary students’ practices and perceptions. asiacall online journal, 13(4), 7-31. doi: https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221342 utilizing youtube to enhance english speaking skill: efl tertiary students’ practices and perceptions van ngoc khanh truong1, thao quang le1* 1 faculty of foreign languages, van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam *correspondence: thao quang le, van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam. email: thao.lq@vlu.edu.vn * https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5083-5730 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221342 abstract in the 4.0 era, social media are becoming increasingly popular worldwide. for better learning, one way is to utilize these platforms, one of which is youtube. this study aims to investigate the practices and perceptions of efl university students who use the youtube platform to boost their english-speaking skills. the study included a total of 106 efl university students from various classes in different academic school years. the research used a questionnaire and a semistructured interview as instruments to collect quantitative and qualitative data and determine the level of perceptions and practices. the findings reveal that efl tertiary students can improve their english speaking skills when learning with the youtube platform. the results also show that students recognized youtube as a helpful tool in the learning process when they needed to practice and improve their speaking skills. based on the study's findings, the researchers suggest that efl students use the youtube platform to improve their speaking skills. following this, there are some recommendations for further research into youtube platform utilization. keywords: english speaking skill, youtube, efl tertiary students, perceptions, practices 1. introduction speaking is a significant skill in communication, which english learners must master. this is because the speaking process utilizes verbal and nonverbal signals in which there is a combination of information organization and sharing (chaney & burk, 1998). there are many methods for learning to speak and many applications or tools that enhance speaking skills. one way is using videos, which proves to significantly affect students’ sense and what they think (berk, 2009). one of the sources for good videos which are used to improve speaking skills is youtube. it is the most popular online video uploader that can be used for language learning. it is used in blended learning to replace the teacher's spoken input and make the class more engaged (ataei & puteh, 2012). via this media, videos could be used to teach speaking skills where students may view the graphics while listening to the discourse. youtube platform is regarded as an innovative way for visually or physically impaired students to learn (burke & snyder, 2008). furthermore, the youtube platform encourages students to have a positive learning attitude in the classroom, mainly in speaking skills. for education, to apply english as a lingua franca, esl and efl learners would be proficient and fluent in four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. among these skills, speaking is an essential skill that the speaker https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221342 mailto:thao.lq@vlu.edu.vn https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5083-5730 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221342 https://asiacall.info/acoj truong, n. k. v., & le, q. t. vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 can communicate with others orally. according to burns and joyce (1997), speaking is a collaborative process of building meaning that includes producing, receiving and processing information. j. hadfield and c. hadfield (2013) said that speaking acts as a connection between the classroom environment and the world outside for students. making a connection between teachers and students is needed to prepare many opportunities with speaking activities to practice their communicative ability in class. to many countries in asia, especially in vietnam, english is a foreign language for learners to study, communicate and research, etc. however, students must face many difficulties when studying and practicing their speaking skills. some issues students frequently encounter are being worried about making mistakes in a foreign language, being inhibited from expressing their ideas, feeling shy, lacking topical knowledge, and being concerned about receiving feedback during speaking activities. jannah and fitriati (2016) stated that students’ lack of self-confidence may lead to students thinking that they cannot be good at english speaking. moreover, rivers (1968) stated learners would be inhibited in their ideas when the teacher has chosen a topic that is not suitable to express. according to nunan (1999), the cause of learners' lack of motivation is uninspired teaching traditional methodology, which lacks the purpose of learning outcome and the practical relevance of the material. in order to achieve the goal of enhancing speaking ability, instructors can be involved in modern teaching methodology by using youtube, which provides video clips or music videos with english subtitles. this helps students with their learning motivation (huy, baker & tran, 2021). indeed, speaking is an essential skill and a fantastic significant way to interact with people and express their ideas in their daily lives. in addition, the number of levels using social media, specifically the youtube platform, to practice a speaking skill is utilized popularly. there have been a lot of studies dealing with the benefits of using youtube in improving students’ speaking skills in general; however, little has been done into efl university students’ perceptions and practices towards the utilization. therefore, this study has been established to survey the practices and perceptions of efl tertiary students in utilizing the youtube platform to enhance their speaking skills. 2. literature review 2.1. youtube youtube platform (or youtube) can provide many kinds of videos and other content, namely video blogging, short original videos, and educational videos (jalaluddin, 2016). anyone can find out all the videos with the wide range of content available on youtube. it also enables people to upload a little video about expressing their personal experiences on certain topics or fields, even allowing them to share a lot of recorded presenting videos like a recorded lesson for learners to watch and consult. youtube is a resource with videos in all fields of knowledge that are easily accessible (kabooha & elyas, 2015). youtube allows efl students to try and access a native language in a natural context (nurkholida, 2016). that may be the best option for english learners who want to learn english as a foreign language. teachers can use youtube videos to assess students’ listening and speaking abilities by allowing them to watch and listen (watkins & wilkins, 2011). to clarify, teachers may design questions based on the videos and test students’ understanding through these videos with listening exercises and speaking acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 9 activities. many kinds of videos are uploaded on youtube, and it also has many languages and the language which is used popularly as a global phenomenon is the english language. the use of youtube increases students’ motivation to study english (styati, 2016). more importantly, the researcher discovered that youtube was an authentic material for teaching the four skills of english. youtube is a video platform that provides its users crucial freedoms in expressing themselves and sharing information. the use of youtube videos may assist students in improving their speaking skills in preparation for uploading video assignments (saiful, 2019). 2.2. speaking skills speaking is an important skill to communicate in a language that must be mastered by learners studying english. it is the process of organizing and sharing information using verbal and nonverbal symbols (chaney & burk, 1998). that means this is a skill needed in anyone's interactions and expressions with others to convey the ideas, information, and story, and to negotiate so the listener can hear and reach an approval. in that, speaking skill is also defined variously. skill develops through practice and experience, and it is consistently acquired through experience and continuous training (romiszowski, 2016). djoub (2017) stated that the term skill means the ability to complete a task with predictable results in each quantity of time, energy, or both. furthermore, skills have usually involved the activity of different environmental reinforcements and situations in evaluating the level of skill being demonstrated and applied. while from a more general perspective, students should perform various types of tasks and practice their abilities. that means each individual has obtained skills acquired through practice and by applying their own declarative knowledge. speakers who want to speak proficiently and fluently are involved in the six aspects of speaking ability: comprehension, vocabulary, pronunciation, fluency, grammar, and intonation (penny, 2006). first, comprehension is necessary for speakers who want to understand the meaning of a conversation in learning speaking skills. when speakers would like to convey a message, they have got to use their resources and abilities, regardless of grammar mistakes and any other errors (gower, philips & walters, 2005). it means that speakers can talk to their ability and that understanding the meaning is more important than the use of grammar. second, vocabulary is a crucial aspect of learning the english language. if speakers limited their use of vocabulary, they would lack understanding. someone who lacks a sufficient vocabulary will not communicate effectively in both oral and written forms (widari, 2017). third, pronunciation is good and can be helpful in regular communication and expressive nature. pronunciation is the method by which students produce the utterance of words clearly when speaking (kline, 2001). when it comes to fluency, it is defined as the ability to communicate in a communicative, fluent, and accurate manner. fluency typically refers to expressing oral language freely and without interruption (brown, 2001). in the aspect of grammar rules, when students are learning english speaking skills, the instructors teach them how to speak correctly and understand the theory of how to produce an english sentence correctly according to grammatical rules (penny, 2006). last but not least, intonation in the speaking skill is also significant because it is necessary to intonate in order to clarify a sentence delivered in english. in general, rising intonation and falling intonation are the two types of intonation in an english sentence. both intonations must be trained adequately in elementary students before they can be used in speaking skills (penny, 2006). https://asiacall.info/acoj truong, n. k. v., & le, q. t. vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 2.3. the benefits of youtube in the learning process as one of the well-known learning platforms, youtube has some benefits for students to improve their speaking skills (kurniawan, 2019) and even helps with four skills of english, including speaking, writing, reading, and listening (van, dang, d. pham, vo & v. pham, 2021). by uploading the speaking video, learners can get some feedback from other users on youtube. wu, hou, zhu, zhang and peha (2001) investigated the powerful use of videos on the internet and suggested several instructions and methods emphasizing the effectiveness of utilizing videos in education. so, it is a kind of learning style that helps students improve speaking performance by using videos. according to cakir (2006), the video content is interesting and motivating for language instructors because it creates a natural, contextualized, and the authentic teaching-learning environment. nasution (2019) regarded youtube as a valuable educational resource for language teachers. it is a highly effective medium for developing language skills through vocabulary development and presenting topics for debate and dialogue that represent all varieties of english used in the efl classroom. therefore, youtube videos can be provided for instructors to provide a variety of video clips that aid in teaching a foreign language. anggraeni (2012) and pratiwi (2011) confirmed that using videos supports students in organizing their thoughts, selecting appropriate words, constructing coherent sentences, and utilizing proper writing mechanics (including punctuation and spelling). many suggestions for improving the learning process inside the class, such as websites, blogs, video-sharing websites, itunes, and vimeo, youtube, appear to be the most widely used and have become extremely popular, particularly among young adults (alimemaj, 2010). moreover, silviyanti (2014) affirmed that utilizing youtube in the efl classroom may be convincing, promotive, and advantageous, with students showing up energetic and eager to watch various videos, then practicing pronunciation and giving a speech like native speakers. as these studies demonstrated the benefits of using youtube in searching for new knowledge, it also made students more eager to learn. overall, youtube benefits students’ language learning (huy, baker & tran, 2021) 2.4. the effectiveness of youtube in learning speaking skills using youtube to improve speaking skills has been frequently practiced by students (su, cao, le, l. nguyen & t. nguyen, 2021). the use of youtube has had a positive impact on students’ motivation. as berk (2009) stated, videos can significantly impact their minds and senses. he also suggested that video clips be used through multimedia presentations in order to improve learning in higher education institutions. berk's research also claimed that youtube videos could assist different learning styles, such as visual, verbal, emotional, and musical intelligence, in addition to attracting students’ attention. watching videos also allows the brain to actively respond to both sides of the brain, which helps to increase and improve students’ understanding. higher activation levels were found in brain regions associated with social memories and cognition, as well as imitation (sherman, payton, hernandez, greenfield & dapretto, 2016). qomar (2016) examined the use of youtube to improve students’ speaking performance, and it was discovered that it could improve students’ speaking ability. the study found that students acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 11 use the proper intonation and stress when they utter sentences, as well as correct grammatical structures and correct and appropriate vocabulary. the students could also start to speak without any hesitation, unwanted interruptions, or word repetition. the use of youtube for learning may open a new opportunity for a more interactive and productive educational environment (alkathiri, 2019). similarly, wagner (2007) suggested utilizing videos to teach speaking skills in the class because videos could help students remember information, improve their pronunciation, comprehend what is being said via graphics and illustrations, and speak fluently and flexibly. all these researchers reported and gave the role of the youtube platform, which is a tool for learning and practicing a foreign language, especially in speaking skills. through the youtube platform, learners could learn how to master speaking skills and practice using videos effectively. youtube was also used as a tool to support collaborative learning (roodt & de villiers, 2011). more specifically, tan and pearce (2012) agreed that using youtube videos enabled students to explain key concepts in a sociology class. the researchers also confirmed that using youtube videos was a helpful way to supplement their learning. kurniawan (2019) showed that students refer to youtube as a useful tool for enhancing their speaking skills. on the same note, research findings by meinawati, harmoko and ramah (2020) affirmed that students who watched youtube videos spoke more smoothly and confidently. youtube videos, according to bueno alastuey (2011), played an essential role in enabling learners to speak and communicate with their teachers and classmates, as well as understand their surroundings. according to watkins and wilkins (2011), youtube is an effective teaching tool that enhances learning both inside and outside the classroom. it offers a multimedia platform for promoting all language learning skills, particularly listening and speaking, and enhancing students’ vocabulary in diverse aspects and cultural backgrounds. in conclusion, content on youtube improves students’ speaking skills in three areas: fluency, accuracy, and overall performance (jati, saukah & suryati, 2019). 2.5. factors to a good speaking skill boonkit (2010) noted that boosting confidence in giving a speech to an audience was primarily considered a factor that improved speaking performance. the tasks designed in the course that focused on speaking for exceptional communication in a variety of situations also assisted students in preparing for speaking, and once each speaking task was well-prepared, this preparation became an effective strategy to reduce shyness and thus maximize speaking confidence. the finding also showed that topic selection freedom encouraged participants to feel at ease, persuaded them to speak english, and boosted efl learners’ speaking ability. according to prieto castillo (2007), interacting with others, learning from others, and selecting topics based on the learners’ interests can all help to boost speaking skills. the development of efl/esl learners’ english skills was recommended to include promoting speaking confidence as well as appropriate task design (bailey, 2005; nunan, 2006; patil, 2008; trent, 2009). doff (1998) asserted that learners would not better their speaking ability if they did not also improve their listening ability. noon-ura (2008) has the same finding when he states speaking, and listening skills are frequently connected. so as to have an effective dialogue, learners must https://asiacall.info/acoj truong, n. k. v., & le, q. t. vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 comprehend what is said to them. when students speak, shumi (1997) claims that the other students respond through the process of listening. speakers could perform both the roles of listeners and speakers. it can be concluded that students cannot respond if they do not understand what is being said to them. therefore, speaking is linked to listening, with learners engaging in media-based listening and attempting to speak in real-life situations. many students expect their teachers to provide them with the necessary feedback on their speaking abilities. according to harmer (1991), instructors’ attitudes toward their students’ performance are influenced by the stages of the lesson, the tasks, and the types of errors they make. harmer also went on to explain that if instructors correct their students’ mistakes directly, the conversation's smoothness and the speaking activity's goal will be affected. baker and westrup (2003) declared that if students are constantly corrected, they will become demotivated and fearful of speaking. instructors should always positively correct their students’ mistakes and provide them with more help and persuasion during the speaking process. based on motivational orientations, dincer and yesilyurt (2013) revealed that teachers had negative attitudes toward speaking instruction, even though they believed it was critical to speaking ability. they concluded that despite having various motivational orientations toward speaking english, the teachers felt unskilled in oral communication. their study pointed out that learners’ self-perceptions of their speaking ability were negative, and they described themselves as inefficient english speakers. efl students should be familiar with words and sentences. efl learners’ speaking ability is influenced by linguistic components such as lexical resources, phonology, syntax, and semantics, as well as psychosocial characteristics like motivation and character traits (mahripah, 2014). the students should know how words are broken down into different sounds and how sentences are stressed in different ways. grammatical competence can surely help speakers incorrectly apply and perceive the structure of the english language, leading to development in fluency (latha & ramesh, 2012). 2.6. research questions as mentioned above, the main purpose of the study is to examine how efl tertiary students practice and perceive the utilization of the youtube platform in improving their speaking skills. to achieve this purpose, the research has posed two questions: research question 1: what are efl university students' practices in using youtube to improve their speaking skills? research question 2: what are efl university students' perceptions of using the youtube platform to enhance their speaking skills? 3. methods 3.1 pedagogical setting & participants this study was carried out at the faculty of foreign languages of a university in ho chi minh city, vietnam. the paper included 106 university students from various classes who are learning english as a foreign language. they were selected for the fact that they best reflected acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 13 the nature of the study, and the authors are working or studying in this faculty, so it would be convenient to conduct the survey and the interview. it can be seen from the table that there are 67,9% of females, 31,1% of males, and 0,9% of participants preferred not to say about their gender participating in this survey (see table 1). moreover, the researchers interviewed six students who were randomly selected from the group of survey respondents. there are two students who are males and four students who are females to participate in the interview. table 1 demographic information of the sample (gender) (n=106) no gender frequency percent 1 female 72 67,9% 2 male 33 31,1% 3 prefer not to say 1 0,9% there are no big differences in the number of students in different academic school years. a big proportion of students participating in the survey are in their third year, followed by seniors. a similar percentage of students are in their first and second years. (figure 1) figure 1. demographic information of the sample (academic school year) (n=106) as for students' self-rate of speaking ability, most of them are in the level from 5 to 7 out of 10. some students scored themselves poorly, and just a small number of students rated themselves advanced speakers (at 9 or 10). (figure 2) 20% 19% 33% 28% freshman sophomore junior senior https://asiacall.info/acoj truong, n. k. v., & le, q. t. vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 figure 2. self-rate of students about the speaking skill 3.2 design of the study this research was conducted using quantitative and qualitative methods. for the quantitative method, a questionnaire was used as an instrument to collect quantitative data. the authors came up with a questionnaire to survey how efl university students perceive the use of youtube. all the items in the questionnaire were originally developed. to create the questionnaire, the authors reviewed articles about the benefits/effectiveness of using youtube in improving speaking skills and what makes a good speaking skill. the questionnaire also got some constructive feedback from two other colleagues in the field before being finalized by the researchers. all the items in the questionnaire were put into spss 25.0 for analysis to determine their reliability. there are three parts to the questionnaire. the first part has three items asking about participants' gender, academic school year, and their self-rate of speaking competence. part two focuses on students' practices with five items. part three is about students' perceptions with ten items which are grouped into three categories: students' feelings, students' speaking skill enhancement, and students' learning process and understanding. this part employs the five-point likert scale to discover how much they agree with each statement (5: strongly agree; 4: agree; 3: neutral; 2: disagree; 1: strongly disagree). a semi-structured interview was employed to collect qualitative data for the qualitative method. there are five open-ended questions to investigate students' practices and perceptions deeply. the results from the interview will be used as supporting arguments for the questionnaire results, so they will be embedded in answer to the research questions in the findings/results section. 3.3 data collection & analysis due to the complexity of the covid-19 pandemic and social distancing, the survey was published by google form to the private groups in order for students to access the link of the questionnaire survey easily and safely. the private groups consist of students and staff from the faculty and are administered by the staff. the researchers would like to obtain 30 responses for piloting in 7 days. after that, the researchers decided to stop getting responses and started importing the answering data of part 3 (students’ perceptions) to analyze the reliability. the data was examined using advanced calculation techniques called cronbach's alpha with the calculation tool named statistical package for the social sciences 25 (spss 25). the figures can be seen in table 2. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 15 table 2 the cronbach’s alpha for each category of the questionnaire – part 3 (30 responses) no. categories cronbach's alpha no of items 1 feelings .747 4 2 speaking skill enhancing .564 3 3 learning process and understanding .654 3 the cronbach's alpha for the first and third categories is acceptable. there is one problem with the second category, for the cronbach's alpha of reliability statistics is 0.564 (the number of cronbach's alpha is at least 0.6 to be accepted) (table 3). taking a closer look, the authors found that the statement "i can improve my speaking skill through watching videos on youtube," with the number of corrected item-total correlation of speaking three just 0.280 (the recommended figure is at least 0.3). if this was corrected, the cronbach's alpha for category two could be improved. the researchers changed statement number 3 into “i can improve my speaking skill through watching english videos of my beloved speaker on youtube”. this is more specific, and students would be aware of what they were going to select. table 3 item-total statistics (30 responses) no item scale variance if item deleted corrected item-total correlation cronbach's alpha if item deleted 1 i can mimic any accent of native speakers naturally. 1.568 .485 .296 2 i can learn to speak english in front of the public. 1.926 .415 .437 3 i can improve my speaking skill through watching videos on youtube. 1.444 .280 .678 after testing the reliability of 30 responses and changing the statement, the survey was published by google form to the private groups having students of all academic years (including freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors) on facebook (a social media network) and ms teams (an online learning platform) again. the researchers got 106 responses from the students in two months when the link was closed to continue importing the data for analysis. the reliability coefficient of the questionnaire used in this study ranged from .709 to .765, indicating https://asiacall.info/acoj truong, n. k. v., & le, q. t. vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 that the data collection instrument is highly reliable (see table 4). table 4 cronbach’s alpha for each category of the questionnaire (106 responses) no categories cronbach’s alpha 1 feelings .716 2 speaking skill enhancing .709 3 learning process and understanding .765 furthermore, the researchers randomly chose 6 participants from 106 respondents who gave their opinions in the interview sections. because some participants who joined the interview sections had their personal business and some schedule conflicts, they were interviewed individually at their convenient times. all participants were added to the group of the interview by the researchers on ms. teams. in addition, to efficiently conduct the finding results during the interview, the researchers recorded the meeting to review with the participants' permission. the researchers declared to the interviewees that all the answers were anonymous and explained clearly that the data only served the purpose of the study. after the interview, the researchers listened to the recording again, entered the data into microsoft excel, and started to synthesize and compare the responses among participants. the following parts will not use the real names of the participants. instead, this paper will code the participants with the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 (p1, p2, p3, p4, p5, and p6). the procedure of data collection and analysis can be summarized as follows. weeks 1,2,3,4 reviewing factors to a good speaking skills and benefits of using youtube for english speaking skills and starting to construct the items in the questionnaire. week 5 completing the questionnaire and sending it to two other colleagues for modifications week 6 sending the first version of the questionnaire to students for piloting week 7 analyzing the reliability of the questions (part 3) and modifying one item (abovementioned), using spss 25 week 7 sending the final version of the questionnaire to the participants on facebook groups and ms teams groups, using google form weeks 7-14 waiting for responses week 15 getting 106 responses and starting to analyze the cronbach’s alpha as well as some descriptive statistics, using spss 25 week 16 sending invitations to participants for interviews and conducting the interviews week 17 analyzing the results of the interview, synthesizing and comparing the response content from interviewees acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 17 week 18 finding the connections between the survey results and the answers from the interviews and analyzing 4. results/findings and discussion 4.1. results/ findings 4.1.1. efl university students’ practices in using youtube to improve their speaking skill as for students’ habits in using youtube to enhance their learning, the study discovered that almost all students choose this network. nearly half of the students surveyed use youtube very often. only one student never uses youtube for his or her learning purposes. (figure 3) figure 3. students’ frequency of using youtube platform for learning purposes when it comes to what percentage of students who prefer to learn the speaking skill on a regular basis via youtube, the finding found that a vast majority of students utilized it. only a few students rarely or never use this social media to serve the purpose of enhancing their speaking skills. (figure 4) figure 4. students' frequency of using the youtube platform to enhance their speaking skill taking a closer look at why students used youtube for practicing speaking skills, nearly all students admit that they utilize youtube to improve their speaking fluency, to have more 11% 33% 47% 8% 1% always usually sometimes rarely never 6% 33% 52% 7% 2% always usually sometimes rarely never https://asiacall.info/acoj truong, n. k. v., & le, q. t. vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 knowledge of lexis and grammatical structures and to sharpen their reflexes in listening comprehension. this shows the necessary aspects to learn for speaking skill enhancement. (figure 5) figure 5. the purposes of using youtube to improve speaking skill figure 6 shows more specific aspects of learning when they watch videos on youtube to enhance their speaking skill. almost all students choose to learn pronunciation and intonation, while only a tiny fraction choose to learn other aspects related to linguistics. it was discovered that the number of people choosing pronunciation and intonation outnumbers other aspects. speakers who want to communicate with foreigners and ensure they understand the information must improve their ability to pronounce words clearly and to smoothly intonate sentences. following pronunciation and intonation, students want to study vocabulary, collocation, and grammar. 1 1 1 75 70 60 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 not to use youtube to watch the instructor to learn the other methodology to sharpen reflexes in listening comprehension. to have more knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. to improve speaking fluency. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 19 figure 6. what students learn from youtube to improve their speaking skill figure 7 shows which purpose the students think youtube best serves to improve speaking skills. the figure for pronunciation and intonation is the highest from the pie chart. following that is the reflex of communication. the third best service is perseverance during the practice process. figure 7. the purposes youtube best serves to enhance speaking skill 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 not to use youtube other language semantic, pragmatic, english culture pronunciation and intonation collocations grammar vocabulary 11% 42% 8% 21% 16% 1% 1% fluency pronunciation and intonation knowledge of vocabulary and grammar reflexes on communication perserverance during practice process. reflexes on communication, knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. not to use youtube https://asiacall.info/acoj truong, n. k. v., & le, q. t. vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 overall, most efl university students surveyed use youtube very often as their tool to serve their learning in general and to enhance their speaking ability in particular. the purposes of using this social media are also varied, the most popular of which range from increasing knowledge of vocabulary and grammar, improving reflexes on listening comprehension to boosting fluency. more specifically, some of the aspects that students can learn the most from this platform include pronunciation, intonation, lexis, collocation, and grammar. among these, they believe that youtube can help them improve pronunciation and intonation most, followed by reflexes in communication and determination in the learning process. moreover, all participants in the interview used youtube to enhance mainly speaking and listening skills. they all state that they use youtube on a regular basis in order to improve different aspects which are useful for their speaking practice, including pronunciation, intonation, grammar, and vocabulary. therefore, besides speaking, listening is also a skill that can be practiced through youtube as p1 says, "i think youtube can help us practice listening skills also, and this is really necessary if we want to boost our speaking skills. through youtube, i can really improve both my listening and speaking skills". 4.1.2. efl university students’ perceptions towards using youtube platform to enhance their speaking skill table 5 the feelings of students using youtube platform no item n minimum maximum mean 1 i am able to be self-controlled when presenting in english. 106 1.00 5.00 3.2642 2 i feel interested in practicing speaking via youtube. 106 1.00 5.00 3.6321 3 i feel more confident giving any idea in english in the classroom. 106 1.00 5.00 3.3491 4 i can be confident speaking english when i don’t mind using the wrong grammatical structures. 106 1.00 5.00 3.5283 valid n (listwise) 106 four items in table 5 illustrate students’ feelings using youtube flatform when practicing speaking skills. all these four mean scores range from 3.26 to 3.63, which shows students' agreement. the results show students take an interest in practicing speaking via youtube, and they can be more confident without worrying about making mistakes in grammatical structures. for the other two statements, which are about the ability to be self-controlled and boost confidence in giving ideas in english, students seem to agree slightly, but there is still a sense of positive feelings. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 21 the interview results have shown that all the participants feel interested when using youtube because they can watch movies and cartoons in english and listen to music to relax and learn a language. besides, they can find many sources of audio and short tips videos on youtube, such as voa speaking, ielts public speaking, and ted-talk, where they practice their pronunciation, intonation, and accent like a foreigner. youtube can be helpful for listening repetition, so they can mimic the voice and improve their fluency when speaking english naturally. the data shown in table 5 indicate some sense of moderate agreement, and the responses of interviewees can explain this. participants talk about their psychology when they present in the class. p1 says that the factor which impacts speakers’ lack of self-control is forgetting the word they want to say. it means students cannot control themselves well due to the fact that they don’t remember what is said next in their presentation. p2 states that the mentality is too unstable to remember the information transferred to listeners. as the aspect other participants mentioned, preparation is the main factor in a successful presentation. therefore, it can be seen the factors that impact speakers are preparation, such as the primary information to present, the suitable vocabulary, good performance and skill, and an unstable mentality that affects the performance for presentation in english. table 6 speaking skill enhancement of students using youtube platform no item n minimu m maximum mean 1 i can mimic any accent of native speakers naturally. 106 1.00 5.00 3.1038 2 i can learn to speak english in front of the public. 106 1.00 5.00 3.3585 3 i can improve my speaking skill through watching english videos of my beloved speaker on youtube. 106 1.00 5.00 3.8868 valid n (listwise) 106 table 6 illustrates students' perceptions when using youtube to boost their speaking skill. as can be seen from the table, participants who use the youtube platform to practice their speaking skills can improve themselves through watching videos of their beloved speakers. for the other two statements, the mean score is not very high, which shows moderate agreement. in the interview section, participants admit youtube can provide knowledge such as vocabulary, intonation, pronunciation, phrases or structures for presentation, and use of grammar. eventually, participants can learn how to communicate and to gesture. with the audio voiceover and the short videos, learners can practice their voice and fluency to mimic a native speaker using the youtube platform. ultimately, participants can study how to speak reflexively like a native speaker, acquire the sample sentence related to the phrase, and the short paragraph to communicate with foreigners more naturally. significantly, all participants can learn how to https://asiacall.info/acoj truong, n. k. v., & le, q. t. vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 develop the skill and vocabulary for presentation in the class. through youtube, p4 can improve their speaking skill to practice pronunciation and improve their communication ability. besides, p5 also mentions being able to enhance confidence during the speaking process. therefore, youtube is indeed a valuable platform for learners who require to improve their knowledge such as vocabulary, phrases for communication, and tips to develop their performance in presentative or public speaking. youtube is essential for learners to improve their skills effectively during the pandemic when they must learn at home. table 7 learning process and understanding of students using youtube platform no item n minimu m maximu m mean 1 i can easily study a lot of new vocabulary which will support my speaking skill. 106 2.00 5.00 3.6981 2 i can understand the information in english that one wants to present. 106 2.00 5.00 3.6321 3 i am proactive in spending time practicing speaking via youtube. 106 1.00 5.00 3.5849 valid n (listwise) 106 table 7 demonstrates students' learning process and understanding when using the youtube platform to learn and improve speaking performance. the mean scores show agreement among students. they agree that they can learn vocabulary which will support their speaking skill, understand more about english in presentation and spend more time practicing proactively. in the interview, students' understanding, knowledge, and proactiveness can be attributed to many factors. p1 uses the youtube platform to listen to music and watch movies in english, through which he can learn about the pronunciation and intonation of speech. p2 and p4 can easily review the video to understand the information and content provided in english. they claim that the english video can easily be learned by using a tool such as a subtitle. p2 also declares that he can learn the pronunciation and improve speaking intonation. p3 states that she can learn how to pronounce and communicate logically and naturally. especially, p5 can watch many tips about how to speak english that has not been translated before. p6 can learn how to mimic fluency like a foreigner. besides, interviewees also recommend some good english channels such as bbc news, bbc learning english, langmaster, voa, english with lucy, rachel english, ielts face-off, english speeches, national geographic, english marie, and ted talk. these channels on youtube can provide learners with sample sentences on random topics, share knowledge about the vocabulary, idioms, and slang words, and instruct learners on how to express the content and how to look for a good performance on the stage. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 23 overall, nearly all students have a positive attitude towards the use of youtube to enhance their speaking skills. although there is some moderate agreement in the survey, the results from the interview section confirm the benefits the platform gives to efl university students in enhancing their speaking skills. more specifically, students can be self-controlled in their speaking performance, more interested, and more confident in expressing ideas without worrying about making mistakes. they are also able to mimic the native speakers to sound more natural in speech and learn from them how to speak publicly well, which is thanks to watching english videos of their beloved speakers. besides, youtube can help them easily increase lexical resources to understand better and become more active in their learning. p2, p3, and p4 have the same idea that youtube is a good source to offer different types of knowledge, including grammar, vocabulary, and tips on how to pronounce and intonate well. p1, p5, and p6 added learners could use different abovementioned channels to implement english learning, especially speaking. they all have a great experience when using youtube for their speaking practice, and all agree that pronunciation, intonation, vocabulary, and reflexes are some aspects that can be practiced most effectively through this media. 4.2. discussion students using youtube can improve their intuitive listening skills and learn a lot of vocabulary and grammar knowledge. that shows the youtube platform can provide a lot of helpful knowledge for learners who need to practice their skills, not only speaking skills but also listening comprehension skills. a high number of students choose to practice pronunciation and intonation via youtube, which shows that learners need to practice pronunciation and intonation to speak naturally. besides, vocabulary and collocations are also dominant choices in the obtained survey results. efl university students want to be able to convey content to listeners understandably, and they certainly need to cultivate english vocabulary. thus, the speakers can feel confident in communicating the information or presenting content to the audience in public efficiently. the results show that efl students commonly practice pronunciation and reflexes when speaking. this is because youtube has a repetition mode to listen to the content of a video and easily understand the content when the subtitle mode is turned on. when students try to watch videos, their brain activity helps increase students understanding and memory. this opinion best fits other researchers’ including berk (2009), bueno alastuey (2011), sherman et al. (2016), and wagner (2007). it shows that learners can easily practice pronunciation, imitate the way native speakers speak, and practice speaking speed and reflexes in communication. as a result, they can improve their speaking ability, which was also found by kurniawan (2019) and qomar (2016). this means students can speak more smoothly and flexibly, as meinawati et al. (2020) and wagner (2007) have concluded. when it comes to the students’ feelings after using the youtube platform, positive ones can be found. on youtube, there are videos on how to construct a method for learning a foreign language that is comfortable and confident in providing ideas instead of being anxious when speaking incorrect grammar. therefore, students feel more confident when learning english on youtube. this is in line with meinawati et al. (2020). the fact that youtube could help learners improve their speaking skills parallels what kurniawan (2019) claimed, which is that the https://asiacall.info/acoj truong, n. k. v., & le, q. t. vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 youtube platform is an effective tool that can support students improve their speaking skills. wagner (2007) recommended using the videos to help students remember the information, improve pronunciation, understand what is being said, and even speak fluently. while watching videos, efl students can learn much knowledge from vocabulary, grammar, as well as presentation skills. besides, efl students can learn by imitating the voice of native speakers to make it sound like a native speaker. at the same time, efl students can learn how to speak in public most naturally. the researchers realize that youtube is a helpful platform for language learners, especially for speaking skills. moreover, efl university students can acquire knowledge related to speaking skills. youtube can provide helpful knowledge that is new vocabulary, which is what bueno alastuey (2011) agrees on. specifically, students can provide engaging learning channels such as bbc news, bbc learning english, langmaster, voa, english with lucy, rachel english, ietls faceoff, english speeches, national geographic, english marie, and ted talk. they can improve more when they understand what they want to say when they convey it to others, even when presenting in front of the class. the use of youtube can help students positively impact students’ learning outcomes and satisfaction, which orús et al. (2016) would agree on. furthermore, at the same time, students can be more active when practicing youtube with speaking skills because they can study anytime. however, their speaking skills will improve significantly if they are patient and have an effective learning schedule and motivation. in conclusion, youtube supplements students’ learning (roodt & de villiers, 2011; tan & pearce, 2012) and improves their overall performance in speaking (jati, saukah & suryati, 2019). 5. conclusion efl tertiary students can practice speaking on youtube to improve their performance. they can explore many sources for practicing speaking on youtube. most of the time, vocabulary and grammar are the primary sources from which new words can be easily found and learned. efl learners must continue to study vocabulary and grammar to communicate with others effectively. pronunciation is also an essential skill for students to learn, and they can practice it by listening to what the foreigner says and then naturally trying to mimic the voice and sound. furthermore, the reflex on communication is the most preferred in the questionnaire, which allows students to practice reflexes such as foreigner communication via youtube. moreover, almost all students are interested in using youtube for learning. efl university learners can gain experience by watching movies, listening to music in english, finding a suitable source to practice fluency and control the speed of speaking like a native speaker, understanding information when a partner speaks in english, and relying on it through youtube. thus, youtube is indeed a good tool in the learning process for those who aspire to improve their speaking skill and improve their performance. this research has some contributions concerning the effectiveness of using youtube to enhance efl tertiary students’ speaking skill, but it still faces certain limitations. these limitations also acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 25 somehow affect the results and significance of the study. these limitations include the sample of the study and the speaking level of the participants being studied. firstly, this study surveyed efl university students at a faculty of foreign languages from a university and it seems not to extend the survey to other faculties and universities. secondly, the results obtained for students’ ability are only quite average, from 5 to 7 points when they are self-rated, which may keep students using youtube to practice speaking skills unsatisfactory. there are two possible suggestions for future research on the same topic based on current discoveries and potential limitations. with the limitations mentioned above, the future research paper will spread among many students at different faculties and universities. with the speaking level of students using youtube to improve their speaking skills, it is expected to increase in size and a correlation between speaking students’ level and effectiveness of using youtube can be investigated. acknowledgment we would like to express our gratitude to all the respondents and interviewees who partook in our survey. we also would like to send our sincere thanks to van lang university at 69/68 dang thuy tram street, ward 13, binh thanh district, ho chi minh city, vietnam where our research was funded. the last special thanks would go to two of our colleagues that provided us with some constructive feedback on our questionnaire. references alimemaj, z. (2010). youtube, language learning and teaching techniques. the magazine of global english speaking higher education, 2(3), 10-12. alkathiri, l. (2019). students’ perspectives towards using youtube in improving efl learners’ motivation to speak. journal of education and culture studies, 3(1), 12-30. http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/jecs.v3n1p12 anggraeni, s. (2012). optimizing the use of youtube video to improve students’ competence in writing procedure text. indonesia: sebelas maret university. ataei, e., & puteh, f. (2012) (2012). using youtube videos to teach negotiation skills in english language. malaysia: university teknologi malaysia. bailey, k. (2005). practical english language teaching: speaking. new york: mcgrawhill. baker j., & westrup h. (2003). essential speaking skills: a handbook for english language teachers. london: continuum. berk, r. (2009). multimedia teaching with video clips: tv, movies, youtube, and mtvu in the college classroom. international journal of teaching and learning, 5(1), 1-21. boonkit, k. (2010). enhancing the development of speaking skills for non-native speakers of english. procedia social and behavioral sciences, 2(2), 1305-1309. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.03.191 https://asiacall.info/acoj truong, n. k. v., & le, q. t. vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 brown, h. d. (2001). teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy. new york: pearson education. bueno alastuey, m. (2011). perceived benefits and drawbacks of synchronous voice-based computer-mediated communication in the foreign language classroom. computer assisted language learning, 24(5), 419-432. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2011.574639 burke, s. c., & snyder, s. l. (2008). youtube: an innovative learning resource for college health education courses. international electronic journal of health education, 11, 39-46. burns, a., & joyce, h. (1997). focus on speaking. national centre for english language teaching and research, macquarie university, sydney. new south wales, australia, 2109. cakir, i. (2006). the use of video as an audio-visual material in foreign language teaching classroom. tojet –turkish online j. educ. technol, 5(4), 67-72. chaney, a. l., & burk, t. l. (1998). teaching oral communication in grades k-8. allyn and bacon, order processing, po box 11071, des moines, ia 50336-1071. dincer, a., & yesilyurt, s. (2013). pre-service english teachers’ beliefs on speaking skills based on motivational orientations. english language teaching, 6(7), 88-95. http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/elt.v6n7p88 djoub, z. (2017). enhancing students' critical thinking through portfolios: portfolio content and process of use. in handbook of research on creative problem-solving skill development in higher education (pp. 235-259). igi global. doff, a. (1998). teach english: a training course for teacher. cambridge: cambridge university press. gower, r., philips, d., & walters, s. (2005). teaching practice handbook. oxford: macmillan. graddol, d. (1997). the future of english? a guide to forecasting the popularity of the english of the english language in the 21st century. london: british council. hadfield, j., & hadfield, c. (2013). simple speaking activities-oxford basics. oxford university press. harmer, j. (1991). the practice of english language teaching (3rd ed.). london and new york: longman. huy, p. m., baker, j. r., & tran, n. k. (2021). a survey of using youtube as supplementary material with university english language learners in vietnam: a replication study. rupkatha journal on interdisciplinary studies in humanities, 13(4), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.58 jalaluddin, m. (2016). using youtube to enhance speaking skills in esl classroom. english for specific purposes world, 17(50), 1-4. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 27 jannah, m. a., & fitriati, s. w. (2016). psychological problems faced by the year-eleven students of ma nuhad demak in speaking english. english education journal, 6(1), 65-78. jati, i.p., saukah, a., suryati, n. (2019). teaching using youtube tutorial video to improve students’ speaking skills. jurnal pendidikan humaniora, 7(3), 101-116. kabooha, r., & elyas, t. (2015, november). the impacts of using youtube videos on learning vocabulary in saudi efl classrooms. iceri2015 conference (pp. 3525-3531). saudi arabia: king abdul-aziz university. kline, j. (2001). speaking effectively: a guide for air force speakers. alabama: air university press. kurniawan, i. (2019, january). student’s perception on the use of youtube as a learning media to improve their speaking skill. in international seminar and annual meeting bksptn wilayah barat, 1(1), 159–174. latha, b. m., & ramesh, p. (2012). teaching english as a second language: factors affecting learning speaking skills. international journal of engineering research & technology (ijert), 1(7), 1-6. mahripah, s. (2014). exploring factors affecting efl learners’ speaking performance: from theories into practices. proceedings of the 3rd uad tefl international conference 2014 “materials development in asia and beyond: directions, issues, and challenges". indonesia: english education department. meinawati, e., harmoko. d. d., & ramah, n. a. (2020). increasing english speaking skills using youtube. polygot: jurnal ilmiah. nasution, a. k. r. (2019). youtube as a media in english language teaching (elt) context: teaching procedure text. journal of ultimate research and trends in education, 1(1), 29-33. noon-ura, s. (2008). teaching listening speaking skills to thai students with low english proficiency. asian efl journal, 10(4), 173-192. nunan, d. (1999). second language teaching & learning. florence: heinle & heinle publishers. nunan, d. (2006). task-based language teaching in the asia context: defining 'task'. asian efl journal, 8(3), 12-18. nurkholida, e. (2016). enhancing listening skill based on authentic materials in higher education. deiksis, 8(3), 256-266. orús, c., barlés, m. j., belanche, d., casaló, l., fraj, e., & gurrea, r. (2016). the effects of learner-generated videos for youtube on learning outcomes and satisfaction. computers & education, 95, 254-269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2016.01.007 patil, z. n. (2008). rethinking the objectives of teaching english in asia. asian efl journal, 10(4), 227-240. https://asiacall.info/acoj truong, n. k. v., & le, q. t. vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 penny, m. (2006). assessing young language learners. inggris: cambridge university press. pratiwi, a. (2011). optimizing the use of youtube videos to improve students’ writing skill. surakarta: sebelas maret university. prieto castillo, c. y. (2007). improving eleventh graders’ oral production in english class through cooperative learning strategies. profile issues in teachers professional development, (8), 75-90. qomar, a. h. (2016). enhancing students ‘speaking performance by using youtube video. in unnes international conference on eltlt, 92-94. rivers, w. (1968). teaching foreign language skills. chicago: university of chicago press. romiszowski, a. (2016). designing instructional systems. new york: kogan page. roodt, s., & de villiers, c. (2011). using youtube as an innovative tool for collaborative learning at undergraduate level in tertiary education. in proceedings of the ais sig-ed iaim 2011 conference (pp. 1-13). pretoria: university of pretoria. saiful, j. (2019). efl teachers’ cognition in the use of youtube vlog in english language. journal of foreign language education and technology, 4(1), 72-91. sherman, l. e., payton, a. a., hernandez, l. m., greenfield, p. m., & dapretto, m. (2016). the power of the like in adolescence: effects of peer influence on neural and behavioral responses to social media. psychological science, 27(7), 1027-1035. doi:10.1177/0956797616645673 shumin, k. (1997). factors to consider: developing adult efl students' speaking abilities. english teaching forum, 35(3), 8. silviyanti, t. (2014). looking into efl students’ perceptions in listening by using english movie videos on youtube. studies in english language and education, 1(1), 42–58. styati, e. w. (2016). effect of youtube videos and pictures on efl students' writing performance. dinamika ilmu, 16(2), 307-317. su, a. a. t., cao, t. x. t., le, d. l. v., nguyen, l. n. t., & nguyen, t. l. a. (2021). improving english speaking ability through e-learning. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 58-71. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/29 tan, e. & pearce, n. (2012). open education videos in the classroom: exploring the opportunities and barriers to the use of youtube in teaching introductory sociology. research in learning technology, 19, 128-137. trent, j. (2009). enhancing oral participation across the curriculum: some lessons from the eap classroom. asian efl journal, 11(1), 256-270. van, l. k., dang, t. a., pham, d. b. t., vo, t. t. n., & pham, v. p. h. (2021). the effectiveness of using technology in learning english. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 24-40. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/26 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 29 wagner, e. (2007). are they watching? test-taker viewing behavior during an l2 video listening test. language learning & technology, 11(1), 67-86. watkins, j., & wilkins, m. (2011). using youtube in the efl classroom. language. language education in asia, 2(1), 113-119. widari, i. (2017). the influence of english club toward students‘ speaking skill at dormitory of stkip paracendekia nw sumbawa. proceeding the 2nd national conference on elt and linguistics, 21-28. wu, d., hou, y. t., zhu, w., zhang, y. q., & peha, j. m. (2001). streaming video over the internet: approaches and directions. ieee transactions on circuits and systems for video technology, 11(3), 282-300. appendix appendix a – questionnaire part 1: demographic information 1. your gender male female prefer not to say 2. you are a… freshman sophomore junior senior 3. how would you rate your speaking skill? (1-10 scale) part 2: students’ practices: 1. how often do you use the youtube platform for learning purposes? always usually sometimes rarely never 2. how often do you use the youtube platform for enhancing your speaking skill? always usually sometimes rarely never 3. why do you use the youtube platform for learning speaking skill? to improve speaking fluency to have more knowledge of vocabulary and grammar to sharpen reflexes in listening comprehension https://asiacall.info/acoj truong, n. k. v., & le, q. t. vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 others (please specify): 4. which knowledge do you often learn from youtube to practice speaking skill? vocabulary grammar collocations pronunciation and intonation others (please specify): 5. which aspect do you think youtube best serves to enhance speaking skills? • fluency • pronunciation and intonation • knowledge of vocabulary and grammar • reflexes on communication • perseverance during practice process • others (please specify): part 3: students’ perceptions the following statements are about your perceptions toward using youtube for enhancing speaking skill. please read each one and click on the bullet to show how much you agree or disagree with each statement. strongly disagree (1)/ disagree (2)/ neutral (3)/ agree (4)/ strongly agree (5) no item 1 2 3 4 5 student’s feelings 1 i am able to be self-controlled when presenting in english. 2 i feel interested in practicing speaking via youtube. 3 i feel more confident giving any idea in english in the classroom. 4 i can be confident speaking english when i don’t mind using the wrong grammatical structures. speaking skill enhancing 1 i can mimic any accent of native speakers naturally. 2 i can learn to speak english in front of the public. 3 i can improve my speaking skill through watching english videos of my beloved speaker on youtube learning process and understanding 1 i can easily study a lot of new vocabulary which will support my speaking skill. 2 i can understand the information in english that one wants to present. 3 i am proactive in spending time practicing speaking via youtube. appendix b – interview questions 1. do you often use youtube for learning purposes? do you use youtube to improve your speaking skill? 2. tell me your experience in using youtube to improve speaking skill. 3. in your opinion, is youtube a good source to offer knowledge for developing english acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 31 speaking skills? what knowledge does it offer? 4. in your opinion, for which purpose is youtube used to practice speaking skills effectively? 5. can you recommend any good english learning websites or channels? what are those? is it possible to practice speaking via those? biodata thao quang le holds a master’s degree in applied linguistics from curtin university. he has ten years of english-teaching experience. he is now a lecturer in the faculty of foreign languages, van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam. he has been giving classes on four english language skills and teaching courses in such english linguistic components as phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax. conducting studies into l1 instructions in l2 classrooms and on language assessment is his particular interest. van ngoc khanh truong is an undergraduate at the faculty of foreign languages, van lang university, ho chi minh city, viet nam. she is majoring in english teaching. she is interested in conducting research related to utilizing social media to enhance her english skills. citation asiacall online journal received: 17/05/2022 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 12/07/2022 vol. 13, no. 3, 2022 accepted: 15/07/2022 pp. 36-50 online: 20/07/2022 citation | tran, t. y. n., & nguyen, t. n. m. (2022). implementing the flipped learning comprehensive model (flcm) through basic informatics course, van lang university, 2021 – 2022. asiacall online journal, 13(3), 36-50. doi: https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221334 implementing the flipped learning comprehensive model (flcm) through basic informatics course, van lang university, 2021 – 2022 tran thi yen nhi1*, nguyen thu nguyet minh1 1 faculty of basic science, van lang university, vietnam * correspondence: tran thi yen nhi, van lang university, vietnam. e-mail: nhi.tty@vlu.edu.vn * https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0839-832x https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221334 abstract during the implementation phase of the elearning teaching system for the 2021-2022 school year, with the requirements set forth for the subject of research and implementation of the teaching system, it is possible to apply flexible teaching for a group ranging from 0% to 100% of students and online learners. at the same time, it encourages students to actively participate in learning throughout the learning content deployed by the subject. we have focused on research and implementation of the comprehensive flipped learning model, the flipped learning comprehensive model – flcm, which uses h5p interactive teaching content to provide instant, attention-grabbing feedback for students. furthermore, we also implement the development and rearrangement of learning materials and learning activities that require learners to complete their studies according to the set course schedule. besides the development of content, we also have interactive lectures that return immediate results to help attract students to complete the course. we have implemented the flcm model during the 1st and 2nd semesters of the academic year 2021 – 2022, with more than 12,000 students. at the end of the course, we collected statistics on positive and proactive changes in students through learning activities on the elearning site implemented by the flcm method. due to the content with interactive videos, the number of active students increased by over 70%. keywords: elearning, lms moodle, lms, h5p, flcm introduction recently, online learning is a new model of education in the age of information and technology. nowadays, almost all universities in the world consider digital learning a strategic asset to reach people. general informatics course, which was implemented e-learning in 2018 2020 from phase 1 to phase 3 by van lang university, has been introduced at the international conference asia call international conference & vletesol 2021 and published in the asiacall online journal (tran thi yen nhi, 2021). with the initial first steps, courses that apply the flip classroom model can be applicable to both offline and online classes following new requests and increase the positive engagement rate in students. as new situations arise, the course develops teaching procedures and course materials that are flexible for both offline and online learning. to satisfy the learning outcome criteria of the course and education program and to change the mindset of lecturers and https://asiacall.info/acoj https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221334 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0839-832x https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221334 https://asiacall.info/acoj tran, t. y. n., & nguyen, t. n. m. vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 37 students, there needs to be a procedure combining lms and lcms in teaching and learning through the e-learning model. literature review in the process of implementing the e-learning system, we have read through the research of koohang, riley, and smith (2009), which have come up with a learning model in the e-learning environment based on constructivist theory. this model includes the following three basic elements: design of learning activities, assessing the learning process, and the role of a teacher or guide. the design of learning activities includes coordination, cooperation, and problem-solving, the importance of 21st-century skills to learners (hiroyuki, 2021). together with the study of the author group lo, c. k., & hwang, g. j. (chung & hwang, 2018) elucidates three possible directions for future studies of teaching methods according to the flipped classroom model, including a model framework. the description proposed in the flipped learning model includes four aspects: research background, course design, course activities, and outcomes. in the course design section, the authors also suggest activities before learning, during and after learning (koohang, riley, & smith, 2009) (oproiu, 2015). and in our research and implementation in the stages of implementing the online teaching system elearning, there are many similarities in the construction of the flipped classroom model and the organization of activities before, during and after class. however, these studies rely too much on videos and student initiative. for this stage of implementation, we want to stimulate active learning in students through the comprehensive flipped classroom model (flcm) built based on the combination of the perspective and scores of both teachers and students. this model is built based on the preparation of questions from the learner and the answers from the teacher in order to immediately provide learners with the fastest answers during the class-based learning process, reverse learning (reyna, 2019). these materials will be provided to learners through the subject's lms, one learner-centered training method. the target audience for this subject is first-year students from many different majors, so the entry-level is not uniform. for this model, the identification of training subjects helps to research and evaluate more accurately, from which there are training methods and selection of appropriate technologies to include in the development of learning materials (rekhari, 2018). however, it should be emphasized that the communication between the teacher and the learner, the pedagogy, the approach, the planning, the development of the training route and the agreements of the two sides play a very important role in creating and motivating learners in the training process. simultaneously promoting the development of lectures with interactive videos, h5p is also important (sharp & sharp, 2017). the content management system (lcms) includes learning materials, reference materials, and teaching slides in the form of electronic files through attachments on lms, rich media and h5p. electronic lectures are published as web pages with rich content ranging from text, images, animations, videos, games, etc. it provides students with a whole new learning experience. lectures are published in the form of a website so that students can actively view the content anywhere, on any device (han, liyue, & cheng, 2017). in addition, the application of microsoft sway to the design of rich media supports teaching, helping teachers easily view evaluation reports on the content that students are interested in. the report helps determine what content needs to be developed to suit students' abilities and direction. h5p is an open-source authoring tool used to design interactive learning content for students and provides immediate results. it allows the acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 38 creation of content such as interactive videos, presentations, quizzes, games, and even interactive ebooks with great flexibility. method we continue to use the elearning system that has been implemented since phase 3, basically including learning management system (lms); content management system (lcms); real-time virtual classroom. for learning management system learning management system. the school is currently implementing lms moodle along with the online classroom organization platform (virtual classroom) ms teams, which is recommended by the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco) as one of the solutions for distance learning. for the virtual classroom system, the course uses ms teams which is built into the microsoft office 365 suite. currently, students and teachers throughout the school have been provided with this account, and this account has been synchronized with all school support websites. table 1. summary of models that are implemented through stages stage 1: 2017 2018, implementing e-learning level 2, learning materials are provided through https://hoctructuyen.vanlanguni.edu.vn/. at this stage, 100% of learning is still offline. stage 2: 2018 -2019, implementing e-learning level 3, with 80% of the learning is still offline while 20% is online. learning resources along with practice tests and discussions have been made available online. stage 3: 2019 – 2020, implementing e-learning level 4 with online time constitutes 50% 100%. flipped classroom model is implemented, and learning resources are getting more diverse. stage 4: 2021 – 2022, implementing e-learning level 4 with online time reaches 100% or online classes applying flcm. the comprehensive flcm is used widely, and learning activities have cohesion with each other, forcing students to pay attention during class and results are returned quickly to encourage students to finish the course. https://hoctructuyen.vanlanguni.edu.vn/ https://asiacall.info/acoj tran, t. y. n., & nguyen, t. n. m. vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 39 the flipped learning comprehensive model (flcm) the flcm method is implemented to support learners better, create cohesion between different content, and increase the engagement rate in learners. the model is developed based on the preparation of questions from the learners and answers from the lecturers to provide immediate student results. these learning resources will be provided through lms, and this system will be learner-centric. figure 1. implementation of e-learning with flipped classroom model (flcm) the research target for the course is first-year students. and adjustments to the implementation of lms, real-time classroom on ms teams and study methods before, during, and after class will be based on the survey at the beginning of the courses. with every result obtained, an appropriate adjustment will be made for each module chapter to suit the learning outcomes published in the course's detailed curriculum. figure 2. entrance survey results: students’ competency with ms office word, powerpoint, and excel, semester i 2021 2022 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 40 figure 3. survey results: ms office software that students need help with, semester i 2021 2022 appropriately identifying targets helps with research and evaluation. from that, picking the right methodology and technology is easier. however, it is worth emphasizing that the communication process between learners and lecturers, educational methodology, and planning is important to encourage students in the learning process. educational methodology the core of the flip classroom model is a positive learning experience and increasing the engagement rate of students. educational methods that facilitate positive student learning experiences are problem based learning pbl, learning by doing, project based learning pbl, and peer learning pl. the appropriate method is selected based on the content and nature of the course. for module 2 on basic usage of computers, the learning method is problem-solving through common problems when using computers. for module 5 presentation design, project based learning will be implemented, and students are given a choice to pick and design their own presentation along with a video. to implement the flip classroom model, lecturers have to equip learners with essential knowledge such as: what is the flip classroom model? what are the benefits? what are the learning activities? when persuading students about the benefits of this method, lecturers need to emphasize the soft skills that the students will gain as a result: learning digitally, independent problem-solver, and lifelong learning. https://asiacall.info/acoj tran, t. y. n., & nguyen, t. n. m. vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 41 table 2. comparison: different methods of learning and their levels of challenge based on bloom’s taxonomy planning if the activities before, during, and after the classroom are precise and cohesive, they will strictly follow the curriculum. implementing a 100% flip classroom model for offline and online classes reverses the order of the classroom and requires students to read notes and do their assignments before class. students can access their lecture slides on all digital devices and study easily. during class, students and lecturers can focus on a case study, research and discuss further content; with this model, the learning experience is spread out before, during, and after class. learning and education methods are diversified: lcms, textbooks, video, rich media ebooks, advanced materials, online discussions, and interactions between students and between students and lecturers. special attention must be devoted to interactive videos in this process. there must be no more than five units of content to be delivered in a video and the maximum time for each video is 15 minutes. it is important to consider whether online or offline learning is to be implemented and pick the appropriate videos. furthermore, videos need to have questions for learners to answer immediately after every lecture, as this helps improve students' learning experience. detailed learning plans must be announced on the website with clear instructions and steps to be taken before, during, and after class. the study plan is divided into three main activities: activity #1: at the beginning of the class, activity #2: detailed content (during class), and activity #3: evaluation (after class). rules the course focuses on the procedure and consistency of the learning process. it also takes advantage of the restrict access function of lms moodle to restrict access to certain content and require students to finish a certain course before moving on to the next. students are required to finish prerequisites. activities will be evaluated based on criteria designed by lecturers, such as submit/view date, group, grade, and student. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 42 communication in the e-learning model, especially with the flip classroom model, students' engagement rate and proactivity play a crucial role. therefore, it is important to have agreements and instructions at the beginning on how to use support materials and rules and regulations. there need to be adjustments, and time allocations for activities before, during, and after class. lecturers will monitor and adjust this study activity, and all resources will be published on e-learning. besides study guides, elearning will also have a detailed curriculum with specific learning outcome criteria, content and schedule for students. study goals for the whole course or just individual modules will be published according to the bloom chart (bloom, 1956). table 3. aims of the level of students' understanding per course based on bloom's taxonomy e-learning stage 4 2021 – 2022 figure 4. model of implementation of e-learning stage 4 2021 2022 https://asiacall.info/acoj tran, t. y. n., & nguyen, t. n. m. vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 43 model e-learning: − learning management system (lms) − learning content management system (lcms) − virtual classroom through microsoft teams (virtual classroom) in real-time − the announcement, forum to discuss (forum) − resources: study guide, books, lectures, interactive videos, videos, question banks, and exercises. − study support − flcm (the flipped learning comprehensive model) implementing lms and lcms phase 4 phase 4 is being implemented from 2021 2022 flcm (the flipped learning comprehensive model) is implemented in this phase. the online time will be 100%. at this stage, the old model is still kept intact along with classroom procedure and learning resources: study guide, books, lectures, interactive videos, videos, question banks, and exercises. however, during this phase, lms and lcms work together closely to create an interactive studying platform through restricted access content and interactive videos. the increasing responsive rate in students and convincing students to do online learning. the dashboard system also updates the function to display the amount and frequency of students subscribing to elearning and build a framework that predicts and detects absent students. to prepare for this stage, lecturers have undergone courses on managing the lms moodle, such as "learn moodle 3.11" by moodle.org and "transitioning from teaching offline to online" by auf. learning organization procedure figure 5. the flipped learning comprehensive model acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 44 learning management system uses lms moodle 3.9 with an updated user interface and function to improve user experience. the lms at this stage improves upon functions that have been implemented in phase 3: assignment, quiz, grade report, grate calculator, and attendance. the functions are also developed to help students manage and monitor their learning process easier. results general informatics course was implemented in e-learning in 2017 2018, 2018 2019, 2019 – 2020 (tran, nguyen, do, & nguyen, 2021). implementing e-learning from levels 1, 2, 3 and now at level 4 with online time reaches 100%. table 4. summary of the process of implementing e-learning 2017 – 2022 now, the course has finished developing its resources vault, study methodologies, and online learning evaluation process. along with digital transformation, many types are implemented too: traditional, mixed, and flip. besides that, we also actively research ways to improve the user experience and utilities of the website. the statistical survey at stage 4 interviewed 12144 students from stage 20212022. table 5. statistical data on students’ engagement and academic achievements during the implementation phases of e-learning https://asiacall.info/acoj tran, t. y. n., & nguyen, t. n. m. vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 45 the table survey has data on the view, submission rate, and completion rate of students from stage 4, the year 2021 2022, combined with four implementing phases of 4 school years. the submission rate mostly does not change compared to stage 3. however, the view rate increases by 73% per student and the completion rate still average at around 89%. this is the first step of our digital transformation process to support offline and online teaching. figure 6. visualisation of statistics of our e-learning course through the academic years from 2017 to 2022 during the implementation process, we continuously take data on the amount of student interaction in semester two compared with the amount of interaction in semester 1. after that, we evaluate the growth in student learning activities on the lms moodle. through the data table of views for each module on the elearning site, we can measure the growth in attracting students interested in each digital content provided . figure 7. interactive comparison chart between the 1st and 2nd semesters of the academic year 2021 -2022 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 46 in addition, the department is also very interested in the number of students participating in each module. we survey the percentage of students participating in the course who are interested in digital content. the collection of data on the number of students participating and completing the required content helps the teachers have a strategy to improve teaching activities in the following semesters. figure 8 graph comparing the number of students participating between the 1st and 2nd semesters of the academic year 2021 -2022 according to statistics, the number of students participating in learning modules in semester 2 reached an average of 97%, an increase of 60% compared to semester 1 in the same academic year, 2021-2022. we also continued to collect statistics on how long students spent doing academic activities over the two semesters. the unit is used to measure time in minutes. it is found that the student's learning time with training methods, content and organization of digital content in semester 2, the duration of student learning increased by 124% compared to that of learning. term 1 in the same academic year 2021-2022. figure 9. comparison chart of view growth and rate of students participating in interactive videos at hk2 in the 2nd semester, the review unit implemented interactive videos to get live scores. these videos allow students to do it as many times as they want. they will get points at the learner's last burst, https://asiacall.info/acoj tran, t. y. n., & nguyen, t. n. m. vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 47 which has attracted the number of students participating in completing the learning content with interactive videos at 2: module 2 and module 6. figure 10. number of students studying for modules 2 and module 6 in addition, we also measure the number of student interactions at each module using interactive videos and conventions for students to do an unlimited number of times and record the results at the student's final effort. realizing that it is effective in attracting students to study and practice more, specifically, in module 2, the number of interactions increases 12.55 times and module 6 increases 10.27 times per student participating in learning. . figure 11. statistical chart of the number of actively completing module 2 in the process of implementing the two modules using interactive videos, there is a difference between the teaching methods in both modules. specifically for module 2, this is a model of classroom organization with direct interaction with students during direct class. statistics are performed on all four interactive videos of the module. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 48 figure 12 statistical chart of the number of actively completing module content 6 module 6 is implemented through elearning sessions at the request of the school. initially, we recognize the active initiative of students in completing module 2 content better than students completing the content themselves. module 6. conclusion and recommendation during the research and implementation of the e-learning for general informatics process, we notice that different courses and industries will require different amounts of online time. based on the different needs for online time, lecturers can pick the appropriate teaching methods ranging from traditional classrooms with e-learning support in exercises, testing, communication, and advanced study activities to complete online or offline classes. regardless of methods, the most important factor remains in the cooperation between learners and teachers and requires both perspectives in planning, organizing, support, and evaluating. researching and implementing benjamin s. bloom's (bloom, 1956) levels of cognition in building curriculums, videos, interactive videos, lecture slides, rules, and question banks to aid students with learning. furthermore, adequate attention also must be paid to designing a user-friendly interface and creating study content: videos, interactive videos (h5p), rich media, question banks, and exercises. despite advantages and successes when implementing e-learning with the support of departments and policies of the headmaster of vanlang university, courses also face difficulty when students lack proactivity and engagement. this creates a lot of difficulties in planning, organizing, and teaching. there need to be extracurricular classes to equip students with online learning skills, research skills, and studying in college. there needs to be precision in identifying targets for education so that study methods and technologies can be selected accurately and appropriately. also, it is crucial to emphasize the communication between learners and teachers, study methods, approach, planning, building study roadmap and mutual agreements between students and lecturers. i sincerely thank van lang university for enabling us to implement the online teaching system. https://asiacall.info/acoj tran, t. y. n., & nguyen, t. n. m. vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 49 acknowledgments the author of this article acknowledged the support of van lang university at 69/68 dang thuy tram st. ward 13, binh thanh dist., ho chi minh city, vietnam. references bloom, b. (1956). taxonomy of educational objectives: the classification of educational goals. chung , k., & hwang, g.-j. (2018). how to advance our understanding of flipped learning: directions and a descriptive framework for future research. (pp. 441–454). knowledge management & e-learning. han, y., liyue , t., & cheng, w. (2017). design and implementation of mobile blended learning model based on wechat public platform. matec web of conferences, 100. doi:10.1051/matecconf/201710002020 hiroyuki, o. (2021). the integration of 21st century skill and virtual learning with covid-19. asiacall online journal, 22-27. retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/30 koohang, a., riley, l., & smith, t. (2009). elearning and constructivism: from theory to application. interdisciplinary journal of e-learning and learning objects. 5. georgia: journal of elearing and learning objects. oproiu, g. c. (2015). a study about using e-learning platform (moodle) in university teaching process. the 6th international conference edu world 2014 “education facing contemporary world issues", 180, 426-432. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.02.140 rekhari, s. &. (2018). h5p and innovation in anatomy and physiology teaching. research and development in higher education: [re] valuing higher education . 41, p. 266. houston: dale wache and don houston. reyna, j. (2019). surfing the open oceans of flipped learning: a comprehensive studentcentred model to implement flipped classrooms. society for information technology & teacher education international conference (site)at: las vegas. las vegas. sharp, j. h., & sharp, l. a. (2017). a comparison of student academic performance with traditional, online, and flipped instructional approaches in a c# programming course. journal of information technology education: innovations in practice, 215-231. doi:10.28945/3795 tran, n. y., nguyen, m. t., do, t. t., & nguyen, h. q. (2021). implementing elearning system for general information technology course at van lang university. asiacall online journal elearning mlearning technology computer-assisted language learning education language linguistics, 12(issn 1936 9859), 41-50. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 3; 2022 50 biodata tran thi yen nhi is a lecturer of the faculty of basic science at van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam. she teaches classes of basic computer, computer sciences and data sciences. she can be reached at her email: tty@vlu.edu.vn nguyen thu nguyet minh is also a lecturer of the faculty of basic science at van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam. she teaches classes of basic computer, computer sciences and data sciences. she can be reached at her email: minh.ntn@vlu.edu.vn mailto:nhi.tty@vlu.edu.vn mailto:minh.ntn@vlu.edu.vn citation asiacall online journal received: 15/07/2022 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 01/08/2022 vol. 13, no. 4, 2022 accepted: 06/08/2022 pp. 1-6 online: 09/08/2022 citation | lian, a. (2022). hidden impacts and stereotypes of technology in language learning? asiacall online journal, 13(4), 7-34. doi: https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221341 hidden impacts and stereotypes of technology in language learning 2nd presidential keynote address – 18th asiacall international conference andrew lian1* 1 suranaree university of technology, thailand 1 ho chi minh city open university, vietnam 1 university of canberra, australia *corresponding author’s email: andrew.lian@andrewlian.com * https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5812-3017 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221341 keywords: stereotype, language learning, technology, social networking this is a short reflective piece consisting of two parts. the first relates to the connection between society, technology and language learning and the second highlights a stereotype of the language teaching profession which is hidden and somewhat problematic especially in the context of technology use in language teaching. part one here, i will try to connect developments in society and the technological area with developments in the theory and practice of language learning at the level of mindset. these connections are often not visible. typically, when we think of developments in language learning we tend to think that they emerge from research and that it is research that guides progress. in so doing, we fail to recognize that researchers are embedded in the community in which they live, not only their professional community of practice. many of the developments that have occurred are just as much (if not more) a reflection of social expectancies as they are of theoretical developments in the fields of linguistics, applied linguistics, pedagogy, etc. those expectancies apply both implicit and explicit pressure to research to develop along certain lines. in other words, the personal culture in which each researcher is embedded, and its accompanying collective unconscious, will guide the way that researchers think and dictate, at least to some extent, the shape of research in the field. in one of the phd courses that i teach at suranaree university of technology students are meant to identify and critique the various issues purportedly influencing the field of english language studies. the very first trend that they identified was a trend toward technology. the primary emphasis on technology use as they saw it was in areas such as elearning, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, neural networks, deep learning, augmented reality, virtual reality and big data. of course, all of these are vitally important in the development of technology support for language learning but, when pressed, students had little idea of how technology would be of value. other areas identified included collaborative learning and, of course, trendy areas (but less original than we might think) such as translanguaging and english as a lingua franca (elf), https://asiacall.info/acoj https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221341 mailto:andrew.lian@andrewlian.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5812-3017 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221341 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 2 together with english medium instruction (emi), blended learning and flipped learning. while all of these trends can be seen as emerging from research in language education, this is not the only place where they exist. in fact, they are ubiquitous in society in general and are ingrained in the culture not only as a result of the widespread availability of technology but also, inter alia, as a result of social developments such as the social justice movement and related civil rights concerns e.g. elf or, to some extent, translanguaging. in a nutshell, developments in language education today are not only the result of research in language teaching and learning but also come out of the fact that modern society unconsciously expects research to produce certain kinds of structures. they are something of a natural extension of views and practises held in the collective unconscious of societies with access to modern technology. let me try to explain. in a study that i performed in 2011, and still relevant today, i identified eight features of educational life in the 21st century that are relevant to our conversation. they are largely technology-based and may well be partially responsible for the modern mindset. i will list them briefly (in slightly modified form). they are: 1. an unprecedented rate of change 2. an unprecedented richness of information 3. an understanding that the universe is interdisciplinary in nature 4. research is of central importance to all 5. a realization that knowledge-construction, perception and meaning-making are all individual and are key factors in building personal understandings 6. the power of social networking 7. the need for creativity and divergent thinking 8. more power to the students (lian, 2011) let’s take a look at three of these. an unprecedented rate of change this is clearly due to technology and this change has placed a great deal of pressure on humanity to change and change quickly. not everyone has been successful in this, but humans are good at adapting and, in general, are doing so successfully. we have now entered a “change” mindset. nothing is stable, and nothing lasts long, especially technical information. so, in the minds of many there is no point in learning “stuff” that will be out of date soon. it’s better to look it up when you need it. this has given rise to the so-called google effect (sparrow et al., 2011). the google effect states that there is no point in learning things in advance. you just need to know where to find the solution to a problem when you encounter it. it is not unlike the impact of the electronic calculator on maths classes decades ago: why learn your multiplication tables, when the calculator will do it for you? this attitude has given rise to a relatively new approach to the gathering of knowledge for the average person. we now tend to use a “just in time, just enough and just for me” (riel, 2000) approach to learning instead of a “just in case” approach where we are taught lots of potentially useful (but often useless) things just in case we need them one day. we are becoming more focused and more selective in what we invest our time and energy. an unprecedented richness of information while we are becoming more selective in our points of focus and interest, we also have much more to choose from than ever before. information is proliferating at an exponential rate, an https://asiacall.info/acoj andrew lian vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 3 outrageous rate, and much of it, particularly technical information, is becoming outdated equally fast. this means that information is unstable, and we need to become much more selective and critical in deciding what is valuable and what is not and what generic skills need to be developed. this proliferation of information has weakened the position of the subject matter expert and turned us all into de facto experts. well, perhaps not quite, but we feel much more in control of knowledge than ever before because we have more and better access to it and we can challenge or check the veracity of other people’s claims. this results in a democratisation of knowledge and emancipation, at least in principle, from the various social structures, including educational structures, which govern our lives. in other words, we are becoming more independent educationally as well as socially. and we are turning into researchers by virtue of the fact that we no longer depend, at least for many things, on the knowledge of others to succeed in our objectives. this is a form of freedom. freedom is another word for autonomy. those who have access to information are now able to develop an autonomous mindset. if we have a problem, then most of the time we solve it ourselves. it is much faster and more economical than relying on others to do it. this is a doit-yourself mentality (diy), another characteristic of 21st century life. but whatever you call it, it is very much a case of autonomy in action and not just for the few but for everybody. an automatic, but critically important, side-effect of autonomy in today’s world is personalization. because people are free to choose whatever they are interested in, whenever and wherever they are interested in it, the kind of information that they gather or the procedures that they learn are necessarily tailored to their perceptions of their needs. this is called personalization. an automatic, critically important, outcome of this is that people are becoming more sensitive to their personal needs and are now operating within what we might call a needs-based approach to the solution of their problems. they are looking for solutions to their problems as the need arises – and it is impossible to be entirely prepared for such needs as these are very often unpredicted and unpredictable. as a consequence, we have become accustomed to personalized solutions to our problems, we expect it in all aspects of life and this is consistent with modern educational approaches. in other words, people have acquired the power of education in their personal lives. they can now decide what, when, where, how and for how long they wish to study. in many ways, they are the masters of their own destinies, and this is no more visible than in the proliferation of massive open online courses (moocs), and the growth of nano learning, a phenomenon that reflects both an interest in education and the presentation and reinforcement of learning in small, bite-sized, manageable pieces that meet the “just in time, just enough and just for me” criteria. significantly, because we expect solutions to be personal, we also expect, either implicitly or explicitly, our education to be personalized too. it is an expectation that is built-in to modern society. social networking when we combine these developments with the huge growth of connectivity between people (social networks and the like), we now find ourselves caught in a galloping, somewhat out of control, development. in this context, collaboration is crucial for many reasons as solutions are often provided by other users including, perhaps, intellectual outliers who put forward new and unusual ideas. this is a critically important development that was simply not available when access to knowledge was possible only through the “approved” channels of the establishment press and other media. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 4 outlier impact is not as rare as we might think and is gaining in importance. for instance, we have had stunning examples of intellectual crowdsourcing such as the fold.it initiative, leading to what i call the growth of community intelligence. and remember that, most often, progress comes from the contributions of groups engaging in crazy actives such as the focus on the physical (fonph) work (cai et al., 2021; lian et al., 2020) in neuroscience which focuses on the importance of the physical quality of the auditory input used in language-learning (but as jack ma said: we are crazy, but we are not stupid). such craziness should be encouraged and initiatives such as this should help us to reduce the risk of stagnation and move the field forward. the resilience of dogma yet the power and embeddedness of conservative forces, what we might call the dogma of the field, cannot be discounted. the fear of change is deeply anchored in the human psyche and is always greeted with suspicion (often in the guise of caution) rather than embraced with hope. thus, the foundations for our modern educational language-learning systems and, indeed, our research are actually embedded, albeit hidden, in modern society and possibly even find their source in it. society expects these things to happen, it requires them to happen and, as a consequence, society itself very much acts as a catalyst for change, although it may do so unwittingly – with the profession often lagging behind. in a sense, we now find ourselves engaged in a battle between unconscious, modern, society-based, approaches to learning and education on the one hand and more conservative, dogmatic, conservative approaches often based on outdated research of the past. this brings me to the end of the first part of my presentation. part two i now briefly want to address an issue which has been bothering me for some time: a stereotype of technology enhanced language learning that is prevalent in the educational communities that we function in. this stereotype became glaringly obvious in the aftermath of the covid-19 pandemic. suddenly and with no significant notice, schools, universities and other educational organisations were required to move from a face-to-face mode of teaching to an online mode of teaching, often with little preparation and support. individual teachers were suddenly required to become experts in elearning and, of course, many did not do very well. however, many others did do well, and schools, universities and other educational organisations realised that online activities could be as valuable or even better than activities prior to the covid-19 crisis. yet, in the midst of this potential success teachers have been and in many cases are still faced with the reality that they are more or less alone in having to grapple with the challenges of technology enhanced language learning. regrettably, all of this remains somewhat invisible, rather hidden and embedded in the prevalent culture of what it means to be a teacher. teachers have been raised to be self-reliant. they are told that they are “in charge” of their classes, that they are the experts, that they are the masters of their own destinies. it’s up to them to “be teachers” and find solutions. that’s what they have been trained for. and teachers are generally proud of that role. but actually, underneath it all and despite a brave face, teachers are in trouble. they cannot do everything and are not all powerful. we are all limited in some way. consequently, we need to get away from the image of the solitary teacher bravely and selflessly facing the challenges of the profession alone or with one or two local colleagues to support them. administrators too need to change their understandings and be helpful rather than sending it all back to the teachers. teachers deserve to be given proper support. concomitantly, https://asiacall.info/acoj andrew lian vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 5 teachers’ attitudes need to change – in a sense become more humble and more realistic about what they can achieve alone. on a related note, the covid-19 crisis has surely generated countless good examples of technology-enhanced language-learning, yet they remain hidden, invisible, and beyond the reach of most. we have not crowdsourced online language education nor have we convinced public funding to invest in it. we still have no international tell centres, we still have no consortia delivering tell education and training in support of teachers. in fact, paradoxically, the number of formal tell programs around the world seems to be reducing rather than increasing. and yet, in reality, we are not alone. in fact, we are all in this together. i therefore urge you to join with like-minded people, maybe at this conference maybe elsewhere, to reduce the loneliness and the fatigue, to share the knowledge, the ideas, the research and, most of all, the enthusiasm to the benefit of us all. conclusion both points that i have made are related and we have all the tools for success. society is ready for progress in technology-related language education. it already contains the seeds for that success and in many ways is ahead of research. society is already telling researchers what matters and what does not matter, and researchers need to understand that (and be humble about it). they need to understand that they too are part of that society, that they too are part of the social developments that are occurring and that inevitably must impact on our learning and teaching practices. we need to transfer to our teaching the things that we practice in normal life. we are now facing an interesting challenge. it will not be a smooth ride, but groups such as asiacall offer hope for the future as they bring together people of good will. the asiacall18 international conference is one such opportunity. let’s make the most of it. references cai, x., lian, a.-p., puakpong, n., shi, y., chen, h., zen, y., ou, j., zheng, w., & mo, y. (2021). optimizing auditory input for foreign language learners through a verbotonal-based dichotic listening approach. asian-pacific journal of second and foreign language education, 6(14). lian, a.-p. (2011). reflections on language learning in the 21st century: the rhizome at work. rangsit journal of arts and sciences, 1(1), 3–15. http://www.rsu.ac.th/rjas/article.php?id=10 lian, a.-p., cai, x., chen, h., ou, j., & zheng, w. (2020). cerebral lateralization induced by dichotic listening to filtered and unfiltered stimuli: optimizing auditory input for foreign language learners. journal of critical reviews, 7, 4608-4625. https://dx.doi.org/10.31838/jcr.07.19.541 riel, m. (2000). education in the 21st century: just-in-time learning or learning communities in emirates center for strategic studies and research. in education and the arab world: challenges of the next millennium. (pp. 137–160). abu dhabi: emirates center for strategic studies and research. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 6 sparrow, b., liu, j., & wegner, d. m. (2011). google effects on memory: cognitive consequences of having information at our fingertips. science (new york, n.y.), 333(6043), 776–778. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1207745 biodata professor andrew p. lian is professor of foreign language studies, suranaree university of technology, thailand; ho chi minh city open university, vietnam; professor emeritus, university of canberra, australia; president of asiacall, the asia association of computerassisted language-learning, a research and professional association focusing on the uses of technology to enhance second/foreign language learning in asian contexts. previous to this appointment, he was professor and chair of the department of foreign languages and literatures at western illinois university in the united states. prior to that, he had been professor of humanities and director of the center for the study of languages at rice university, houston, tx, usa, and professor and head of the school of languages and international education at the university of canberra in australia. he has held further professorial appointments and been head of department in two other universities in australia (james cook university and bond university). citation asiacall online journal received: 30/04/2022 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 31/07/2022 vol. 13, no. 4, 2022 accepted: 01/08/2022 pp. 32-43 online: 10/08/2022 citation | ng, y. s., & ranti, a. t. (2022). the effects of ms powerpoint on students at a malaysian university in the english for professionals (efp) classrooms. asiacall online journal, 13(4), 32-43. doi: https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221343 the effects of ms powerpoint on students at a malaysian university in the english for professionals (efp) classrooms yim san ng 1*, abegunde theophilus ranti 1 1 universiti sains malaysia, malaysia * correspondence: yim san ng, universiti sains malaysia, malaysia. e-mail: ysng@usm.my * https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4178-5372 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221343 abstract the use of microsoft powerpoint (a form of multimedia) presentations in classroom instruction has significantly increased globally on both online and offline platforms. this study examines the perception of “english for professionals (efp)” students toward the usage of ms powerpoint in the classrooms for delivering lectures and the effects of ms powerpoint on students' learning. questionnaires were used to conduct a quantitative survey. descriptive analysis was used to analyze the results of this quantitative research. the results illustrate the students' positive attitude toward lectures presented with ms powerpoint slides. while the majority of the students were receptive, a significant percentage held an indifferent view. the implication is that while ms powerpoint is a dominant tool in teaching, there is a need to understand the factors behind the neutral reception, whether they are in the tool itself, the application by the educators, or the expertise of the educators in developing the slides. keywords: ms powerpoint, perceptions of students, students’ learning 1. introduction microsoft powerpoint has been an impressive presentation program used widely around the world. it is used in many organizations, such as in the business or education sectors, to stimulate discussions, meetings, talks, or lectures. ms powerpoint was created by robert gaskins and dennis austin in 1987 for macintosh computers only. microsoft acquired the powerpoint software for $14 million three months after it appeared (wikipedia. 2022. “microsoft powerpoint.” wikimedia foundation. last modified 26 june 2022). at first, powerpoint was created for business and commercial use; however, it quickly "penetrated the scientific area and education as well" (szabo & hastings, 2000, p.176). nevertheless, ms powerpoint can be interesting or boring depending on how the presenter uses it. 1.1 statement of the problem according to craig and amernic (2006), ms powerpoint had a profound effect on higher education as it changed much of how teachers engaged with students, and teachers should be aware of how this presentation software affects how teachers think about students. they further reiterated that it was important to review the effectiveness of powerpoint given its widespread and largely uncritical acceptance, particularly in higher education institutions. this raises the https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221343 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4178-5372 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221343 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 33 question of whether using ms powerpoint during lectures impacts the learning outcomes of university students in malaysia. based on internal records, about 95% of lectures in the “english for professionals (efp)” classrooms at a university in malaysia have been delivered using ms powerpoint. although powerpoint has been adopted as an educational tool for at least two decades, educators are still faithful users of this presentation tool. a lecturer's most important task in class is to make sure that new knowledge is effectively transferred to the students because knowledge transfer affects learning. for this reason, more research is necessary to study the effectiveness and productivity of ms powerpoint when used to support student learning. osman, mohd carried out a study. noor, rouyan, and hat (2022) concluded that powerpointproduced content could improve student comprehension in learning the arabic language. incidentally, fauzi and hanifah (2018) advised educators to take into account the powerpoint tool for enhancing teaching and learning when their study revealed that the teaching and learning process becomes more active when students use powerpoint presentations for speaking activities. rosmiati and siregar (2021) recommended that students use prezi and powerpoint presentations as interactive learning tools. the researchers mentioned above looked into student comprehension, students' active participation, and students interaction by means of powerpoint. this research aspires to explore another angle, which is the effects of powerpoint from the student's point of view and how this old-fashioned presentation tool affects their learning process. in short, this study sought to determine whether lectures presented through ms powerpoint successfully reached their intended audience. 1.2 objectives of the study to examine the perceptions of “english for professionals (efp)” students toward the usage of ms powerpoint for delivering lectures in their classroom. to examine the relationship between ms powerpoint usage among the “english for professionals (efp)” students and their learning. 1.3 significance of the study the results of this research were expected to provide benefits for various parties, such as researchers, academicians, school administrators, and organizations involved in imparting knowledge through teaching. additionally, the outcome of this study could effectively help educators improve their usage of ms powerpoint to facilitate the learning and teaching process. it could also give significant information to school administrators, academicians, and policymakers to detect any defects in the use of ms powerpoint by lecturers in the classroom, as well as to devise ways to enhance its use to optimize the objectives of learning effectively. https://asiacall.info/acoj yim san ng, abegunde theophilus ranti vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 34 2. literature review ms powerpoint is a complete presentation program that allows teachers to produce professional-looking presentations in the efl classroom (segundo and salazar, 2011). educators commonly use google slides, prezi, or microsoft powerpoint software in malaysian classrooms to present their lessons on big screens. ms powerpoint, which is used more often than other alternative presentations, has become a popular trend at every level of educational institutions. it is widely used at malaysian universities by lecturers to present their lectures. in her study on vietnamese students’ perspective on online microteaching, pham ngoc kim tuyen (2022) also suggested ms powerpoint as one of the useful tools to aid online learning. different studies have shown that technology-based teaching and learning in schools has become an important part of the malaysian education system as it has developed new ways to reinforce teaching and learning. furthermore, it enhances learning by providing a better understanding of the subject matter through powerpoint visuals, which may help increase student engagement. ozaslan and maden (2013) validated in their study that students learned better if materials were presented through some visual tools because powerpoint made the content more appealing, drawing the students' attention easily. not only is ms powerpoint professional-looking, as stated by segundo and salazar (2011), fatema (2014) found that using powerpoint presentations actually operated as a powerful pedagogical tool in english classes. in line with fatema (2014), yukiko and wang (2015) asserted that teaching with powerpoint, at its best, can get students’ attention, create a connection between the professor and students, and increase spontaneity and interactivity. zouar (2015) further supported the positive outcome of using powerpoint in classrooms as the vast majority of students who participated in a similar survey demonstrated that the use of powerpoint in the classroom was a source of excitement, motivation, learning, and attraction. consequently, zouar's survey attested to harrison’s (1999) report, which claimed ms powerpoint enhanced instruction and motivated students to learn. additionally, the multimodal learning theory (teaching concepts with multiple modes of application), evolving along with technology, blends well into powerpoint presentations to reinforce students' learning. girón-garcía and gargallo-camarillas (2020) observed that the digital learning environment addressed in their study titled "multimodal and perceptual learning styles: their effect on students' motivation in a digital environments,” seemed to promote students’ sensory preferences (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, and tactile), as well as their positive motivation. conversely, the results of hossein & abdus’s (2008) survey concluded that students who received powerpoint lecture notes perceived the instructor as less receptive to student concerns, did not use class time efficiently, and was less effective in teaching. moreover, kosslyn et al. (2012) cautioned that it is worth noting that presentation techniques designed to compensate for poorly designed slides (such as reading aloud slides with minuscule text) may sometimes backfire – causing the audience to lose interest and tune out. even more baffling, in the context of the 21st century, was a charge leveled by the french writer franck frommer in his book published in 2012, “how powerpoint makes you stupid.” this book examines how our culture has become more “efficient” and how language has become less human. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 35 2.1 research questions the survey was designed to answer the following research questions in order to meet the study's objectives: a. what are the perceptions of english for professionals (efp) students toward ms powerpoint usage by their lecturers in delivering lectures? b. to what extent do ms powerpoint presentations influence students’ learning processes? 3. methods 3.1 respondents the respondents were undergraduates enrolled in a malaysian university’s “english for professionals (efp)” program. students from the first to the third year of their studies made up the group. the research was open to all efp students. respondents were given a survey form designed by the researchers to complete with a five-point likert scale. only 157 people responded to the survey, despite the fact that 180 questionnaires were handed out. final-year (third-year) students had poor participation. the percentage of males and females who took part in the study was 27.4 percent and 72.6 percent, respectively, according to the demographics of the respondents. female participation in the efp program was higher than male participation based on the existing enrolment of the language school. it was also highlighted that more than half of the respondents were first-year students. the first, second, and final years' percentages were 52.2 percent, 33.1 percent, and 14.6 percent, respectively. the above statistical distributions are shown in the table below. the responses were tallied, computed, analyzed, and documented once the questionnaires were collected. table 1 frequency and percentage of gender distribution. gender frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent male 43 27.4 27.4 27.4 female 114 72.6 72.6 100.0 total 157 100.0 100.0 https://asiacall.info/acoj yim san ng, abegunde theophilus ranti vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 36 table 2. frequency and percentage of students based on year of study. 3.2 research design to collect data, the researchers used descriptive research and the survey approach. a questionnaire was the primary tool employed. the questionnaire's responses were kept anonymous so that respondents would be more receptive to answering the questions. the focus of the study was the respondents' perception of the usage of ms powerpoint to deliver lectures and the relationship between ms powerpoint and the respondents' learning process. the survey results were processed by computing each survey item using the spss software version 21.0 in order to complete the statistical analysis. following the analysis, the results and conclusions were derived. 3.3 research instrument the likert scale, an established rating system, was used in this study to measure respondents' perceptions or opinions. it was designed to allow respondents to remain impartial with the "neutral" scale instead of forcing them to select an option that does not align with their beliefs. any scale lacking a neutral option can skew results and call the reliability of survey data into doubt. this reliability rating system is suitable for deeper insight into people's thoughts and feelings. the questionnaire was formulated into three sections. the first section consisted of demographic data such as age, gender, and year of studies at the university. section 2 examined respondents' perceptions of lecturers' use of ms powerpoint presentations in the classroom, while section 3 examined the impact of ms powerpoint on learning. the 5-point likert scales used to interpret the constructs were 1= strongly disagree, 2= disagree, 3= neutral, 4= agree, and 5= strongly agree. the data was presented in the form of a cumulative percentage (%). 3.4 results/ findings students' perception of the use of ms powerpoint the table below shows the perception of “english for professionals (efp)” undergraduates on the use of ms powerpoint in delivering lectures in the classrooms. table 3 shows the frequency distribution of the students’ responses regarding their perception of the use of ms powerpoint by lecturers in their various classes. year of study frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid year 1 82 52.2 52.2 52.2 year 2 52 33.1 33.1 85.4 year 3 23 14.6 14.6 100.0 total 157 100.0 100.0 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 37 table 3 the frequency and percentage of the student's perception. table 3 above shows that more than half of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed that ms powerpoint was enjoyable, but 33.5% chose a neutral stand. more than three-quarters of the respondents said that ms powerpoint presentations were easy to follow. a high number of the respondents were neutral or unsure whether ms powerpoint was interesting. nevertheless, the majority of the respondents still agreed or strongly agreed with this. a total of 45.6% of the survey participants were neutral, while 47.5% agreed or strongly agreed that the ms powerpoint presentation held their attention. around 40% of the respondents disputed or strongly disagreed that ms powerpoint was boring, while 43.7% were neutral. in the statement on whether ms powerpoint required extensive notetaking, 41.8%, were neutral, about 30% either disagreed or strongly disagreed, and about 28% agreed or strongly agreed. the table further shows that a majority (about 70%) of the respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed that they would prefer the lecturers to teach without ms powerpoint. more than 60% agreed or strongly agreed that ms powerpoint presentations were more beneficial for english language learners. students’ learning process via ms powerpoint table 4 below presents the frequency distribution and the percentage of students' responses on whether the use of ms powerpoint facilitates learning. students’ perception on ms powerpoint strongly disagree freq. (%) disagree freq. (%) neutral freq. (%) agree freq. (%) strongly agree freq. (%) 1. ms powerpoint is enjoyable 1 (0.6%) 5 (3.2%) 53 (33.5%) 72 (45.6%) 26 (16.5%) 2. ms powerpoint presentation is easy to follow 1 (0.6%) 3 (1.9%) 20 (12.7%) 92 (58.2%) 41 (25.9%) 3. ms powerpoint presentation is interesting 1 (0.6%) 6 (3.8%) 57 (36.1%) 68 (43%) 25 (15.8%) 4. ms powerpoint presentation holds attention 1 (0.6%) 9 (5.7%) 72 (45.6%) 57 (36.1%) 18 (11.4%) 5. ms powerpoint presentation is boring 14 (8.9%) 48(30.4%) 69 (43.7%) 22 (13.9%) 4 (2.5%) 6. ms powerpoint presentation requires extensive notetaking 7 (4.4%) 41 (25.9%) 66 (41.8%) 41 (25.9%) 2 (1.3%) 7. i prefer the lecturers without powerpoint presentation. 55 (34.8%) 55 (34.8%) 38 (24.1%) 9 (5.7%) 0 (0%) 8. ms powerpoint presentation is more beneficial for english learners 3 (1.9%) 13 (8.2%) 45 (28.5%) 73 (46.2%) 23 (14.6%) https://asiacall.info/acoj yim san ng, abegunde theophilus ranti vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 38 table 4 students’ learning process via ms powerpoint learning process via ms powerpoint strongly disagree freq. (%) disagree freq. (%) neutral freq. (%) agree freq. (%) strongly agree freq. (%) 1. ms powerpoint presentation stimulates my thinking. 3 (1.9%) 13 (8.2%) 64 (40.5%) 64 (40.5%) 13 (8.2%) 2. ms powerpoint presentation makes me take better notes during lectures. 1 (0.6%) 5 (3.2%) 25(15.8%) 98 (62%) 28 (17.7%) 3. notes from ms powerpoint presentations help me to study and review for course exams. 1 (0.6%) 1 (0.6%) 11 (6.9%) 85 (54.6%) 59 (37.3%) 4. ms powerpoint helps me grasp the lecture points easily. 2 (1.3%) 39 (24.7%) 84 (53.2%) 32 (20.3%) 5. ms powerpoint helps memory retention of the lecture (long term memory). 1 (0.6%) 11 (7%) 47 (29.7%) 78 (49.4%) 20 (12.7%) 6. i was less motivated to attend class when ms powerpoint were used during lectures 32 (20.3%) 61 (38.6%) 48 (30.4%) 15 (9.5%) 1 (0.6%) 7. ms powerpoint slides help me emphasize key points during lectures. 1 (0.6%) 1 (0.6%) 11 (6.9%) 85 (53.8%) 59 (37.3%) 8. i have a positive attitude towards ms powerpoint presentations. 1 (0.6%) 3 (1.9%) 34 (21.8%) 93 (59.6%) 24 (15.4%) the percentage of respondents who chose neutral and agreed that ms powerpoint presentations stimulate thinking were the same at 40.5% each. the percentages of the respondents who disagreed and strongly agreed were also the same at 8.2% each. as many as 62% of the respondents admitted that ms powerpoint presentations allowed them to take better notes during lectures. over 90% of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed that notes from ms powerpoint presentations helped them study and revise for exams. 83.5% agreed or strongly agreed that ms powerpoint helped them grasp the lecture easily. more than half of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed that ms powerpoint helped memory retention, whereas 29.7% were neutral. when ms powerpoint was utilized during lectures, more than half of the respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed that they were less motivated to attend class. over 90% agreed or strongly agreed that ms powerpoint slides helped to emphasize key points during lectures. 59.6% agreed, 15.4% strongly agreed, 21.8% neutral, and 2.5% disagreed or strongly disagreed that ms powerpoint had a positive effect on them. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 39 4. discussion 4.1 students’ perception the findings are organized according to the study's objectives. one of the purposes of the study was to reflect on the perception of efp students over ms powerpoint usage by lecturers for delivering a lecture in classrooms. based on the findings, efp students agreed that ms powerpoint presentations were enjoyable, easy to follow, interesting, and beneficial for english learners. however, the efp students were unsure if the ms powerpoint presentations held their attention in the classroom, whether it was boring, and if the ms powerpoint required extensive notetaking. the results further reveal that efp students strongly disagreed that they would prefer the lecturers to teach without an ms powerpoint presentation. in accord with the findings of this study, ms powerpoint presentations stimulated the interest of efp students and subsequently eased their learning process. in the same direction, with regards to pedagogical usage, manju’s (2012) findings verified that the objective of ms powerpoint presentation should be engaging and help students comprehend and provoke thoughts. the efp students' satisfaction level was high with lectures delivered with the aid of powerpoint. nouri's (2005) research affirmed this pattern of students' perception, which found that powerpoint presentations could improve students' attitudes towards instructors and their teaching. nonetheless, this study does not correlate completely with yukiko and wang's (2015) findings on getting students' attention, as 45.6% of the efp students expressed uncertainty when asked whether powerpoint holds students' attention. 4.2 students’ learning the results indicate that powerpoint presentations helped students learn better. the data analysis illustrates that the efp students agreed that ms powerpoint presentation stimulated their thinking, allowed them to take notes better during lectures, helped them to study and review course exams, helped them to grasp lectures easily, and helped with memory retention from lectures (long term memory), and assisted in emphasizing key points during lectures. it also showed that they had an optimistic outlook on the employment of ms powerpoint. the efp students disagreed that they were less motivated to attend classes when ms powerpoint was used during lectures. in fact, the use of ms powerpoint actually increased the students' motivation. this finding supported the study of anime, bebachaiba and guemide (2012), in which their survey had proven that using technology in class could be a highly motivating factor for students. sadoudi (2016) further pointed out that ms powerpoint contributed to making efl lectures more engaging, interactive, and motivating. in parallel to this study, ibrahim (2018) explained that students instructed with powerpoint presentations outperformed their peers who were taught using conventional instruments such as blackboards and chalk. most efp students also discovered that the use of ms powerpoint helped them learn better, which is consistent with ozaslan and maden's research (2013). likewise, this study correlates with girón-garcía and gargallo-camarillas’s (2021) findings on positive motivation in the digital environment. https://asiacall.info/acoj yim san ng, abegunde theophilus ranti vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 40 4.3 implications in general, students' capacity to absorb lessons that enhance learning is frequently reflected in good classroom instruction. despite the fact that powerpoint is an age-old presentation program, lecturers have continued to depend heavily on it in the english for professionals classrooms, yet students are still able to support a fairly satisfactory learning process. the following are the study's implications: while the majority of students have a positive perception of ms powerpoint presentations, it is noted that a significant percentage of the students hold neutral views on their usage. the reasons are not clear from this survey and may need further research to understand the issues raised by this group. this research has some gaps. for example, the percentage of respondents giving neutral responses to the following statements is high: “ms powerpoint is interesting” (36.1%), "ms powerpoint holds attention" (45.6%), and "ms powerpoint is boring" (43.7%). although the percentage of respondents who have a negative perception of ms powerpoint is not high, finding out the reasons for the neutral responses would help in understanding the issues involved with a view to further improvements. on the learning process of students, only a small group of respondents indicate that ms powerpoint does not help students' learning process. it would be useful to find out whether any particular reason affects this group. there is a need to address the group where ms powerpoint use is not significantly helpful in the learning process, as 29.7% of the respondents selected “neutral” with regards to helping with memory retention, as well as 30.4% also ticked “neutral” on ms powerpoint helping with motivation to attend classes. understanding the underlying causes of the neutral or negative responses is important, whether they are related to the technology itself, how it was used by the educators or their skill in creating the presentations. the findings imply that lecturers could continue using ms powerpoint to supplement teaching and make headway in further making improvements to their powerpoint slides, in addition to looking for ways to improve by understanding the issues highlighted above. 5. conclusion according to the findings, efp students felt that powerpoint presentations were effective in the english proficiency classes. the students were willing to use ms powerpoint presentations and preferred lectures in powerpoint. the findings of this study could serve as a springboard for additional investigation. powerpoint, as the name implies, is certainly an effective device to support learning and teaching. whether one agrees that slide software is a tool for conveying information in a clear and engaging manner or sees that even thoughtful use cannot avoid an inexorable cognitive style that oversimplifies material and fosters passivity, it is impossible to deny that it has had transformative repercussions for education (hill, arford, lubitow, & smollin, 2012). the effect of using ms powerpoint can be further explored using both quantitative and qualitative techniques whereby the researcher can divide students into experimental and control groups with the help of an interview. the analysis of students' gender and the lecturers' perceptions could also provide useful information to the research. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 41 5.1 scope and limitations this study was conducted among the “english for professionals (efp)” students at a malaysian university. the scope of this study covered the efp students' perception of the use of ms powerpoint by their lecturers in the classroom and the effects of ms powerpoint on the student learning process. the respondents were the “english for professionals” students from the first year to the final year (third year). as this is only a pilot study, the samples were limited to only the efp students. a larger sample size that includes undergraduates from more degree courses could have generated more accurate results. in addition, there was a low participation rate of the final (third) year students in the survey questionnaire, which might have resulted in inaccurate or disproportionate data. references anime, b. m., benachaiba, c., & guemide, b. (2012). using multimedia to motivate students in efl classrooms: a case study of english master’s students at jijel university, algeria. malaysian journal of distance education, 14(2), 63-81. craig, r., & amernic, j.h. (2003). powerpoint presentation technology and the dynamics of teaching. innov high educ (2006) 31: 147–160. springer. retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10755-006-9017-5 fatema, sl (2014). the impact of using powerpoint on students’ learning and motivation in secondary schools. procedia social and behavioral sciences, 98, 1672 – 1677 retrieved from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/82348198.pdf girón-garcía, c., & gargallo-camarillas, n. (2020). multimodal and perceptual learning styles: their effect on students’ motivation in a digital environment. the eurocall review, 28(2), 23-38. https://doi.org/10.4995/eurocall.2020.12758 retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1288572.pdf hill, a., arford, t., lubitow, a., & smollin, l. (2012). “i’m ambivalent about it”: the dilemmas of powerpoint. the new press harrison, a. (1999). power up! stimulating your students with powerpoint. learning and leading with technology, 26(4), 6 – 9. hossein, n. (2008). the effects of powerpoint lecture notes on student performance and attitudes. retrieved from https://www.aejournal.com/ojs/index.php/aej/article/download/99/69 ibrahim, r. (2018). the effect of using powerpoint presentations in academic achievement of social and national studies in the fifth grade students at-risk for learning disabilities. international journal of research, 6(3), 191-202. retrieved from http://oaji.net/articles/2017/1330-1524376263.pdf jamieson, s. (2017, 27 september). likert scale. encyclopedia britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/likert-scale https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10755-006-9017-5 https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/82348198.pdf https://doi.org/10.4995/eurocall.2020.12758 https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1288572.pdf https://www.aejournal.com/ojs/index.php/aej/article/download/99/69 http://oaji.net/articles/2017/1330-1524376263.pdf https://www.britannica.com/topic/likert-scale https://asiacall.info/acoj yim san ng, abegunde theophilus ranti vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 42 kosslyn, s.m., kievit, r. a., russell, a. g., & shephard, j.m. ( 2012). powerpoint presentation flaws and failures: a psychological analysis. frontiers in psychology journal. retrieved from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00230/full manju, mp (2012). powerpoint use in teaching. retrieved from http://www.cs.iit.edu/~cs561/spring2012/powerpoint/chenq.pdf microsoft powerpoint. (2022). retrieved 26 june, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/microsoft_powerpoint pham, n. k. t. (2022). vietnamese students’ perspectives on online micro-teaching (omt) as a technique in english teacher education in the 4.0 era. asiacall online journal, 13(1), 40-72. retrieved from http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.003 ozaslan, e.n., & maden, z. (2013). the use of powerpoint presentations at the department of foreign language education at middle east technical university. middle eastern & african journal of educational research, issue 2(1), 38-45. sadoudi, y. (2013). the effects of using powerpoint presentations, during lectures, on efl students' motivation and attitudes: case study: master 1 al & elt university of bejaia (doctoral dissertation, university of bejaia). retrieved from http://www.univbejaia.dz/dspace/bitstream/handle/123456789/5707/the%20effects%20of%20using%20 powerpoint%20presentations%2c%20during%20lectures%2c%20on%20efl%20stud ents%27%20motivation%20and%20attitudes.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y segundo, e. & salazar, d. (2011). the efficacy of using power point presentations to improve grammar and vocabulary learning among students of the intermediate ii level (regular program) of el cultural centro peruano americano in trujillo, peru. repositorio institucional, pirhuauniversided de piura szabo, a., & hastings, n. (2000). using it in the undergraduate classroom: should we replace the blackboard with powerpoint? computers & education, 35 (3) 175-187. pergamon. thorne, s., & may, s. (2017). language, education and technology. (3rd ed.). springer yukiko i-s., & wang s. (2016). college-based case studies in using powerpoint effectively. cogent education journal, vol.3, 2016issue 1. retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2331186x.2015.1127745 zouar, a. (2015). exploring students' perceptions of using powerpoint in enhancing their active participation in the efl classroom action research study. journal of literature, languages and linguistics. issn2422-8435, vol. 5, 2015. biodata yim san ng is an english language teacher. she has taught for 33 years at various levels in the malaysian primary schools, secondary schools and university. she holds a ba in english http://community.frontiersin.org/people/stephenkosslyn/39708 http://www.frontiersin.org/community/whoswhoactivity.aspx?sname=rogierkievit&uid=32901 http://www.frontiersin.org/community/whoswhoactivity.aspx?sname=jennifershephard&uid=46625 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00230/full http://www.cs.iit.edu/~cs561/spring2012/powerpoint/chenq.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/microsoft_powerpoint http://eoi.citefactor.org/10.11251/acoj.13.01.003 http://www.univ-bejaia.dz/dspace/bitstream/handle/123456789/5707/the%20effects%20of%20using%20powerpoint%20presentations%2c%20during%20lectures%2c%20on%20efl%20students%27%20motivation%20and%20attitudes.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y http://www.univ-bejaia.dz/dspace/bitstream/handle/123456789/5707/the%20effects%20of%20using%20powerpoint%20presentations%2c%20during%20lectures%2c%20on%20efl%20students%27%20motivation%20and%20attitudes.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y http://www.univ-bejaia.dz/dspace/bitstream/handle/123456789/5707/the%20effects%20of%20using%20powerpoint%20presentations%2c%20during%20lectures%2c%20on%20efl%20students%27%20motivation%20and%20attitudes.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y http://www.univ-bejaia.dz/dspace/bitstream/handle/123456789/5707/the%20effects%20of%20using%20powerpoint%20presentations%2c%20during%20lectures%2c%20on%20efl%20students%27%20motivation%20and%20attitudes.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2331186x.2015.1127745 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 43 language and literature studies and an ma in linguistics and english language. her research interests are learner autonomy and blended learning. abegunde theophilus ranti is a student at universiti sains malaysia pursuing the english for professionals degree. he holds a bsc. in computer science from the university of ado ekiti. he is also a web designer. his area of interest includes applied linguistics. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, phuttharaksa yantraprakorn, pornapit darasawang, & pamararat wiriyakarun the attributes of successful distance language learners phuttharaksa yantraprakorn pornapit darasawang pamararat wiriyakarun king mongkut's university of technology thonburi, thailand aj_put@hotmail.com abstract with the popularity of distance learning in the form of online learning throughout thai education today, understanding the attributes of successful online learners has become very crucial because it can help course developers to prepare materials and help for learners. this study focuses on the attributes of learners who study language in a distance learning mode by aiming to investigate learners’ attributes that may assist them to learn successfully in a web-based distance writing setting. the study was conducted with distance learners who enrolled in an online english language writing course at one of the well-known english language tutorial schools in bangkok. the research instruments included an online survey questionnaire (self-efficacy scale) and telephone interviews. the questionnaire was used to determine the learners’ entry-level confidence with necessary writing skills and computer skills for online learning in order to predict their success and select the highly self-efficacious learners as the subjects for more in-depth study. a content-analysis of interview data revealed unique characteristics that are possessed by the online language learners and how they dealt with the tasks. keywords: online learners attributes, self-efficacy, distance language learning introduction thai education nowadays uses online technologies to support teaching and learning. the technologies are being developed continuously to assist or supplant traditional classrooms. due to the demand of students to learn more at their own time and pace, many institutions offer distance education. the institutions use various technologies to provide online learning courses. those courses offer students educational opportunities and the flexibility of when and where they access their courses. consequently, the students are able to study their selected learning courses at home. thus, this learning mode is widely used in many disciplines including english language learning. however, when engaging in distance learning, learners may encounter many problems with learning online. learning a language in an online environment, the students must not only learn difficult course material but also the technology skills needed to participate in the class. they might feel less confident about enrolling and learning in online classes, especially at secondary school levels. moreover, it is hard for online language learners who study productive skills especially writing skills because the skills are difficult to do through self-study and they also need feedback. as a result, the learners may find learning by this mode very difficult and are likely to drop out, especially for the ones who are used to total dependence on a teacher (hurd, 2000). therefore, more motivation and skills support are essential for learners to learn in a distance language learning environment effectively. self-efficacy self-efficacy is defined as self-assessment of ability to do a task or achieve a goal over a specific situation (bandura, 1977). it is a crucial component of social cognitive theory and it determines how learners feel, think, motivate, and behave. self-efficacy is assumed that there are four sources of students’ self-efficacy: mastery experience, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological arousal. self-efficacy is mailto:aj_put@hotmail.com asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, phuttharaksa yantraprakorn, pornapit darasawang, & pamararat wiriyakarun important in learning because it affects academic motivation and learning achievement (shunk, 1995; pajares, 1996). in the field of language learning, mills, pajares, and herron (2007) showed the significance of self-efficacy especially with writing skills. they pointed out that learners’ selfefficacy beliefs powerfully affect their academic performance. it also helps learners adjust to and handle well an unfamiliar learning environment (alivernini & lucidi, 2011). the self-efficacy construct is new relative to online learning context. studies in distance learning show that self-efficacy in important to contribute to the success of the learners. artino and stephen (2007) found that when comparing higher with lower perceived self-efficacy, self-efficacious learners reported less negative success emotions and greater learning performance (joo, bong,& choi, 2000; wang & newlin, 2002). therefore, learners’ self-efficacy beliefs might be important for the distance language learning context. more studies need to be conducted to investigate distance language learners’ self-efficacy as well as it influences the learners’ attributes. attributes of distance language learners previously, many educators studied learners’ attributes in the distance learning environment and found that learning in this mode requires proper qualities and learning styles (buchanan, 1999). they were also interested in investigating factors influencing learners’ success and they found motivation was the best predictor of learners’ achievement in language learning in a distance learning context (oxford, park-oh, ito & sumrall, 1993). educators also found that accompanying the rise of the number of students using distance learning is the subsequent increase in students who stop learning before completion. they indicated that the dropout rates of online learners are high (the corporate university xchange 2000; oblender 2002; meister 2002). these studies indicated that students taking online courses tend to drop out from those courses. additionally, the percentage of distance students’ dropout is higher than those of students who study in the classroom learning mode (hiltz, 1997). the student should be prepared before and while taking an online course. a high dropout rate may possibly imply that online learning is not appropriate for all learners. it is demanding and challenging for students in ways different from what students face in the traditional classroom. the learners have to take full responsibility for their own learning in an online learning environment where teachers are at a distance and their support is limited. to be a successful online language learner, the learners need to possess a variety of skills and attributes in order to find success in the online courses. the learners who are familiar with classroom settings need support to help them achieve their learning goals. for that reason, understanding the attributes of successful online learners has become very crucial because it can help course developers and instructors to prepare materials and help for online learners. in this study, six individual attributes of distance language learner are posited. the distinctive attributes are: goals, attributions, resilience, self-confidence, strategies, and persistence.  goal is a desired education result that learners want to accomplish while doing distance learning.  attribution refers to the reasons that the learners give for their successes or failures while they are engaging in distance language learning or tasks.  resilience is defined as the ability to stay positive and effective in difficult or challenging learning situations and feel positive about online learning.  self-confidence is seen as a realistic belief of achieving success in a distance learning situation.  strategy includes the particular behaviors or thought processes that learners use to accomplish their distance language learning. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, phuttharaksa yantraprakorn, pornapit darasawang, & pamararat wiriyakarun  persistence is when the learners continue to learn until they complete the distance language learning course. the six posited attributes stated are considered because of their significance as well as their influence on learners who take control of their learning in a distance language learning environment. this study has been conducted to examine the unique attributes that are possessed by successful online language learners and how they perform their writing tasks. this study is qualitative in nature as telephone interviews were employed to collect data to answer the research question: what are the successful distance language learners’ attributes? context of the study the study was carried out at a popular english language tutorial school in thailand. the selected learning course was a writing course. the course used the internet and a variety of web-based technologies to provide a distance language learning environment. the course is a self-paced online course. it is taught entirely online and provided for students who want to voluntarily learn writing outside of their regular school. the students had to manage their own learning in terms of time and place to study, and select the tasks they wanted to do in order to complete the 6-month course from june to december 2012.the main objective of the course was to instruct students to acquire proper writing and formatting skills to enhance effective communication. sentence structure, paragraph structure, essay format, grammar and punctuation were reviewed in the course. there were 9 tasks and 2 tests to be completed, and the students had to decide when they would complete them. they could complete all the tasks or skip some tasks. to complete the tasks, students were assigned various types of essays to write using language functions learned from the material provided. in this course, the instructors give learners feedback to follow up on students’ efforts and performance. they provided feedback on students’ work in the form of correction symbols and written commentary. subjects of the study the subjects for this study were learners who enrolled in the writing course. they were selected based on the result of the self-efficacy questionnaire. the questionnaire was used to determine the learners’ entrylevel of confidence in necessary writing skills and computer skills for online learning in order to predict their success and select the high level confident learners as subjects for more in-depth study. there were 114 students who responded to the online survey on their self-efficacy to study at a distance learning course. then, 6 subjects representing highly efficacious learners who believed they could finish the course within the expected time were purposefully selected. the six subjects were asked to suggest a pseudonym for themselves that the researchers could use. they are jim, pam, ann, bell, june, and kim. after that, they were interviewed via telephone about their learning in the course. instrumentation in this study, semi-structured telephone interviews were used for data collection. the purpose of the interviews was to investigate students’ attributes and how they dealt with the online writing tasks. the students were interviewed at the beginning, during, and the end of the course. at the beginning of the study, the students were interviewed in order to elicit students’ learning goal and study plan, such as “what are your goals for the future? what goals do you have in learning this course? how do you plan to achieve those goals?” during the course, the interviews were conducted and then analyzed to find out students’ attributes in terms of self-confidence, resilience, and strategies, for example “what major challenges and problems did you face in learning this course? how did you handle them?” at the end of the course, the subjects were asked to answer questions about their learning persistence and attributions, such as “did you accomplish your learning goal or succeed? why do you think you were successful? asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, phuttharaksa yantraprakorn, pornapit darasawang, & pamararat wiriyakarun what were the possible causes of your success?” all the interviews were conducted in thai. each lasted around twenty minutes. they were recorded and transcribed afterwards. result and discussion based on the data, when evaluated by the questionnaire responses before learning, the six subjects showed a high level of self-efficacy ( x = 2.41-4.00). it means they believed that they could be successful in completing the course. at the end of the course, the students who completed the writing course within the time provided by the course were regarded as successful learners. among the six chosen participants, jim, ann, june, and kim were successful whereas pam and bell were unsuccessful students because they dropped out in the middle of the course. therefore, it is obvious that all six students in this study reported that they were highly efficacious learners; however, while engaging in the online learning mode, some students were not able to learn successfully because they needed some attributes. the main findings of this study highlight the importance of six attributes for successful distance language learners. these attributes consist of goals, attributions, resilience, self-confidence, strategies, and persistence. it is important to emphasize that all four successful students possess each one of the success attributes. each of these attributes is discussed in the following sections. extracts from participants’ interviews are used to help explain each attribute. goals goal setting is a powerful process for distance language learning, and for motivating the learners to learn by themselves. there are two types of goals: performance and learning (locke & latham, 2002). they are different in that performance goals focus on how well the students perform the tasks at a particular time whereas learning goals focus on how well they eventually learn or master the materials regardless of how long it may take. goals affect a student’s choice and effort. in this study, the successful learners set more learning goals which focused on the discovery of effective strategies to attain and sustain expected results, while the unsuccessful learners set only performance goals which focused on the end result. jim, who was a successful learner, set a long-term performance goal, which provided direction and meaning to his learning. his goal was studying abroad and he said, “my goal is studying abroad. to achieve this goal, i need to have some certificates as ielts.” the goal affected his choice because he made careful decisions about the lesson to study. consequently, he set short-term learning goals by identifying what he wanted to learn that was relevant to his long-term goal. he stated, “i will study making a report this week because it is similar to the academic ielts test writing task 1.” the finding also shows that a goal affects a student’s effort because the successful learners developed a plan to counter expected learning problems such as internet and server delays in order to achieve their goals. while successful distance language learners set learning goals, the unsuccessful ones set performance goals to pass the course and to get high scores to prove that they have writing ability. pam set short-term performance goals and she expressed “my goal in learning writing online is to get the best score and get a certificate from the school.” she did not plan out her study, so she followed the course outline. based on the data, goal-setting affected the learners’ choice on what to focus on, i.e. which lessons are goal relevant and which are not. while successful distance language learners set both types of goals to gain knowledge and develop writing skills, the unsuccessful ones set only performance goals to get the highest scores. therefore, it might have had a negative impact on their performance because they could not finish the course. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, phuttharaksa yantraprakorn, pornapit darasawang, & pamararat wiriyakarun attributions the perceptions of success or failure from previous learning experiences can motivate or demotivate students to perform upcoming tasks. these beliefs play a major role in distance language learning motivation as they determine the amount of effort students will expend on learning activities. the most commonly inferred causes of success and failure are ability, effort, luck and task difficulty (weiner, 1992; 1994). among these causes, ability and effort have been identified as the most influential perceived causes (dörnyei, 2003). in this study, successful learners’ attributions are not the same as those of unsuccessful learners. the successful distance language learners attributed their success to internal factors, their own efforts, while unsuccessful learners attributed failure to ability. ann, a successful learner, believes effort is the key to her success. she says “i succeeded and completed the course on time because i studied hard enough. i did all exercises and assignments. it made me pass the tests. i always spend my time on reading texts, watching videos and practicing writing. if i do not study hard, i will never be good at writing.” in contrast, students consider themselves as unsuccessful online language learners because they did not complete the course. they blamed themselves for their lack of english ability as the cause of failure more than anything else. bell was regard as an unsuccessful learner and had done poorly on writing assignments, and attributed the bad scores to an inability to learn writing. she expressed “i knew myself that i would probably not succeed because i did not understand the course content clearly. i am not able to study writing and do assignments well. i am also weak in english grammar and writing.” ability is a stable, uncontrollable factor. therefore, those who attribute their failure to their ability are expected to be unsuccessful in the future because they cannot change their ability to do a task. according to the data, successful distance language learners perceived that they put enough effort to the course. they put their english writing knowledge into practice. the results suggest that effort is a sign for improvement because the students attribute their success to effort which is an internal, controllable and changeable attribute. the perception of effort as a cause of success implies that the students realize that they will be successful if they try harder and it is possible to expect future success (weiner, 1994). therefore, blaming their inability for their failure may cause students to give up or drop out. this perception seems to be critical for their distance language learning. resilience to be successful in studying online writing by themselves, the learners may experience various difficulties and resilience is a key to help them succeed. resilience can be defined as behaviors which people use when faced with stresses or setbacks, life events, and external commitments (kemp, 2002). resilience is not one specific thing, but a combination of skills and positive views that the students gain from their online learning experiences. in this study, successful students demonstrated great resilience because they tolerated problems. as pam explained, “at first i had problems in submitting the course assignments … as i got used to the computer program and the course website, i felt that i could be a much more competent distance learner.” with that competence, she says, “i became an online learner and i know how to learn.” they also had the ability to bounce back from failures. after repeated failures, they were able to see and pursue alternative strategies for reaching their goals, and know when a goal had to be modified. ann states, “i have failed many times at the beginning of the course, but i am not a failure. i have learned to succeed from my failures.” furthermore, by the end of the course, these students demonstrated that they had developed skills in troubleshooting their own problems. as kim reflected, “i learn a lot about how to solve learning problems …now, i’m just comfortable with my mistakes and i think difficult situations are necessary for learning.” in contrast, pam, who is regarded as an unsuccessful learner, did not show resilience in her learning; she avoided learning and gave up quickly when difficulties arose as seen from her extract “for me the major asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, phuttharaksa yantraprakorn, pornapit darasawang, & pamararat wiriyakarun challenge was to organize myself because it was the first time i was taking course online. all of my lessons and tasks online was a mess, and with a little bit of language ability, i decided to stop learning.” in the middle of the course, unsuccessful students believed that essay writing was impossible for them, and that whatever they wrote would get a bad score because they lacked and could never develop the ability to write. in this study, successful students showed great resilience to work through difficult situations with selfconfidence. the data reveals that resilience helps the students solve problems, cope with challenges and bounce back from disappointments. it means that successful students learn from their hardships. the successful students demonstrated an optimistic attitude and a mindset that was open to distance language learning. conversely, the unsuccessful students had feelings of failure, and incapability reinforced through their online learning experiences. thus, they could not cope with learning problems and could not complete the course. self-confidence how distance language learners feel about themselves is a crucial issue in achieving learning goals in this mode. self-confidence is an attitude which allows a learner to have a positive attitude and realistic views of himself and his own learning. a self-confident online language learner has a high belief in herself. having self-confidence, the learners will be able to achieve their goals, take advantage of opportunities that come their way, and also have the strength to overcome any obstacle. in this study, successful learners were more confident than unsuccessful ones. kim, a successful learner, had high self-confidence to complete this course. she says, “i have the confidence in learning myself and study until i finish the course.” she used the support provided in the program to maintain her confidence in learning, “i had more self-confidence because i could do the all the task by myself. when i made mistakes i can check my own work with the answer keys.” she used the feedback as a way to develop her self-confidence. “i could learn and solve my problems i faced by myself without the teacher’s help all the time. learning online help me to gain a high level of self-confidence on my learning and gave me more real experience of studying writing outside class.” on the other hand, while engaging in the online independent learning mode, some students were not able to do it because their confidence level decreased. bell confessed that she was not confident to do the task, “i am not confident that i will do as well on this task as i would like.” she also added that “i cannot send my task on time as i planned because i had a lot of works in my normal class. i had to take some time to do my other works.” and, “i cannot complete my tasks because it was nearly the time i had to take the examination. i had to prepare myself for the school examination.” furthermore, “i am not sure i can do well on this task, no matter how much i practice.” based on the data, bell did not have self-regulated strategies, and she couldn’t maintain self-confidence. in this study, the data revealed that learners’ confidence in their capabilities had affected their success in the online course. the successful learners trusted themselves to study, and complete the task and the course. they also could maintain their confidence level all throughout the course by using the learning environment provided effectively. as pintrich and degroot (1990) stated, in addition to being able to learn by themselves, self-regulated or successful students are able to learn from peers, and seek help and support from peers and instructors. strategies online courses delivered through the web require students to be responsible for their own learning. the students have to decide how and when learning takes place in order to achieve their goals. in other words, they need learning strategies to help them become more effective and independent learners. in this study, strategy refers to the particular behaviors or thought processes that students use to develop their distance asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, phuttharaksa yantraprakorn, pornapit darasawang, & pamararat wiriyakarun language learning. successful learners are able to implement multiple learning strategies across tasks and adjust those strategies as needed to facilitate their progress towards their desired goals (paris & paris, 2001). in this study, both successful and unsuccessful students reported that they employed many classroom learning strategies to learn and accomplish online writing tasks such as note taking, making charts, and using dictionaries to understand the lessons, but the successful learners used a variety of self-regulated learning strategies to control their own learning in order to achieve their goals, for instance, they used organizing and transforming information strategies to compose their assignments. kim and june reported that they composed and edited their essays off-line and then cut and pasted them into the course website to submit their tasks. they always used strategies such as structuring the learning environment by setting up quiet areas in their homes for learning. to enhance her online learning environment, kim used music to sustain attention to read and relax while writing her essay and jim searched for a fast computer and internet connection. they also used social assistance seeking strategies to complete their course assignments. jim, ann, and kim sought help to clarify expectations on assignments and get feedback on writing drafts. all successful students reported that they asked friends and distance learning institute staff for help on technical problems. moreover, they used self-monitoring and record-keeping strategies to monitor their leaning progress and evaluate their own learning and strategies for adapting future methods based on what they had learned. ann reported that “i used my calendar application on my smartphone for creating my personal calendar to see my progress for learning this course.” in contrast, unsuccessful students mentioned more memory strategies; however, those could not assist them to learn successfully. for example, they just searched for bolded words and memorized their definitions, because they thought this strategy worked well the last time. they had to answer questions when they read the course materials in their regular class but it did not help them to complete their works in this learning context. bell also added that “i had to write assignment this week. i couldn’t organize it at all. i couldn’t get any organization flow going. i kept jumping from point to point. so i got frustrated with it.” then, she tended to stop writing. this study showed that successful students were active in their learning process. they used different learning strategies that were systematically directed towards the achievement of their learning goals. they also use strategies to manage other sources of learning such as adaptation of certain aspects of the physical environment and the organization of time to learn so that they could become most efficient, and did their work carefully. in contrast, the data revealed that even though unsuccessful learners tried to transfer learned strategy that worked well in a classroom context to distance learning, they failed. this strategy needed to be evaluated before using it in the new context. persistence in general, the broad definition of persistence in online learning is students staying in a course for as long as they can to engage in self–directed study (comings, parella, & soricone, 1999). for this study, persistence is essential in terms of intensity and the ability to complete tasks required and the course successfully. the findings of this study exhibited that successful and unsuccessful learners persisted differently in two main aspects of persistence. the first persistence aspect included instructional hours. the successful learners spent between 6 to 15 hours studying (watching and reviewing videos, completing course assignments, and reading threaded discussions) each week. in contrast, unsuccessful learners reported spending approximately 4 hours to study. for another aspect, intention to study, successful learners continued learning the course until they reached their goals. they worked daily on the course, and completed the course assignments based on their own goals. they stayed asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, phuttharaksa yantraprakorn, pornapit darasawang, & pamararat wiriyakarun long enough to complete the course and also took the mid-term and final tests. they completed all assignments and did well. thus, they were successful in completing the course. by the end of the course, all successful learners said they experienced success in this learning environment and they would consider taking another web-based course, while unsuccessful learners decided to drop out in the middle of the course. the findings show that the successful learners had more persistence because they completed course requirements in an appropriate time and spent more time engaging in distance language learning. conclusion and recommendations the purpose of this study was to investigate learners’ attributes that may assist them to learn successfully in a web-based distance writing setting. a successful learner in this study was defined as a student who completed course requirements in a timely manner. this qualitative study revealed some attribution differences between successful and unsuccessful learners even though they were identified as highly efficacious learners prior to actual learning. the successful learners set better learning goals, especially self-regulated learning strategies, attributed their success to effort, had more self-confidence for learning by themselves, and exerted more resilience and persistence. based on the finding of this study, some major recommendations can be offered for distance language course developers and instructors to incorporate support in an online language learning environment in several ways. firstly, the instructor should help learners set goals which focus more on mastering tasks and less on performance or scores because unsuccessful learners, according to this study, cannot set effective goals. they set only performance goals that might demotivate them when they cannot achieve the goals. the instructor should provide explicit and clear instructions regarding the objectives that can be learnt with each task, so the learners can establish each as a goal. secondly, the data reveals that unsuccessful learners thought that their failures were because of lack of ability, their efficacies were lower after learning for some time, and they did not attempt to do the future tasks and complete the course. thus, instructors should provide learners with feedback linking learning result with effort because this attribution is under the learner's control that can help them develop self-efficacy beliefs and enhance performance. finally, this study found that the learning strategies that the unsuccessful learners possessed and employed in their learning were not sufficient for them to learn by themselves and deal with the writing tasks because they did not have any online language learning experiences. this might have led to the decrease in their resilience. therefore, online learners need to be supported and trained in necessary learning strategies for successfully engaging in an online learning context. the online learners can be trained in these learning strategies before learning by asking them to identify their learning goals, and then plan how to complete the tasks and the course. they may be provided tools and feedback to monitor goal progress and evaluate their learning strategies used, learning results, and what they have learnt. the teacher may give them informative feedback to help them see their errors and learn how to correct them when returning their work. moreover, the findings from this research study also suggest that instructors should be aware of learner confidence. if instructors want to help learners have more learning success, they should pay attention to confidence as well as competence. the instructors may give learners psychological support and encouragement to facilitate successful results of their efforts. in doing this, it would help learners to maintain and have more self-confidence for learning languages by themselves, and utilize more resilience and persistence. the results of this study may have benefits for distance language instructors, as well as learners. both of these groups will gain information regarding learners' self-efficacy, and how it influences the learners’ asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, phuttharaksa yantraprakorn, pornapit darasawang, & pamararat wiriyakarun attributes may allow the instructors to instruct or train in a way that will accommodate those attributes, and enable them to design and implement better teaching. for the learners, the findings may help students to better understand crucial attributes that assist them to learn, especially by themselves, in a distance language learning context. references alivernini, f., and f. lucidi. (2011). relationship between social context, self-efficacy, motivation, academic achievement, and intention to drop out of high school: a longitudinal study. the journal of educational research, 104, 241-252. artino, a. r., & stephens, j. m. (2006). learning online: motivated to self-regulation? academic exchange quarterly, 10(4), 176-182. bandura, a. (1977). social learning theory. new york: general learning press. buchanan, e. a. (1999). assessment of measures: pre-tests for successful distance teaching and learning. online journal of distance learning administration, 2(4). comings, j., parrella, a., & soricone, l. (1999). persistence among adult basic education students in preged classes. ncsall reports #12. the national center for the study of adult learning and literacy. cambridge, ma: harvard graduate school of education. corporate university xchange (2000). learning in the dot.com world: e-learners speak out. new york, ny: corporate university xchange. dörnyei z. (2003). attitudes orientations and motivation in language learning: advances in theory research and application. language learning, 53, 3-32. hiltz, s. r. (1997). impacts of college-level courses via asynchronous learning networks: some preliminary results. journal of asynchronous learning networks, 1(2), 1–19. hurd, s. (2000). distance language learners and learner support: beliefs, difficulties and use of strategies. links and letters 7: autonomy in second language learning, 61-80 joo, y., bong, m., & choi, h. (2000). self-efficacy for self-regulated learning, academic self-efficacy, and internet self-efficacy in web-based instruction. educational technology research and development, 48(2), 5-17. kemp, w. c. (2002). persistence of adult learners in distance education. the american journal of distance education, 16(2), 65-81. locke, e.a., & latham, g.p. (2002). building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: a 35-year odyssey. american psychologist, 57, 705–717. meister, j. (2002). pillars of e-learning success. new york, ny: corporate university xchange. mills, n., pajares, f., & herron, c. (2007). self-efficacy of college intermediate french students: relation to achievement and motivation. language learning, 57(3), 417-442. oblender, t. (2002). a hybrid course model: one solution to the high online drop-out rate. learning and leading with technology, 29 (6), 42–46. oxford, re., park-oh, y. , ito, s., & sumrall, m. (1993). factors affecting achievement in a satellitedelivered japanese language program. the american journal of distance education, (7), 1. pajares, f. (1996). self-efficacy beliefs in achievement settings. review of educational research, 66, 543-578 paris, s. g., & paris, a. h. (2001). classroom applications of research on self-regulated learning. educational psychologist, 36, 89-91. pintrich, p.r. & de groot e. (1990). motivational and self-regulated learning components of classroom academic performance. journal of educational psychology, 82(1), 33-50. schunk, d. h. (1995). self-efficacy and education and instruction. in j. e. maddux (ed.), self-efficacy, adaptation, and adjustment: theory, research, and application (pp. 281-303). new york: plenum press. wang, a. y., & newlin, m. h. (2000). characteristics of students who enroll and succeed in psychology web-based classes. journal of educational psychology, 92 (1), 137-143. weiner b. (1992). human motivation: metaphors, theories, and research. london: sage research. weiner b. (1994). integrating social and personal theories of achievement striving. review of educational research, 64(4), 557-573. citation asiacall online journal received: 23/06/2022 issn 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj revision: 01/08/2022 vol. 13, no. 4, 2022 accepted: 06/08/2022 pp. 55-79 online: 06/09/2022 citation | vidal, m. p. (2022). effectiveness of multimedia and text-based reading approaches to grade 10 students’ reading comprehension skills. asiacall online journal, 13(4), 55-79. doi: https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221345 effectiveness of multimedia and text-based reading approaches to grade 10 students’ reading comprehension skills malyn pahuyo vidal 1 department of education, philippines * corresponding author’s email: malyn.vidal@deped.gov.ph * https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3908-9490 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221345 abstract reading comprehension skill is essential for learners to achieve a certain standard level. it is multifaceted that it connects to all other skills like writing, listening, and speaking. thus, the interconnectedness of reading and comprehension encapsulates the students’ overall reading abilities. the core of this study was to find out whether multimedia and text-based reading approaches are effective in improving grade 10 students’ reading comprehension skills. the participants were 132 grade 10 students in a public school in misamis oriental. sixty-six (66) students were exposed to multimedia reading (experimental group) and sixty-six (66) students in text-based reading (control group). the study yielded the following findings: (1) reading comprehension skills of both groups increased gradually in all reading comprehension components as revealed in the post-test data reflected in the overall mean; (2) there is a significant difference in all reading comprehension components identifying vocabulary, sequencing events, identifying main idea and key details, and making inferences; in the overall skills of both groups with the post-test having higher means; (3) both groups revealed a significant difference in the overall result increment. this study further claims that multimedia and text-based reading approaches contribute to the enhancement of the participants’ reading comprehension skills. for the suggestion, having a variety of techniques to teach reading will be quite beneficial to improve students’ reading comprehension skills, especially in this time of pandemic where alternative delivery modalities had been implemented. keywords: reading comprehension skill, multimedia reading, text-based reading introduction distance education is a type of education in which teachers and students are physically separated during instruction and various technologies are used to enable student-teacher and student-student communication. it is popular currently because of the pandemic, which makes face-to-face classes impossible. it has used a variety of methods to ensure learning continuity. students can thus continue their education in remote settings using online/offline platforms and other varied modalities. it has been defined as a cutting-edge means of simultaneously delivering instruction to students in multiple locations. with this "new normal" in education, various alternatives have emerged to prepare the way for implementing recognized learning modes. however, there are still many students who are having academic difficulties in school. these students may not be eligible for advancement or may not be able to achieve mastery. as a result, even if promoted, students will continue to struggle in class to cope with their academic abilities and complete their academic responsibilities. according to the international evaluation of educational achievement's recent release in december 2020, where they conducted a comparative assessment of student’s achievements, https://asiacall.info/acoj https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221345 mailto:malyn.vidal@deped.gov.ph https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3908-9490 https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221345 https://asiacall.info/acoj malyn pahuyo vidal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 56 filipino students lagged compared to students in other countries in reading, mathematics, and science, with a reading comprehension rating of 340 points, "significantly lower" than the average 487 points from other countries. reading was the main subject assessed and compared to all participating nations, and the philippines scored below the average in mathematics, science, and reading. also, in december 2019, the philippines scored the lowest in reading comprehension among 79 participating nations in the 2018 programme for international student assessment (pisa). among all pisa-participating countries and economies, the philippines had a high proportion of low performers. that means that 80% of filipino students did not meet the minimal reading competence requirement. the students' poor english, mathematics, and science performance can be attributed to a lack of essential reading and comprehension skills. as a result, the department of education (deped) has created the hamon: bawat bata bumabasa (3bs initiatives) to increase reading advocacy and commit to making every learner a reader at his or her grade level. reading comprehension is a challenging process for filipino students who have poor overall performance in reading. since then, reading comprehension has been described as "one of the most challenging aspects of reading." the most extensively used of the four language skills is reading comprehension. the researcher discovered that the identified school used in the study has difficulty conducting the brigada pagbasa assessment; difficulty in terms of how to implement the reading session due to pandemic challenge. so, a high number of students with frustration levels in their reading comprehension skills was revealed during the reading assessment. in fact, during the implementation of brigada pagbasa, the researcher conducted a reading assessment and realized that there was a need for intervention. because of this, it enlightens the researcher to address the problem with the student's reading comprehension skills and to identify components that may affect student performances, particularly in their reading comprehension skills. considering the challenges in the teaching and learning process, the basic education learning continuity plan (be-lcp) was designed in compliance with deped order no.012 s.2020 to address the issue of students' low reading comprehension. in addition, it assures that learners access learning opportunities safely and securely through multiple learning modalities. furthermore, as mandated by ra 9155, which mandates safeguarding and promoting the right to access to quality education, the be-lcp emphasizes learning through diverse learning delivery modalities, preserving students' and instructors' safety, and implementing several innovations and approaches and programs (deped). furthermore, kintsch (2012) describes reading comprehension as the process of acquiring and constructing meaning. it is influenced by various factors, including reading styles and methodologies. the numerous reading methods and procedures that center around distinct theories, i.e., traditional reading theories, cognitive and metacognitive perspectives, are vital to address reading comprehension skills (kintsch, 2012, 1998, van dijk and perfetti 2013 cited kintsch (1983). the impact of multimedia and text-based reading approaches on students' reading comprehension skills is explored, including its reading styles, methodologies, and procedures. the identification of reading theories, and the techniques used in text-based reading approaches has yet to be defined as to whether or not they are genuinely beneficial; the same can be said about the multimedia reading approach. as a result, it is critical to determine whether multimedia or textbased reading approaches is helpful in improving students' reading comprehension skills. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 57 the relevance of this topic in the development of this study stems from the developing problem of today’s literacy crisis, namely, poor reading comprehension performance. it would somehow show the ability of the student to increase their reading comprehension skills in some way. this research study aimed to help school administrators, language department, language teachers and students to build consciousness on the recurring reading comprehension problem. furthermore, this study would show whether or not students might improve their reading performance using various reading approaches, such as multimedia and text-based reading approaches. statement of the problem this quasi-experimental study sought to explore the effectiveness of multimedia and text-based approaches in improving the reading comprehension skills of grade ten junior high school students of a public school in misamis oriental, the school year 2021-2022. specifically, it sought to answer the following: first, what is the participants’ level of reading comprehension skills before and after the interventions in terms of: 1.1 identifying vocabulary; 1.2 sequencing events; 1.3 identifying the main idea and key details; and 1.4 making inferences or predictions. second, how do the participants in each group differ in their reading comprehension skills rating before and after the interventions? and lastly, is there a significant difference in the reading comprehension rating increments of the two groups? theoretical/ conceptual framework this study claims that multimedia and text-based reading methods benefit students' reading comprehension skills. both approaches are advantageous to the alternative delivery modality in this pandemic, where various modality was used because face-to-face reading assessment is still not viable. as assumed in this study, one of the approaches to developing the reading comprehension skills is the multimedia reading approach. tran (2013) cited fenrich 1997defines that multimedia is the exciting combination of computer hardware and software that allows for integrating video, animation, audio, graphics, and testing resources to create effective presentations on a low-cost desktop computer. it is anchored on mayer and moreno's (1999) cognitive theory of multimedia learning which states that deeper learning could occur when information is presented in both text and graphics than by text alone. this theory proposes three main assumptions when it comes to learning with multimedia; the first is information processing which includes dual channels (auditory/verbal and visual/pictorial processing) sometimes referred to as dual-coding theory); the second is that each channel has a limited (finite) capacity (similar to sweller's notion of cognitive load) where information leads to one of three different types of processing in the brain. the third is learning is an active process of filtering, selecting, organizing, and integrating information based on prior knowledge (mayer, 2014). also, the principles of multimedia learning, particularly the redundancy principle, states that "people learn better from graphics and narration than some graphics, narration, and printed text" (wiley education, 2021). it suggests that multimedia messages are most effective when learners encounter just words and graphics. it also employs the modality principle which postulates that "people learn more deeply from pictures and spoken words than from pictures and printed words." finally, this study utilizes the multimedia principle which states that “people learn better from words and pictures than from words alone." this notion has been backed by mayer (2008) as cited in sandoval (2016) which regarded multimedia learning as learning from pictures in dynamic or static forms, and words can be written or spoken. using multimedia like pictures, text, sound, and video in one place delivers multimedia instructions. in addition, the elements of multimedia utilized by samat and aziz (2020) are audio, picture, and video. further, teachers can use multimedia to combine text, graphics, animation, and https://asiacall.info/acoj malyn pahuyo vidal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 58 other materials into one package to offer comprehensive information to their students to meet course objectives. multimedia allows for the interactive, animated demonstration of complex processes and the natural and intuitive interconnection of instructional content with other related topics (crosby & stelovsky, 1995 cited in yamauchi, 2008). this research study is anchored in the utilized multimedia tools of samat and aziz (2020) such as links, videos, pictures, text, sound, and online applications crafted and designed by the teacher in an online environment before delivering multimedia reading instructions to students. furthermore, the research and theory in multimedia learning focus on how people learn from words and pictures in computer-based environments. more so, identifying the multimedia environments that include online instructional presentations, interactive lessons, e-courses, simulation games, virtual reality, and computer-supported, in-class presentations (mayer, 2005). another approach assumed in this study to develop the reading comprehension skills is the textbased reading approach. it is anchored on text-based instructional strategies utilized in textbased reading that rely on written directions and information rather than visual or other instructions (boyd, 2021). furthermore, boyd (2021) stated that text-based learning entails teaching reading by basing lessons in a variety of texts. in text-based learning, there are two levels of instruction that can occur. first, it engages the student's ability to discover differences and similarities, as well as mastering the approach to understanding different types of texts and their content (text-based cited by boyd 2021); and second, learning occurs through the interaction of texts with text-based learning of content. print-based materials demonstrated improved comprehension skills in terms of metacognitive learning (jeong, 2012). in addition, reading the texts available to students hinges on the idea that when teachers make the meaning of a text, they can better support students (a text-based approach to planning close reading). although students could recall the basic ideas regardless of text type, similarly, singer and alexander (2016) discovered that when reading print, they were better able to recall critical aspects related to the core idea and other pertinent concepts. the nature of text-based reading in its printed texts have always played an important part in education. it makes text reading easier; they have traditionally been an important part of education. the beginning and end of a written text can be traced back to the beginning and end. a printed text is tangible material with a beginning and an end. it is also hierarchical, designed for personal reading, and gives the reader a linear and static reading experience. in a printed text material, "the reader has little choice but to follow the authors' storyline or explanatory structure. the reader can rearrange what they read by flipping between pages when reading printed information intended to be read sequentially (nur asima sidabutar et al., 2022). since the pandemic, all public schools have implemented alternative delivery modalities; thus, printed texts have been used to support learning. moreover, this reading approach is known to be a linear process by which readers decode a text word by word, linking the words into phrases and sentences. the emphasis on reading as a wordrecognition response to the printed words. in other words, textual comprehension involves adding the meanings of words to get the meanings of clauses (anderson, 2018) the reading approach takes several processes from identifying the purpose of reading, its form or type of text to the general features of the text locating the topic sentence, supporting details acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 59 conclusion purpose, making predictions then finally, attempting to form summary, conclusion inference of what was read (pardede, 2008). according to nsw education, in reading, students can read silently with comprehension and independently with text-based material, allowing students to read conveniently. as a result, the text-based reading approach and the theories mentioned earlier, and perspectives provide this research study with a framework for composing the reading materials to be used. unlike multimedia, where numerous multimedia techniques will be used, the material is explicitly written in words and printed for students to read and answer. as anchored in the study of garcia, rigo & jimenez (2017), they concluded that a text-based reading approach alone does not improve the student's ability to succeed, same to say with a multimedia reading approach alone. therefore, this study seeks to investigate the approaches and the ability to succeed in answering reading comprehension questions. reading comprehension is considered the dependent variable in the study. kintsch (2012), as cited in samiel and ebadi 2021, mentioned reading comprehension as the process of acquiring and constructing meaning from written text. it is a dynamic process between the recognition of words and concepts. in addition, cetin 2018 cited that reading is a complex process that consists of different operations in the brain, such as seeing, understanding, vocalization, comprehension, and construction. therefore, it requires a high-level cognitive process (perfettu & stafura, 2014) cited by (rochmiyati et al., 2021). they are supported by rites 2013 defined reading comprehension as a multi-component, complex process that involves interactions between the reader and text. the student's reading comprehension is the ability to process text, understand its meaning, and integrate it with what the reader already knows. students' performance on reading comprehension is most strongly related to the components of reading comprehension (perfetti, 1985 cited by mcnamara et al., 2014) as the department of education (2019) highlights the components of reading comprehension in the implementation of reading activities such as identifying the main idea and key details, sequencing events, answering questions, making inferences or predictions, and identifying vocabulary (rites 2013; iris center, ascend learning center 2019; honig et al. 2013 cited in reading naturally 2021) moreover, there are various effective methods of assessing reading comprehension according to signal 2020, like creating journals, portfolios, reading logs, checklists, multiple-choice questions, recall protocols and summaries, vocabulary tests, and question and answer. hence, this research study targets effective methods in assessing students reading comprehension through various methods like question and answer, vocabulary tests, and multiple-choice questions. language is the most common form of oral and written communication (deped, 2016); this research focuses on component 3: making meaning via language, which attempts to increase students' reading comprehension. some reading comprehension components to aim include identifying the main idea and key details, sequencing events, making inferences or predictions, and identifying unfamiliar vocabulary (deped, 2016; deped 3bs initiative 2019; rites 2013; ascend, 2019; iris center 2021; honig et al. 2013 cited in reading naturally 2021). further, reading is a commonly used activity in the educational process. it is a difficult task (crawley & mountai, 1995). hence, reading comprehension is a reading activity that tries to provide information. https://asiacall.info/acoj malyn pahuyo vidal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 60 further, the process of understanding the author's thoughts or messages is known as reading comprehension (may & rizzardi, 2002). reading comprehension also entails connecting one concept to another. a critical reader will connect to see if a term in the text is difficult to interpret when used in sentences and paragraphs. reading is a complex cognitive activity and a complicated process (perfetti & stafura, 2014). in addition, the source of knowledge, cognitive processes, and intelligence are all factors in reading comprehension (the development of personal-cooperative model in building the reading comprehension skills 2021). one of the reading comprehension components is vocabulary development, which is the act of learning new words to use in everyday life as a foundation for language learning. it also helps activate and create background information to connect with the text, and vocabulary knowledge can improve reading comprehension (weiser, 2013). furthermore, knowing the definition of a term indicates the possibility of being able to read and interpret it in context. there is a constant need to expand the stock of vocabulary that can be comprehended and used in context. word meanings account for 70 percent to 90 percent of "vocabulary development" as a consequence of comprehension and as a precursor of comprehension (bromley, 2007 cited in tomas et al., 2021). additionally, youngsters can quickly add them to their word bank. this method of indirect vocabulary learning is incredibly successful for children who have already been exposed to a large and diverse vocabulary before starting school. the explicit teaching of vocabulary is vital for those children who have a restricted vocabulary and limited access to vocabulary resources (beck & mckeown, 2007 cited in tomas et al., 2021). according to honig et al. 2013 cited in the read naturally 2021 page on essential components of reading, the development of vocabulary is linked to comprehension. therefore, it is easier to understand the material if the reader has a vast vocabulary. the national reading panel of the national institute of child health and human development recognized three critical factors that supported the development of reading comprehension skills: vocabulary instruction, active reading, and strategy instruction preparation (national institute of child health and human development 2004 cited in bintz 2011). next, the reading comprehension component is sequencing events in reading, which is essential in developing students' reading comprehension skills. a well-sequenced text provides order, flow, and context to the reader. it puts together text structure to better understand it and develop reading comprehension skills. the order in which events happen helps students gain a clear understanding of what they are reading (mac donnchaidh, 2021; gouldthorp, 2018; kittelstad n.d; carrie n.d; reading rockets n.d; storyboard) another key concept being expressed, or the central theme, is the most important information about the concepts. in understanding the idea of reading material, identifying the main idea is the gist of the larger conceptual framework of a reading text. at the same time, the details support the main idea. the text's main idea can be comprehensible to students through the help of supporting details. (cuesta college 2021; columbia college 2021; slideshare 2014, venzon et.al 2010, stevens & vaughn 2019, literacy ideas 2021, vener 2002; readnaturally 2021). houston community college highlighted in their tsi assessment preparation that the sentence's main idea makes the central point about the topic or subject of a paragraph (fleming 2014, 2011). acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 61 furthermore, sangiacomo (2021) cited that the main idea of a passage and its supporting details helped improve reading comprehension skills. he pointed out that in reading, identifying the text's main idea better understanding the overall point. furthermore, recognizing the supporting details meant to describe or expand the concept leads to identifying its main idea. moreover, making inferences is essential in assessing reading comprehension skills; it is about something that is not explicitly stated in the text; students must learn to draw on prior knowledge and recognize clues in the text itself; while predicting something about the text, they are about to read (readnaturally 2021, literacyideas n.d; teachervision staff n.d; squarespace n.d; jones n.d). finally, inference skills require higher-order thinking skills that help students become aware of what the text is all about (marzano, 2010, cited in readingrockets, 2021). in addition, inferring or predicting more often brings students a greater chance of being right, and supporting with various diagrams, charts, symbols, and drawings through graphic organizers boosts students reading comprehension skills (oczkus n.d; jones n.d). therefore, the comprehension strategy draws readers to read between the lines, make connections, and draw a conclusion about the texts' meaning and purpose (lumen learning n.d). in addition, building a mental representation of the text and integrating new information helps readers comprehend the text better (reed 2019, mac donnchaidh 2021). in this study, the researcher utilizes the results of the pre-test and post-test given to the participants through a reading comprehension test from multimedia and text-based group. with the theories mentioned above and the concepts presented, the researcher argued that when teachers utilize multimedia reading and text-based reading approaches have a significant effect on students' understanding of reading materials and improve reading comprehension skills. related literature and studies reading comprehension as defined by kintsch, 2012 cited in the study of samiel and ebadi 2021 is the act of acquiring and creating meaning from written text. it is a dynamic process in which words and concepts are recognized. according to cetin (2018), reading is a complex process involving multiple brain functions such as seeing, understanding, vocalization, comprehension, and constructs. therefore, it necessitates a high-level cognitive process (perfettu & stafura, 2014; national reading panel 2000; victoria state government n.d.), as rochmiyati et al. 2021. moreover, students' reading comprehension is their capacity to analyze literature, comprehend its meaning, and integrate it with prior knowledge. since reading is an interactive process in which readers use suitable reading methods to develop a meaningful representation of a text, it plays an essential role in enhancing students' reading comprehension skills (sabouri, 2016). as a result, to boost reading comprehension skills, this research study adopts multimedia and text-based approaches. the following paragraphs will go over the four reading components of reading comprehension skills utilized in this study, namely: identifying vocabulary., sequencing events, identifying the main idea and key details, and making inferences. according to honig 2013, learning vocabulary is fundamentally about learning the definition of words. many teachers believe that defining words before reading a text is an effective instructional strategy. decoding and vocabulary-building in reading comprehension are fundamental skills needed to increase students understanding of the text (pressley n.d). there are types of vocabulary: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. "vocabulary knowledge is knowledge," writes steven stahl (2005), "the knowledge of a word not only implies a definition but also implies how that word fits into the world." vocabulary https://asiacall.info/acoj malyn pahuyo vidal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 62 knowledge is not something that can ever be fully mastered; it is something that expands and deepens over a lifetime. moreover, vocabulary instruction entails much more than looking up words in a dictionary and using them in a sentence. vocabulary is learned inadvertently through indirect word exposure and consciously through explicit training in specific terms and word-learning procedures. a successful vocabulary program, according to michael graves (2000), has four components: (1) vast or extensive solo reading to broaden vocabulary; (2) particular word education to improve comprehension of literature containing such terms; (3) independent word-learning methodologies teaching, and (4) to encourage and increase learning through word awareness and word-play activities. it plays a fundamental role in the reading process and refers to the words that students must understand to communicate effectively (reading rockets, 2021). comprehending a new and unfamiliar word includes deliberately practicing various strategies like exploring its 1. word parts (morphology); 2. word families, 3. word histories (etymology; 4. spelling (orthography); 5. multiple meanings; 6. synonyms and antonyms; 7. connecting to context (quigley 2018; bbc 2021). masri's study on vocabulary and reading comprehension in 2019 found that both the breadth and depth aspects of vocabulary knowledge are substantially connected with reading comprehension abilities. furthermore, rousoulioti and mouti (2016) found that teaching vocabulary tactics and practice to students validate its value and how it helps students improve their skills. expanded comprehension is aided by increased language knowledge (glende, 2013). h.m. and h.ab. sidek in their research findings, rahim (2015) shows that a reader's vocabulary knowledge is one of the factors that influences reading comprehension performance in that language. moreover, a critical finding from research suggests that vocabulary learning never stops (smith, 1998); it is a natural and lifelong phenomenon. in addition, vocabulary learning continually encounters new words in meaningful and comprehensible contexts (harmon et al., 2009) cited in bintz, 2011. gouldthorp et al., (2017) discovered that sequencing ability is significant for understanding their investigation of the impact of sequencing on reading comprehension of students who were found to produce more accurate sequences. as a result, they have concluded that sequencing is a crucial skill for reading comprehension and has implications for their reading education and intervention programs. the core idea is what the reading passage is all about, according to postel 2016 of dalton state college. it is the most general sentence, encompassing all reading aspects. essential strategies in making inferences are 1. build knowledge, 2. study genre, 3. model your thinking, 4. teach specific inferences, 5. plan inferential questions (dewitz, 2017). in addition, reed 2019, in her study about effective literacy lesson: making and evaluation predictions to support comprehension, highlighted that supporting students in making meaning from the text is to teach students how to effectively generate and monitor predictions about what they are going to read (reed 2019). thoughts on inferences "the art of predicting" components such as thinking at a higher level, being able to infer good readers from struggling readers, gathering information from different acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 63 sources to make connections about what the text means, reading between the line, finding clues to understand the text better. (oczkus, pg.83 n.d) multimedia reading approach using multimedia technologies to provide a variety of ways to display information can help students better understand complex texts. luu et al., 2021 cited that technology is expected to improve language both inside and outside of the classroom, with no limitations. the teaching method and learning process have elevated to a new level thanks to the recent integration of multimedia. additionally, various interventions and extra activities, such as digital text, should be used to fit the requirements and interests of students. furthermore, multimedia reading aids such as connected movies, animation, and music, among others, might lead to the ultimate aim of reading and understanding (brann et al., 2009). the turkish language society (tls) defines multimedia as "the platform where text, graphs, audio, and simulation are mixed with a material (www.tdk.gov.tr). multimedia, according to mayer (2001), is the presentation of topics using images with text as the synthesis of digital platforms such as text, audio, graph, animation, visuals, and video (dinc 2000, alkan et al., 2001). moreover, multimedia reading materials, according to the center for technology implementation 2014, provide students with several flexible support options. it also assists students in becoming more comfortable with multimedia. samat and aziz's study from 2020 demonstrates the use of multimedia learning in teaching reading comprehension, with numerous aspects of media serving as a good combination for comprehending the text. furthermore, saed et al. (2018) looked at the influence of multimedia tools via video technology on developing reading comprehension skills and found that they had a substantial impact on reading comprehension. in addition, ahmad and khoo 2019 stated that interactive multimedia should be used as an instructional tool in teaching and learning. students' reading abilities are reinforced and strengthened through a modified multimedia reading strategy. according to ilhan and oruc (2018), multimedia techniques improved students' academic progress compared to traditional methods. other reading instruction approaches are considerably superior, with higher increases in students' overall reading comprehension skills than traditional or text-based reading approaches, according to kawaguchi, janet (2011) and tambunan et al. (2017). according to sandoval (2016), multimedia tools improve high school pupils' reading comprehension skills. it was also proposed that displaying visual material with descriptive audio instead of written text is more effective (mayer & moreno 1998 as cited by clark & mags 2008). text-based reading approach according to the national reading panel report (nrp; nichd, 2000), an individual must develop phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension of connected text to generate and grasp reading (koppenhaver, 2000). reading that follows standard conventions in terms of form, content, and use in order to generate and comprehend text-based reading; that promotes phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and text comprehension (national reading panel n.d; erickson & koppenhaver n.d). they generally believed that reading should be approached straightforwardly, whereas text-based reading is accustomed to using print-based materials to promote reading comprehension skills. in addition, the text-based reading approach, according to brown 2001 stated that the methods and techniques of understanding are applied while reading text-based material in print. text-based employs the use of different genres of text genres to enhance language development while focusing on reading to improve other language http://www.tdk.gov.tr/ https://asiacall.info/acoj malyn pahuyo vidal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 64 skills. this method is especially beneficial for students who prefer to learn a language through text rather than other methods (darrin, 2016). methods this study employed a quasi-experimental research design method. it analyzed data collected from pre-test and post-test in both multimedia reading approach and text-based reading approach groups. aussems, boomsma, and snijders (2011) described the quasi-experimental design as an intervention effect that investigates by comparing the performance of two groups. these groups were identified prior to the implementation of the treatment before the course of the experimentation. based on findings from a pre-test provided before the study and a post-test given after the experiment, these two reading approaches were used to investigate the effectiveness of improving reading comprehension skills. a minimum of six weeks of instructional implementation was allotted for the experimentation and treatment of the study. the study was conducted on the grade ten students in a public school in misamis oriental. the participants met applicable criteria, such as accessibility and willingness to participate. they were the researcher's students in the same institution. there were 132 participants, divided into two groups of 66 grade ten students, randomly selected from a total of four regular classes in one teaching load for s.y. 2021-2022. the instrument was a researcher-modified reading comprehension test lifted from the standardized material from the philippine informal reading inventory (phil-iri) 2018 and division reading assessment reading material. a 40-item multiple-choice test subdivided into the four components of reading comprehension skills. the number of questions was divided by ten items per component that outline the four reading comprehension components: 10 items for identifying vocabulary; 10items for sequencing events; 10 items for identifying the main idea and key details, and ten items for making inferences or predictions. the following statistical tools were used to organize the data in this study: for problem number 1, a descriptive statistical method, namely: frequency distribution, percentage distribution, mean distribution, and standard deviation, was used according to the components of the reading comprehension skill based on the result of each group's performance during pre-test and post-test. for problem number 2, t-tests for paired samples were employed to determine if there were any significant differences in the performance of both groups' reading comprehension test results before and after the treatment exposure. for problem number 3, a t-test for the independent samples was used to determine if the two groups differ significantly in their performance increment. discussion of results this part presents the analysis and interpretation of the data collected during the study. problem 1: what is the student's level of reading comprehension skills before and after the interventions in terms of: 1.1 identifying vocabulary; 1.2 sequencing events; 1.3 identifying the main idea and key details; and 1.4 making inferences or predictions table 1 presents the frequency, percentage, and mean distributions of the reading comprehension skill results considering the identifying vocabulary component. data revealed that the group's performance exposed to multimedia reading was good in the pre-test (m=6.16). after the intervention, their performance was very good (m=7.77). the table further revealed that in the group exposed to multimedia approach, the number of participants in the outstanding category acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 65 increased from 18.8 percent in the pre-test to 46.97 percent in the posttest, which shows that almost half of the students were able to answer the reading material correctly after the intervention table 1. frequency, percentage, and mean distributions of the participants' reading comprehension skill before and after the interventions (identifying vocabulary) range interpretation multimedia approach textbased approach pretest posttest pretest posttest f % f % f % f % 9 – 10 outstanding 12 18.18 31 46.97 9 13.64 25 37.88 7 – 8 very good 20 30.30 17 25.76 16 24.24 18 27.27 5 – 6 good 17 25.76 11 16.67 10 15.15 16 24.24 3 – 4 fair 13 19.70 7 10.61 21 31.82 5 7.58 1 – 2 poor 4 6.06 0 0.00 10 15.15 2 3.03 total 66 100.0 66 100.0 66 100.0 66 100.0 overall mean 6.16 7.77 5.29 7.37 interpretation good very good good very good standard deviation 2.26 2.17 2.82 2.26 the findings indicate that the use of multimedia reading materials has a moderate effect on students' reading comprehension skills. the intervention must have worked since no participant is categorized in the poor category after the intervention. in the group using the text-based reading approach, vocabulary skill was described as good at the pre-test (m=5.29) and very good (m=7.37) during the post-test. given the increase in scores and the overall mean, the intervention appears to affect students' vocabulary skills. in addition, the number of students in the poor category (15.15 percent) was decreased to only 3.03 percent. as observed by the researcher during the vocabulary instruction, the results implied that various multimedia tools encouraged students to unlock unfamiliar words during the class session easily. in addition, video as supplementary material to learn the fundamental concept of the lesson made the students easily catch up and understand the terms. thus, this result of the reading comprehension component dramatically impacts the performance of the student's reading comprehension skills before and after the intervention. the findings are supported by previous studies by webb (2007) and widhiarso (2015) and further assert the importance of vocabulary skills in developing lexical knowledge among language learners. however, other findings suggest that finding alternative platforms to deliver vocabulary instructions will be difficult, as the results and movement of scores for both strategies used in the study appear rigid. same with the findings of talibong & abdulfattah (2019), which revealed a better vocabulary competence when exposed to interactive reading. according to this study's findings, multimedia and text-based reading can be classified as interactive. in multimedia, interaction takes place through various multimedia tools supported by the reading material, whereas in text-based interaction, instruction is self-directed and understandable through printed text material. table 2 presents the frequency, percentage, and mean distributions of the reading comprehension skill results considering the sequencing events component. data reveal that the group's performance exposed to the multimedia reading approach was very good in the pre-test (m=7.06). their performance improved to outstanding (m=8.22) after the intervention. furthermore, a https://asiacall.info/acoj malyn pahuyo vidal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 66 number of participants improved their high performance from 25.76 percent in the pre-test to 59.09 percent in the post-test. table 2. frequency, percentage, and mean distributions of the participants' reading comprehension skill before and after the interventions (sequencing events) range interpretation multimedia approach text-based approach pretest posttest pretest posttest f % f % f % f % 9 – 10 outstanding 17 25.76 39 59.09 16 24.24 32 48.48 7 – 8 very good 23 34.85 14 21.21 22 33.33 19 28.79 5 – 6 good 23 34.85 8 12.12 14 21.21 8 12.12 3 – 4 fair 3 4.55 5 7.58 8 12.12 4 6.06 1 – 2 poor 0 0.00 0 0.00 6 9.09 3 4.55 total 66 100.0 66 100.0 66 100.0 66 100.0 overall mean 7.06 8.22 6.66 7.75 interpretation very good very good good very good standard deviation 1.75 1.95 2.48 2.11 the data in table 2 show that in the multimedia group, the number of participants whose performance is classified under the outstanding has increased from 25.76 percent in the pretest to 59.09 percent in the post-test. the same is true with the students exposed to the text-based reading approach; the number of participants in the outstanding category increased from 24.24 percent in the pre-test to 48.48 percent in the post-test. the group exposed to the text-based reading approach in the sequencing event component was described as good during the pre-test (m=6.66) and their performance increased to very good (m=7.75) after the intervention. almost a 25 percent increase of the participants got outstanding scores after the intervention. a minimal number of 1-2 (poor) scores during the pre-test decreased after the intervention, which is evident in the post-test result of the text-based reading approach. these findings may indicate that the kind of instruction during the intervention affects the results. both groups were exposed to real-life or day-to-day experiences that highlighted the chronological order of events through a different approach: in the experimental group, a video animation was provided to showcase the events or scenario from day 1 to the following days, and in the control group, a printed copy of the events in order was provided. more accurate sequences were produced in all conditions of the sequencing tasks (gouldthorp et al., 2017), promoting reading comprehension skills. in addition, these findings show that students in both groups responded positively to the interventions and were primarily interested in sequencing events. reading comprehension of students discovered that sequencing ability is significant in understanding the material and producing more accurate sequences (gouldthorp et al., 2017). table 3 presents the frequency, percentage, and mean distributions of the reading comprehension skill results considering identifying the main idea and key detail. data revealed that the group's performance exposed to multimedia reading was described as fair in the pre-test (m=4.18), and after the intervention, their performance was described as good (m=5.90). acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 67 table 3. frequency, percentage, and mean distributions of the participants' reading comprehension skill before and after the interventions (identifying main idea) range interpretation multimedia approach textbased approach pretest posttest pretest posttest f % f % f % f % 9 – 10 outstanding 0 0.00 0 0.00 2 3.03 6 9.09 7 – 8 very good 6 9.09 20 30.30 4 6.06 18 27.27 5 – 6 good 22 33.33 38 57.58 18 27.27 26 39.39 3 – 4 fair 27 40.91 8 12.12 26 39.39 12 18.18 1 – 2 poor 11 16.67 0 0.00 16 24.24 4 6.06 total 66 100.0 66 100.0 66 100.0 66 100.0 overall mean 4.18 5.90 4.02 5.80 description fair good fair good standard deviation 1.62 1.29 1.92 1.96 during the pre-test, the performance of the group exposed in text-based reading approach was described as fair (m=4.02) but improved to good (m=5.80) after the intervention. an increase in scores that reveal the use of a text-based reading approach in terms of identifying ideas posed an overall mean and understanding that only very few students reach the outstanding level from 3.03 percent to 9.09 percent. also, the highest percentage of 24.24 percent of poor performance during the pre-test drastically decreased to 6.06 percent during the post-test. the performance of the group under multimedia reading had higher scores increased 5-6 (good) from 33.33 percent to 57.58 percent, with no score falling under 1-2 (poor) after the intervention. on the other hand, the performance of the group under the text-based reading approach, described as fair to good in their overall mean during the pre-test and post-test, managed to increase performance. the data in table 3 show that the group under multimedia reading has no outstanding scores, while in the text-based reading approach outstanding score in the pre-test was 3.03 percent, and it goes up to 9.09 percent after the post-test. these findings show that this reading comprehension component significantly reveals the students' reading comprehension skills. the exploration of various materials posed a variety of meanings, as revealed throughout the intervention in both groups. hence, the performance of both groups shows "good” results in the post test. for this reason, it may perhaps entail that student have tendencies to analyze information differently, and they are frequently unable to pay attention to the supporting facts that would enable them to identify the material's essential point. as a result, the problems in determining the main ideas and their supporting details and assessing the entire material may be challenging (yuvirawan et al., 2021, dahlan, 2021). this result is also consistent with the findings of sitohang et al. (2021), who stated that identifying the main idea of material is complex. as a result, the researcher concludes that the focus should be on mastering the concept of recognizing the main idea and its supporting details, as evidenced by the findings of both groups. they show how to identify this component and comprehend the material's purpose. however, the main topic may be provided in an abstract form or be positioned elsewhere in the paragraph at times. https://asiacall.info/acoj malyn pahuyo vidal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 68 therefore, prioritizing tactics for enhancing this component must be highlighted. topics, key ideas, and support supported in toonder & sawyer's 2021 findings imply that intervention instructions may be a helpful technique for increasing students' identification of the main idea: indicating a considerable improvement of the participants' reading comprehension skills (ilter, 2018). table 4 presents the frequency, percentage, and mean distributions of the reading comprehension skill results considering the making inferences component. the group exposed to multimedia reading performed fair (m=4.69) before the intervention and good (m=6.63) after that. table 4. frequency, percentage, and mean distributions of the participants' reading comprehension skill before and after the interventions (making inferences) range interpretation multimedia reading approach text-based reading approach pretest posttest pretest posttest f % f % f % f % 9 – 10 outstanding 0 0.00 5 7.58 2 3.03 8 12.12 7 – 8 very good 13 19.70 35 53.03 9 13.64 21 31.82 5 – 6 good 22 33.33 18 27.27 20 30.30 23 34.85 3 – 4 fair 21 31.82 8 12.12 28 42.42 13 19.70 1 – 2 poor 10 15.15 0 0.00 7 10.61 1 1.52 total 66 100.0 66 100.0 66 100.0 66 100.0 overall mean 4.69 6.63 4.64 6.06 description fair good fair good standard deviation 1.88 1.49 1.83 1.93 during the pre-test, the group’s performance using the text-based reading approach was described as fair (m=4.64) but improved to good (m=6.06) after the intervention. the data revealed that the group under multimedia reading had higher scores of 7-8 (very good) from 19.70% to 53.03%, with no score falling into scores 1-2 (poor) after the intervention as reflected in the post-test data. on the other hand, the text-based group, had a performance described as generally good during the post-test. the number of participants increased from 13.64 percent in the pretest to 31.82 percent in the post test. table 4 shows that the 7-8 score range was very good in both groups and considerably improved, which the researcher attributed to the kind of instruction given. making an inference entails leveraging what students already know or have been exposed to in order for them to make educated guesses about what they do not know or read between the lines. in multimedia reading, where multimedia tools were used, students could easily make inferences by combining the cues offered by photos, videos, and other media, rather than simply text alone, with their personal experiences that could be related. furthermore, by providing supporting materials, students can figure out what is not immediately stated, making the learning process memorable. finally, the ability to reread the contents when the reading material is delivered textbased can be ascribed to why many students improved their results following the intervention. the components of reading comprehension skills reveal significant findings before and after the intervention. reading comprehension necessitates a multi-step process involving multiple brain functions like vision, comprehension, vocalization, comprehension, and construction (cetin, 2018; acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 69 perfettu & stafura, 2014; rochmiyati et al., 2021). furthermore, students' ability to analyze and interpret the meaning and integrate prior knowledge improves their reading comprehension skills (sabouri, 2016). table 5 presents the summary result of the reading comprehension skill components. according to the findings, the group exposed to multimedia reading had a total performance of 22.11 in the pre-test and 28.55 in the post-test. table 5. summary table of the overall results of the participants’ reading comprehension skill components of reading comprehension skills multimedia approach text-based approach pre-test post test pre-test post test identifying vocabulary 6.16 7.77 5.29 7.37 sequencing events 7.06 8.22 6.66 7.75 identifying the main idea and key details 4.18 5.90 4.02 5.80 making inferences or predictions 4.69 6.63 4.64 6.06 overall reading comprehension skill 22.09 28.52 20.61 26.98 on the other hand, the group exposed to text-based reading scored 20.61 in the pre-test and improved to 27.00 in the post-test, indicating a moderate boost in overall performance for both groups from pre-test to post-test. however, it may be inferred that there is a need to examine and consider other viable ways for improving reading comprehension skills in identifying unfamiliar vocabulary, sequencing events, identifying the main idea and key details, and making inferences or predictions. it is probable that these components demand higher-level language thinking skills because they entail analyzing, understanding, comprehending, and effectively recalling prior knowledge to provide beneficial results for students' reading comprehension skills. this echoes the finding of tomas et al. (2021) that the majority of the students need improvement of their reading comprehension skills which can be attributed to some of the components revealed. such a predicament reflects the students’ reading comprehension skills that showcase the magnitude of the problem that students in grade 10 level may need to be supported, and language teachers must be ready to address. problem 2. how do the participants in each group differ in their reading comprehension skills rating before and after the interventions? ho1: there is no significant difference in the participants' reading comprehension skills ratings before and after the interventions. table 6 reveals a significant difference in the participants' reading comprehension skills ratings before and after the interventions. the significant differences in the overall reading comprehension skill for the multimedia reading approach (t=13.81**, p=.000) and text-based reading approach (t=8.78*, p=.039) means that the null hypothesis can be rejected because there is a significant difference in the pretest and post-test results. both approaches reveal a significant difference in https://asiacall.info/acoj malyn pahuyo vidal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 70 the participants' performance before and after the interventions, both in the overall performance and in each of the components. table 6. result of the test of difference in the participants' performance before and after the interventions components of reading comprehension skills multimedia approach text-based approach pre test post test t value p pre test post test t value p identifying vocabulary 6.17 7.77 9.45** .000 5.29 7.38 4.76** .000 sequencing events 7.06 8.23 7.05** .000 6.67 7.76 2.77* .007 identifying the main idea and key details 4.18 5.91 9.26** .000 4.02 7.76 10.39** .000 making inferences or predictions 4.70 6.64 11.60** .000 4.64 6.06 9.41** .000 overall reading comprehension skill 22.11 28.55 13.81** .000 20.61 27.00 8.78** .000 **significant at 0.01 level *significant at 0.05 level in the multimedia group, the effectiveness may be attributed to the overall atmosphere of reading instruction and other aspects of students' reading comprehension skills, which confirms the findings of samat aziz's (2020) and sandoval (2016) that revealed multimedia as effective in enhancing the reading comprehension skills of students. for the group exposed to the text-based reading approach, the t-test revealed a significant difference in their performance before and after the treatment in all the components of reading comprehension. in this study, both approaches developed the reading comprehension skills of the students. the effectiveness of both approaches is in consonance with the findings of siswandi (2021) and nur asima sidabutar et al., (2022) that both digital and printed materials have helped the participants develop their reading comprehension skills. in addition, the use of technology in multimedia resonates to learning english which brings a strong potential to enhance students’ language skills (van et al., 2021). also, the research findings of pham (2022) reveal that a wide range of it tools or multimedia tools have shown a great help in promoting students' autonomy which improves their language skills. the effects may be attributed to the use of the digital and printed materials used in this study, the multimedia, where there was technical support and digital materials; and in the text-based, where printed materials were provided. in other words, the results show that multimedia and text-based reading approaches help and promote reading for better reading comprehension and enhance students' reading comprehension skills based on post-test results. specifically, the effectiveness of both interventions in enhancing acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 71 the skills in making predictions may be due to additional reading strategies of discussion, teacher questions, visual content support, modeling, and creative language use. making predictions can be developed when the readers are enabled to activate their experience and background or world knowledge to understand the text. this finding was similar to what suraprajit (2019) found that background knowledge plays a vital role in readers' prediction skills. furthermore, constructing a goal of reading, and self-monitoring are helpful strategies to predict the text (block, 1986; sheorey & mokhtari, 2001). this positive performance of the students exposed to multimedia and text-based reading can be attributed to the strategy's unique approach to delivering reading instruction in class. as observed by the researcher during the intervention, the student in the multimedia reading group participated actively and enthusiastically as they moved through the mechanics and progress of the class session. moreover, the presentation of various multimedia files like videos, audio, animations, and pictures made the virtual classroom filled up with a fun and exciting experience. as a result, the students forget their inhibitions and apprehensions to engage actively in the activity with their classmates. these findings on the positive benefits provided by the multimedia reading approach further support the previous findings of studies conducted by samat and aziz (2020, saed et al. (2018), ahmad and khoo (2019), sandoval (2016), kawaguchi (2011) and many other studies with similar findings. furthermore, the implications of this study can inspire language teachers and learners to utilize multimedia and text-based reading approaches in teaching and learning reading. problem 3. is there a significant difference in the reading comprehension rating increment of the two groups? ho2. there is no significant difference in the reading comprehension rating increment between the two groups. table 7 shows the difference in reading comprehension test result increments between the two groups of participants. the results demonstrated significant differences in the two groups' reading comprehension skill increments in the following components which are identifying vocabulary (t=5.43, p = .000) and sequencing events (t=4.63, p = .000) with the text-based approach group having higher mean increments (m=2.24 and m= 1.84 respectively). about 1.09 difference in the increase during the pre-test to post-test changes the results and shows an increase of students getting high scores from poor to excellent and outstanding results during the post-test. https://asiacall.info/acoj malyn pahuyo vidal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 72 table 7. result of the test of difference in the participants' increments in reading comprehension test results in the two groups components of reading comprehension skills multimedia approach text-based approach mean increment sd mean increment sd t value p identifying vocabulary 1.68 1.41 3.45 2.24 5.43** .000 sequencing events 1.38 1.12 2.61 1.84 4.63** .000 identifying the main idea and key details 1.80 1.50 1.89 1.49 .349 .727 making inferences or predictions 2.00 1.42 1.48 1.22 2.23* .027 overall reading comprehension skill 6.71 3.77 7.26 4.60 .745 .458 *significant at 0.05 level **significant at 0.01 level a significant difference is also revealed in the increments of the two groups' skill in making predictions (t= 2.23, p =.027) with the multimedia approach group having a higher mean increment (m=2.0). thus, the null hypothesis in these dimensions can be rejected. no significant differences were revealed in the component in identifying the main idea and key details as well as in the overall reading comprehension skill. the significantly higher mean increments in identifying vocabulary and sequencing events by the text-based reading approach group indicate that students reading in print-text format performed much better on reading comprehension than students reading in multimedia, possibly because more modalities of text navigation were made available, and scrolling the text was not as difficult. they could go back to the text to check on unfamiliar vocabulary and review the order of the events as stipulated in the material. this research backs up the findings of dundar and akcayir (2012), who observed that the textbased approach was easier to navigate, less stressful on the brain, and provided the reader with more free capacity for comprehension. furthermore, mangen, walgermo, and brnnick (2013) discovered that reading comprehension via technology was inferior to print because of the negative effects of navigation, display, and scrolling. in making predictions however, the multi-media reading group has a significantly higher mean increment. the findings in this study showed that the group exposed to multimedia readng surpassed the other group. the nature of the multimedia reading approach used in class is engaging and catchy, with the presentation of information provided instruction or content using various multimedia tools such as pictures, graphics, animation, audio, and videos, as opposed to text-based reading, where content is presented design comprehensibly in a self-learning material, all of which are from their generation, making the learning experience more relatable and engaging. this must have contributed to their skills in predicting outcomes. this result finds consonance with the findings in samat and aziz's (2020, saed et al. (2018), ahmad and khoo (2019), sandoval (2016), acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 73 and kawaguchi's (2011) studies with similar research designs, confirming that using multimedia tools to facilitate reading instruction is far more effective than using a text-based approach. however, this is not true in the component on identifying the main idea and key details, as well as in the overall reading comprehension skills. the result showed no significant difference in the increments of the two groups. evidence-based on the previous problem shows that multimedia and text-based reading approaches help students develop reading comprehension skills. these tools, which are used to supplement reading materials, help students improve their reading comprehension skills while demonstrating the flexibility of learning at this time. during this time of the pandemic, students are exposed to alternative ways of learning, such as synchronous learning, which allows students to learn virtually using a variety of multimedia platforms while also printing with self-directed material. since the result is comparable in these dimensions, it can be inferred that both approaches can equally effectively facilitate reading comprehension skill development. furthermore, the implementation of the treatment substantially affects the movement of the scores for all reading comprehension components. conclusions in a nutshell, it can be inferred that the use of multimedia and text-based reading approaches have essential roles in improving the student's reading comprehension skills. it resonates a critical and challenging message to language teachers, language instructors, and program developers. these approaches to reading can be used by teachers to facilitate the development of their students' reading comprehension. this is in consonance with the principle of schema theory that entails reading comprehension as an interactive process between the text and the reader's prior background knowledge (adams/collins 1979, rumelhart 1980). in addition, the three main theories, namely traditional or bottom-up processing, cognitive or top-down processing and metacognitive view in reading have been taken into consideration to explain the nature of reading approaches that plays an essential part of this study. the following factors play a significant role in the development of students reading comprehension skills: (1) the quality of teachers' language teaching strategies and practices; (2) the amount of effort expended in the material preparation of instructional aid, and (3) appropriateness and practicality of the strategies used in carrying out instructions to a specific reading comprehension component skill. the study also concludes that both approaches are generally comparable in developing reading comprehension skills for students. in addition, the two approaches can improve students' performance to a certain extent. hence, the result of the study further asserts the previous findings of other research about the benefits of multimedia reading in reading instruction and learning than upholding text-based vocabulary instruction. teachers internalize the benefits of various reading techniques for delivering reading instruction to have a good impact on students' reading comprehension skills and keep up with the fastchanging educational landscape of the twenty-first century. however, according to what is genuinely taking place inside the four walls of the learning spaces, what is created by studies may remain a concept not practiced in reality. finally, this research study is expected to give valuable references for the next researchers interested in carrying out research in a similar discussion. recommendations based on the implications, results, and conclusions, the following recommendations are hereby made to first, the school administration and language department, so that they may consider improving the schools' technological groundwork improvement designed to present opportunities https://asiacall.info/acoj malyn pahuyo vidal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 74 for multimedia use. they have the potential to improve and strengthen teachers' technology expertise. they may take substantial steps to provide and secure relevant instructional materials for language instructors/teachers in order to improve language teaching. encourage teachers to make the most of various useful, efficient, and practical technologies and applications that can help with language acquisition, especially vocabulary development. following that, language teachers should investigate more in-depth use of multimedia resources to aid the reading process. additionally, they should investigate various multimedia resources and technologies that might capture students' interests, resulting to hopefully increased reading comprehension skills. they should also think about maximizing the potential of using multimedia in all subject areas in their classroom. last but not least, to future researchers in order for them to broaden the scope of their study to include more approaches or strategies to use in assessing the students' reading comprehension skills and pursue a further investigation on the effectiveness of other multimedia tools in carrying out reading instruction, particularly in the integration of necessary reading comprehension skills. references ahmad, n., & khoo, y. (2019). using interactive media to support reading skills. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341735277_using_interactive_media_to_suppor t_reading_skills_among_underachieving_children allen, l., snow, e., crossley, s., tanner jackson, g. & mcnamara, d. (2014). reading comprehension components and their relation to writing. l’année psychologique. 114, 663-691. https://doi.org/10.4074/s0003503314004047 aussems, m.-c. e., boomsma, a., & snijders, t. a. b. (2009). the use of quasi-experiments in the social sciences: a content analysis. quality & quantity, 45(1), 21–42. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-009-9281-4 a text-based approach to planning close reading. (n.d.). achievement network. retrieved june 11, 2022, from https://www.achievementnetwork.org/lff-text-based-approach bintz, w. p. (2011). teaching vocabulary across the curriculum. middle school journal, 42(4), 44–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/00940771.2011.11461773 darrin, d. (2016, may 4). text-based instruction. educational research techniques. https://educationalresearchtechniques.com/2016/05/04/text-based-instruction/ erickson, k., & koppenhaver, d. (n.d.). comprehensive literacy for all excerpted from comprehensive literacy for all. https://brookespublishing.com/wpcontent/uploads/2019/12/erickson-excerpt.pdf erickson, k., hanser, g., hatch, p., sanders, e., & ccc-slp. (2009). research-based practices for creating access to the general curriculum in reading and literacy for students with significant intellectual disabilities. https://literacyforallinstruction.ca/wpcontent/uploads/2020/05/research-based-practices-for-creating-access-to-the-generalcurriculum-in-reading-and-literacy-for-students-with-significant-intellectualdisabilities.pdf finding the main idea. (2022). columbia college. https://www.ccis.edu/student-life/advisingtutoring/writing-math-tutoring/main-idea five (5) components of reading: read naturally, inc. (2019). readnaturally.com. https://www.readnaturally.com/research/5-components-of-reading https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341735277_using_interactive_media_to_support_reading_skills_among_underachieving_children https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341735277_using_interactive_media_to_support_reading_skills_among_underachieving_children https://doi.org/10.4074/s0003503314004047 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-009-9281-4 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 75 gouldthorp, b., katsipis, l., & mueller, c. (2017). an investigation of the role of sequencing in children’s reading comprehension. reading research quarterly, 53(1), 91–106. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.186 hmh curriculum | k-12 classroom solutions | houghton mifflin harcourt. (2004). www.hmhco.com. retrieved august 1, 2022, from http://rigby.hmhco.com/nr/rdonlyres/ddff43e8-c6e1-419b-9943ad71926e3d8b/0/marzano_mong.pdf honig, b., l. diamond, and l. gutlohn. (2013). teaching reading sourcebook, 2nd ed. novato, ca: arena press. identifying the main idea of the story: reading strategies. (2021). https://literacyideas.com/getting-the-main-idea/ ilhan, g. o., & oruç, s. (2016). effect of the use of multimedia on students’ performance: a case study of social studies class. educational research and reviews, 11(8), 877–882. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1099996 inference | classroom strategy | reading rockets. (2018, january 12). reading rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/inference jones, j. (2011). revised post: reading interventions...no more than a strategy hello literacy blog. revised post. retrieved august 1, 2022, from https://helloliteracy.blogspot.com/2011/02/nice-neat-list-of-reading-strategies.html journal, m. (2012). models of reading comprehension and their related pedagogical practices: a discussion of the evidence and a proposal. www.mextesol.net. https://www.mextesol.net/journal/index.php?page=journal&id_article=158 llego, m. a. (2019, november 25). implementing the deped 3bs initiative. teacher. https://www.teacherph.com/deped-3bs-initiative/ llc, c. p. (n.d.). sequence of events | sequencing activities. storyboard that. https://www.storyboardthat.com/articles/e/sequencing luu, l. p. t., nguyen, t. n. q., vo, n. t. t., & nguyen, m. t. h. (2021). the need of applying english learning apps to help van lang university students improve their spoken english performance. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 72–86. https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/33/22 mac donnchaidh, s. (2021). sequencing events in reading and writing: a complete guide for students & teachers. https://literacyideas.com/teaching-sequencing-in-english/ mac donnchaidh, s. (2021). complete guide to nonfiction writing. https://literacyideas.com/teaching-sequencing-in-english/ masrai, a. (2019). vocabulary and reading comprehension revisited: evidence for high-, mid-, and low-frequency vocabulary knowledge. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244019845182 marzano, r. (2010). teaching inference. educational leadership, 67(7), 80-01. https://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/inference marzano, r.j. (2004). a six-step process for teaching vocabulary. alexandria, va: association for supervision and curriculum development. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.186 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1099996 https://helloliteracy.blogspot.com/2011/02/nice-neat-list-of-reading-strategies.html https://literacyideas.com/teaching-sequencing-in-english/ https://literacyideas.com/teaching-sequencing-in-english/ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244019845182 http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/apr10/vol67/num07/teaching-inference.aspx https://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/inference https://asiacall.info/acoj malyn pahuyo vidal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 76 http://rigby.hmhco.com/nr/rdonlyres/ddff43e8-c6e1-419b-9943ad71926e3d8b/0/marzano_mong.pdf m. teacher. (2014, january 2). main idea and supporting details. https://www.slideshare.net/legendofsheena/main-idea-and-supporting-details-29650355 memorandum no. 244, s. 2011 | govph. (2011). official gazette of the republic of the philippines. https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/2011/10/02/memorandum-no-244-s-2011/ nur asima sidabutar, m., theruvil sayed, b., ismail, s. m., teves quispe, j., yangali vicente, j. s., suardi wekke, i., jassaim shanan, a., & nourabadi, s. (2022). reading digital texts vs. reading printed texts: which one is more effective in iranian efl context? education research international, 2022, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/7188266 oczkus, l. (n.d). inferring. https://slidetodoc.com/reading-comprehension-project-makinginferences-or-predictions-preparing/ part 9: how to answer comprehension questions. (2019, april 4). matrix education. https://www.matrix.edu.au/beginners-guide-year-7-8-english/part-9-how-answercomprehension-questions/ pham, t. t. (2022). promoting students’ autonomy in online classes: a study on first-year non-english major students at thuongmai university. asiacall online journal, 13(2), 42–59. https://doi.org/10.54855/acoj.221323 perfetti, c., & stafura, j. (2013). word knowledge in a theory of reading comprehension. scientific studies of reading, 18(1), 22–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2013.827687 power up what works | powerup your teaching & learning. (n.d.). powerupwhatworks.org. retrieved july 27, 2022, from https://powerupwhatworks.org/ pressley, m. (2013, april 24). comprehension instruction: what works. reading rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/article/comprehension-instruction-what-works question-answer relationship (qar) | classroom strategy | reading rockets. (2013, march 20). reading rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/question_answer_relationship quigley, a. (2018). 7 strategies to explore unfamiliar vocabulary. https://www.theconfidentteacher.com/2018/04/7-strategies-to-explore-unfamiliarvocabulary/ reading across the disciplines: college reading and beyond (mcwhorter reading & writing series): mcwhorter, kathleen: 9780134397108: amazon.com: books. (2022). amazon.com. https://www.amazon.com/reading-across-disciplines-mcwhorterwriting/dp/013439710x?asin=b07652xlnj&revisionid=&format=4&depth=1 reading comprehension strategy series: how to teach students to infer while reading. (n.d.). the classroom nook. https://www.classroomnook.com/blog/making-inferences reading comprehension project making inferences or predictions preparing. (n.d.). slidetodoc.com. retrieved august 1, 2022, from https://slidetodoc.com/readingcomprehension-project-making-inferences-or-predictions-preparing/ http://rigby.hmhco.com/nr/rdonlyres/ddff43e8-c6e1-419b-9943-ad71926e3d8b/0/marzano_mong.pdf http://rigby.hmhco.com/nr/rdonlyres/ddff43e8-c6e1-419b-9943-ad71926e3d8b/0/marzano_mong.pdf https://slidetodoc.com/reading-comprehension-project-making-inferences-or-predictions-preparing/ https://slidetodoc.com/reading-comprehension-project-making-inferences-or-predictions-preparing/ https://www.theconfidentteacher.com/2018/04/7-strategies-to-explore-unfamiliar-vocabulary/ https://www.theconfidentteacher.com/2018/04/7-strategies-to-explore-unfamiliar-vocabulary/ https://www.amazon.com/reading-across-disciplines-mcwhorter-writing/dp/013439710x?asin=b07652xlnj&revisionid=&format=4&depth=1 https://www.amazon.com/reading-across-disciplines-mcwhorter-writing/dp/013439710x?asin=b07652xlnj&revisionid=&format=4&depth=1 https://www.classroomnook.com/blog/making-inferences acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 77 read naturally. (2013). strategies for reading comprehension :: read naturally, inc. readnaturally.com. https://www.readnaturally.com/research/5-components-ofreading/comprehension reed, d. (2019). effective literacy lesson: making and evaluating predictions to support comprehension. https://iowareadingresearch.org/blog/effective-literacy-lesson-predictionscomprehension reed, d. (2008). a synthesis of morphology interventions and effects on reading outcomes for students in grades k-12. learning disabilities research & practice, 23(1), 36-49. rites (2013). the components of reading comprehension. https://www.ritutorial.org/wpcontent/uploads/2013/02/the-components-of-reading-comprehension.pdf ross, b., pechenkina, e., aeschliman, c., & chase, a.-m. (2017). print versus digital texts: understanding the experimental research and challenging the dichotomies. research in learning technology, 25(0). https://doi.org/10.25304/rlt.v25.1976 rousoulioti, t. & mouti, a. (2016). dealing with unknown words in l2 reading: vocabulary discovery and lexical inferencing strategies. colomb.appl.linguist.j., 18(1), 56-70. http://www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=s0123-46412016000100005 sabouri & gilakjani (2016). how can students improve their reading comprehension skill?.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303742915_how_can_students_improve _their_reading_comprehension_skill sangiacomo, n. (2021, june 8). identifying the main idea & supporting details of a text. gynzy. https://www.gynzy.com/en/tips/finding-the-main-idea/ samat, m., & aziz, a. (2020). the effectiveness of multimedia learning in enhancing reading comprehension among indigenous pupils. arab world english journal (awej), 11(2), 290-302 doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awej/vol11no2.20 singhal, m. (2020, august 13). effective methods of assessing reading comprehension. medium. https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/effective-methods-of-assessing-readingcomprehension-b2ace7f5f9a0 siswandi, s. (2021). an experimental study: multimedia reading materials on teaching reading comprehension. indonesian journal of integrated english language teaching, 5(2), 71. https://doi.org/10.24014/ijielt.v5i2.12616 sitohang, d., damanik, d., capah, k. r., & purba, r. (2021). an analysis of students' ability in identifying main idea in narrative paragraph of the first grade at sma puteri sion medan. journal of english educational study (jees), 4(1), 59–68. https://doi.org/10.31932/jees.v4i1.1120 slpcarrie. (2016, december 21). how to teach sequencing skills to children speech and language kids. speech and language kids. https://www.speechandlanguagekids.com/teach-sequencing-skills-children/ stevens, e. a., park, s., & vaughn, s. (2018). a review of summarizing and main idea interventions for struggling readers in grades 3 through 12: 1978–2016. remedial and special education, 40(3), 131–149. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741932517749940 talibong, e. m., & philippines), a. m. a. (2020). the effect of interactive reading and traditional reading on the vocabulary competence among grade six pupils. researchers https://iowareadingresearch.org/blog/effective-literacy-lesson-predictions-comprehension https://iowareadingresearch.org/blog/effective-literacy-lesson-predictions-comprehension http://www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=s0123-46412016000100005 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303742915_how_can_students_improve_their_reading_comprehension_skill https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303742915_how_can_students_improve_their_reading_comprehension_skill https://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awej/vol11no2.20 https://doi.org/10.24014/ijielt.v5i2.12616 https://doi.org/10.31932/jees.v4i1.1120 https://asiacall.info/acoj malyn pahuyo vidal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 78 world : journal of arts, science and commerce, xi(1), 37. https://doi.org/10.18843/rwjasc/v11i1/05 tran, t. t. (2013). building classroom games via multimedia. asiacall online journal, 7(1). https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/139/67 teaching reading sourcebook (book, 2013) [worldcat.org]. (2013). worldcat.org. https://www.worldcat.org/title/teaching-reading-sourcebook/oclc/817564088 teaching sequence. (2011, july 25). reading rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/article/teachingsequence?__cf_chl_captcha_tk__=fpppd_uut3kgt29idqcscjby9al2jr9hslqg47wtjqm1636238799-0-ganycgzncve topics, main ideas, and support. (2022). https://www.cuesta.edu/student/resources/ssc/study_guides/reading_comp/307_read_main _idea.html text-based instructional strategies video. (2021). text-based instructional strategies video & lesson transcript | study.com. study.com. https://study.com/academy/lesson/text-basedinstructional-strategies.html the development of personal-cooperative model in building the reading comprehension skills. (2021). i̇lköğretim online, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.17051/ilkonline.2021.01.132 tomas, m. j. l., villaros, e. t., & galman, s. m. a. (2021). the perceived challenges in reading of learners: basis for school reading programs. open journal of social sciences, 9(5), 107–122. https://doi.org/10.4236/jss.2021.95009 university of texas libraries (2021). asking and answering questions. https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/c.php?g=619734&p=4544435 using multimedia to support reading instruction. (2014, april 29). reading rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/article/using-multimedia-support-reading-instruction vocabulary and word study to increase comprehension in vocabulary and word study to increase comprehension in content areas for struggling readers content areas for struggling readers. (2013). https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1248&context=education_etd_mast ers van dijk, t. a., & kintsch, w. (1983). strategies of discourse comprehension. new york academic press. references scientific research publishing. (2015). scirp.org. https://www.scirp.org/(s(351jmbntvnsjt1aadkposzje))/reference/referencespapers.aspx?r eferenceid=1487970 van, l. k., dang, t. a., pham, d. b. t., vo, t. t. n., & pham, v. p. h. (2021). the effectiveness of using technology in learning english. asiacall online journal, 12(2), 24–40. https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/26/19 vener, d. (2002). study skills: a landmark school student guide (finding the main idea). https://www.landmarkoutreach.org/strategies/finding-main-idea/ venzon, v. (2010). main ideas and supporting details (module prototype). identifying main idea and supporting details etec 603: instructional design final project main ideas and supporting details. (2010). https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/c.php?g=619734&p=4544435 https://www.readingrockets.org/article/using-multimedia-support-reading-instruction https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1248&context=education_etd_masters https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1248&context=education_etd_masters https://www.landmarkoutreach.org/strategies/finding-main-idea/ acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal vol. 13; no. 4; 2022 79 https://laulima.hawaii.edu/access/content/user/vvenzon/eportfolio/main%20idea%20modu le%20prototype%20final.pdf what works in comprehension instruction. (2013, april 24). reading rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/article/what-works-comprehension-instruction writer, k. k. s. (n.d.). sequence of events examples. examples.yourdictionary.com. https://examples.yourdictionary.com/sequence-of-events-examples.html whitesell, m. (2021). libguides: the roadrunner’s guide to english: thesis/topic/main idea. libguides.daltonstate.edu. retrieved july 27, 2022, from https://libguides.daltonstate.edu/c.php?g=267539&p=1849742 biodata my name is malyn p. vidal, i am a graduate of master of arts in education major in teaching english communication arts and bachelor of arts in english language. i am a licensed teacher with a teaching certificate, with many years of specialized training and work experience in public offices, government, education, office procedures, operations, and teaching. for the past years, i have been employed as a secondary public-school teacher, specifically teaching the english language to junior high school students, i also have experience teaching in senior high school. in addition, i exemplified my teaching expertise to improve foreign national students' english skills as an english for the second language teacher. a meticulous, driven, organized teacher, capable of managing tasks efficiently; believing that continuous learning is the key to professional development. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, kevin gaudette facilitating the switch to asia-wide eal dialogues: wikinomics/english corners-meetups/wechat… kevin gaudette shanghai industry and commerce foreign languages college, china chinamoviemagic@gmail.com abstract for many years the internet has been referred to, by downes (2004, para. 35) among others, as a meeting place where dialogue is replacing information publishing and retrieval. in recent years, the wechat phenomenon has spread throughout china and much of asia. for some 30 years, english corners have been spreading in china, and now are also developing elsewhere in asia. this paper discusses the possibilities of developing a synergy for the learning of english as an asian language (as well as other languages), by linking wechat with english etc. corners (whether in-person or online) and using the principles and practices of wikinomics, such as mass collaboration and peer production, to bring a new dimension to mobile-assisted language learning (burston, 2013). keywords: wechat, english corner, eal, mall, role play, pbl introduction if the world's elt is culturally anglo american oriented or dominated, what is going to happen when japanese and chinese meet? when they meet, it is unlikely that they will talk about london or new york. (honna, 2005, p. 86) if we declare that we value different perspectives, as a commitment to dialogic literacy will lead us to do, perspectives of those new to a discipline or to academia, perspectives different from ours culturally, then we must develop practices which also value these differences. such practices in turn commit us to a dialogic theory of learning that sees knowledge not only as the product of disciplined inquiry, where well-established conventions allow the accumulation of co-ordinated data, but also as the product of ongoing discourse, where different perspectives draw on the power of the negative to lead to a higher integration of understandings. practices that value difference and a dialogic approach to language and learning are not easy to formulate or to employ in our academic environment. (cooper, 1998, p. 82) dewey (1910/1991) argued that learning is most effective when it is situated in an authentic, real world context and that this context is social as well as physical. vygotsky’s (1986) zone of proximal development theory has been interpreted (by lave & wenger, 1991, among others) to mean that students learn better collaboratively because it is dialogue with others which pushes them into this “societal” space between the everyday behavior of the individua l and social practice (p. 48). this space is dynamic in that it is itself changing, and influenced by the individuals in it, through “the negotiated character of meaning” (p. 33). swan and shea (2005) identify three, distinctively social, main themes of learning theory: • cognition is situated in particular social contexts (brown, collins, & duguid, 1989; lave & wenger, 1991) • knowing is distributed across groups (cole, 1991; perkins, 1993) • learning takes place in communities (lipman, 2003; scardemalia & bereiter, 1996; wenger, 1998). asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, kevin gaudette these themes underpin many of the prevailing theories of online pedagogy, such that these approaches require students to engage with their course content through online discussion with their peers. this has proved difficult to achieve online (kreijns, kirschener & jochems, 2003; pawan, paulus, yalcin & chang, 2003; swan, 2004). such difficulties in transformation processes have been analyzed by atkisson, an experienced theorist and activist in the field of paradigm shifts: 1. promote the new. or..."increase the perceived value of the new idea. this is the principal work of the change agents, but they certainly depend upon the work of the innovators, who make a 'cool' product initially." 2. critique the old. or..."decrease the perceived value of the status quo by attacking it, either directly or subtly, in short, making the old way of doing things seem uncool. this is generally the work of the iconoclasts, though change agents also help .” 3. facilitate the switch. "this is the most important and the least obvious strategy for making change happen. it is also where many change efforts fail, because they forget to reduce the perceived cost of making the change." (atkisson, pp. 193-194) facilitate the switch: wechat (note: the strategies to “facilitate the switch” also have relevance for users of asia’s other popular services, such as kakaotalk, line, skype and whatsapp, which was purchased by facebook for $19 billion in february 2014. for a comparison with other services, and a description of unique elements in wechat, especially audio messaging, see ma, 2014.) communicating with wechat is verifiably ‘cool’. according to globalwebindex, wechat is the fifth most-used smartphone app worldwide (millward, 2013). in october 2013 wechat claimed it had over 450 million registered china-based users and over 150 million registered international users, covering over 200 countries and regions. languages supported include traditional/simplified chinese, english, indonesian, spanish, portuguese, turkish, malay, japanese, korean, polish, italian, thai, vietnamese, hindi and russian. wechat has facebook groups for hong kong, taiwan, india, thailand, malaysia, indonesia, vietnam, singapore, turkey, argentina, australia. (facebook remains banned in china.) wechat provides multimedia communication with text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, photo/video sharing, location sharing, and contact-information exchange. wechat supports social networking via shared streaming content feeds and location-based social plug-ins ("shake", "look around", and "drift bottle") to connect with and chat with local and international wechat users. tencent, the parent company of wechat, set up a 500 million rmb investment fund in 2011, focused on online entertainment content. the investment included a 4.4% stake in huayi brothers media, producer and distributor of some of china's most popular television productions and films, such as those by well-regarded director feng xiaogang: bu jian bu san (be there or be square) and if you are the one. such a synergy certainly could facilitate the use of wechat for moviebased asiacall activities for learning english, mandarin and other languages, while discussing huayi movies. perhaps tencent/huayi would be interested in becoming a sponsor/partner of asiacall? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/globalwebindex http://www.facebook.com/wechathk http://www.facebook.com/wechattw http://www.facebook.com/wechatindia http://www.facebook.com/wechatthai http://www.facebook.com/wechatmalaysia http://www.facebook.com/wechatid http://www.facebook.com/wechatsingapore http://www.facebook.com/wechattr http://www.facebook.com/wechatarg http://www.facebook.com/wechataustralia asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, kevin gaudette source: tencent, media reports facilitate the switch: english corners/meetup groups my interest in the english corner (ec) concept was germinated in 1969 in sierra leone, west africa, when i was serving as coordinator/curriculum developer for the mende language training program for incoming peace corps volunteers (pcvs). as a pcv-in-training in the 1968 mende program, i had felt frustrated by the audiolingualmethod and the continuous repetition of sentence patterns, without an opportunity for experimentation/creation. after the 2-month training program, i became a village primary school “english sentence pattern” teacher, and later was allowed to transfer into the agricultural development program. as the only foreigner in my village, i made rapid progress in the mende language, scored a 3+ in the foreign service institute oral test, and was invited to run the 1969 mende language training program. there i developed a “deschooling” activity, by training local children to ask the pcvs questions which they would be regularly asked by mendes, as well as to engage in simple, unscripted ns conversation with each other, with the pcv trainees listening, and expanding their i+1 limits. key elements in the training program included: many nss/nnss talking at the same time, as at a normal social gathering; learners able to experiment with various words/structures and get one-on-one feedback http://technode.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/wechat.gif asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, kevin gaudette from nss; lowered “affective filter”; a natural “information gap”/a tpr-story environment; role playing. all this was many years before i’d trained briefly with lozanov (at salt conference in 1977), and some years before i had even heard of asher or curran, or krashen, or gattegno or stevick or lozanov. my experience with english corners/clubs began in 1982, where i did a qualitative evaluation of an english club, for a rival english school. in macau in 1983, i had a contract with the macao post and telegraph co., and developed an intensive english club in my apartment, using video segments of movies for developing listening comprehension/role play/discussion. in taiwan in 1985, i worked fulltime at an ec. during my decade in los angeles (1990-99), i often participated in the weekly japaneseenglish club, developed by a japanese-american teacher with the l.a. adult education dept. while in china (1999-2011), i regularly participated in public ecs, wherever i was living/teaching. at an english club in shanghai i initiated a project bringing together chinese learners of english and foreigners learning chinese, to view and discuss segments of chinese movies. in ho chi minh city i participated several times in the lively and crowded ecs at the government-run youth center, with hundreds of chatty folks—both young and old--in multiple classrooms. after a brief meeting, the youth center’s director enthusiastically welcomed me to use an in-class projector, and i gave a well-received demonstration of my moviemagic approaches for using movie segments for description/roleplay/discussion. the first known english corners began informally in china after deng xiao peng’s “opening up” to the world in 1980, and they sprouted up all over the country as english learners and curious observers came together. china’s ecs are now nation-wide, and they offer an excellent opportunity to “facilitate the switch” to initiate an asia-wide network of educators and learners using wechat and wikinomicsbased mass collaboration for digital dialoging. for these past thirty years, china’s unique development in the history of non-formal education has been taking root and spreading throughout the country. these spontaneous, grassroots activities have no formal syllabus, curriculum, admission policies, graduation ceremonies, placement tests or any of the other policies and procedures we in academia have come to think of as indispensable to learning. usually weekly, sometimes daily, ecs take place in public parks, university campus spots, private schools, tea houses, kfcs etc. after the trauma of the cultural revolution (1966-1976), it was a liberating experience for people to have freedom of assembly as well as (discrete) speech with strangers. ecs were closed for some time after the 1989 tienanmen incident. at the typical public ec, learners of various levels, ranging from a handful to over one hundred, gather together in small clusters, talking about (1) whatever seems “proper”, (2) whatever interests them, or (3) whatever they are able to say. as at a vibrant social gathering, ec folks often circulate from cluster to cluster, checking out for interesting individuals, attractive group dynamics, and suitable english levels. in sharp contrast to china’s typical teacher-centered, book-based, english classrooms, china’s ecs are high-energy, non-formal, learner-centered, english-speaking environments. (gaudette, 2007) in many of china's major cities, there is an active ec somewhere every day of the week. however, after thirty years of expansion throughout the nation, ecs remain as they were in the pre-internet era— unconnected and ad hoc. ecs are often criticized, both by advanced chinese learners as well as by english-speaking foreigners, because many of the less-advanced ec participants continuously ask stock questions: "where are you from? what is your favorite movie? do you like china? do you like chinese food? do you like chinese people?” clearly, there is a need for continued evolution in the english corners. one limitation is that the process lacks whole-brained context and content. many advanced english learners can cynically talk about current events, without discussing creative alternatives. lessadvanced learners, like folks on a first date, can struggle nervously to find a topic they can discuss. frequently the talking can become dominated by a few (male) advanced english speakers/thinkers, while asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, kevin gaudette a small crowd listens passively. the time is ripe for english corners to evolve to a new level of development and effectiveness. synergizing wechat, movie-based role play/discussion and wikinomics dynamics can promote whole-brained english-learning, critical thinking, emotional wellbeing, positive group dynamics and income-generation (for highly motivated ec participants). the worldwide phenomenon of meetup groups offers an excellent opportunity for experimentation and evolution of the english corner process. according to the meetup website (www.meetup.com), there are 284 learn english meetup groups, with 51,272 members, in 146 cities in 31 countries. in china there meetup groups in nearly 50 cities. worldwide, a meetup starts somewhere every 13 seconds. over 9.5 million people have joined long-lasting face-to-face local meetup groups, around shared interests and purposes. according to its website (http://www.meetup.com/about/), the meetup mission is “to revitalize local community and help people around the world self-organize”, based uon the belief “people can change their personal world, or the whole world, by organizing themselves into groups that are powerful enough to make a difference.” using the meetup website, eal speakers and learners can develop and promote sustainable income-generating groups which are specifically focused upon specific interests. facilitate the switch: after 10 years here in shanghai, we intend to launch a meetup/wechatgroup focused specifically upon a synergy of:  english-mandarin corner as a learning community  role play and discussion of movies  speech-making and discussion from ted and rsa animate presentations  wikinomics-based peer production of eal materials, using wechat and voicethread platforms  mind training, using yoga and tai chi. wechat and meetup can help us materialize the sort of synergy project which, in 2004, i described on my semi-blog, url: http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=16848 : ========================================================================= chinamoviemagic joined: 02 nov 2004 posts: 2102 location: yangshuo posted: mon nov 22, 2004 6:38 pm post subject: movie magic-principles/practices key elements  high ratio of native/advanced english speakers to english learners  a bilingual mandarin-english environment--bringing together chinese interested in improving their english, as well as foreigners  a variety of activities available for the participants 1. free conversation 2. viewing/discussion of movie/movie segment 3. discussion of movie reviews 4. movie-based role plays 5. a wide range of other activities--theatre games, discussion topics, public speaking training, karaoke singing http://www.meetup.com/ http://www.meetup.com/about/ http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=16848 http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=12375&sid=d0b35e388c8e8b6ca16067ef234a8f8b http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=163992&sid=d0b35e388c8e8b6ca16067ef234a8f8b#163992 asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, kevin gaudette over the years, l2 teachers have developed a wide range of communicative techniques based upon the creative use of movie segments, such as: viewing comprehension (with sound off) dialogue building (with sound off) aural only prediction (with sound only) predictive viewing--what will happen? reverse prediction--what happened before the sequence seen? jigsaw viewing (only half the viewers see the sequence, and they relate it to those who haven't. replay it to compare.) such approaches can create an enhanced learning environment, in harmony with krashen's principles: a rich variety of comprehensible input a low-anxiety situation real messages of real interest a short (1 to 3 minutes) close-captioned movie segment offers the learner a synergistic schemata of opportunities for comprehensible input. the visual images themselves are comprehensible and are stored in the students' memories as experiences, rather than as a language lesson that must be "studied/learned" because the teacher will test the students for their ability to "remember" the lesson. a schematic tapestry of english words becomes associated with the movie's images and emotions. plot, character, emotion--these are the 'hooks' by which the language becomes comprehensible input and stored intake. this dynamic is quite different from the artificial approaches typically used--vocabulary lists, linear progressions in grammar complexity etc.) to use another metaphor, the memories of the movie segment can be seen as gravitational schemata which can attract and retain words associated with the images. as the learner thinks of a scene, an ever-expanding constellation of words and sentences can become linked in the memory with a pleasant (low-anxiety) experience, rich with real messages of real interest. as the learner thinks of one character, a tremendous variety of adjectives and actions can become part of the schemata. this is in harmony with the episode hypothesis, which states that "text (i.e. discourse in any form) will be easier to produce, understand, and recall to the extent that it is motivated and structured episodically...these ideas lead to the supposition that perhaps second language teaching would be more successful if it incorporated principles of good story writing along with the benefits of sound linguistic analysis." (oller) in addition to discussion of the movies, members and dialogue partners will also be active in role play based upon the movie segments. in why drama works: a psycholinguistic perspective, susan stern of ucla brings together a wide range of research relating to the power of role play for creating an enjoyable and effective second language environment: (https://www.academia.edu/1638922/why_drama_works_a_psycholinguistic_perspective) ======================================================================= movie-based role play can be a valuable method for helping students to become empathic language learners. psychodrama pioneer adam blatner m.d. is a pioneer in the field of role play. his website (http://www.blatner.com/adam/papers.html ) contains over 100 of his papers on psychodrama, creativity, play and other areas. blatner describes empathy as (1) an ability to imagine with some degree of accuracy what it's like to be in the predicament of the other person, and (2) the ability to communicate that awareness so the other person feels understood. blatner views the skill of empathy as a matter mainly of focused imagination, picturing in the mind what it might be like to be in the other person's predicament. (blatner, 2010). asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, kevin gaudette the skill of empathy also involves an integration of remembering, rational thinking, intuition, and feeling, all of which support the active imaginative process. one warm-up technique i have adopted from blatner is "the talk show host game." (blatner& blatner, 1991). this technique, as well as many others described by blatner, can easily be used in english corners and with wechat (blatner, 1995). role playing is a natural vehicle of language learning because it is an extension of the imaginative, pretend play of childhood (blatner & blatner, 1991). role playing requires a build-up of spontaneity in its participants (blatner, 2009). in my classes over the past 12 years in china, i have seen that such movie-based role plays can facilitate these processes of imagination, spontaneity and empathy, and can promote conversational fluency. facilitate the switch: wikinomics/peer production/partnership values in wikinomics: how mass collaboration changes everything, wide-ranging examples are given to show that mass collaboration is “helping to transform the way we conduct science, create culture, inform and educate ourselves, and govern our communities and nations” (tapscott & williams, 2008, p.xii). the organic self-organizing dynamics of such peer production communities are contrasted with those of those of the typical multinational entity and its “corporate command-and-control hierarchy” (p. 25). english corners (whether in-person and/or online) are well-suited for using movie-based wechat activities, and morphing into mass collaboration/peer production platforms, for digital-based english-/mandarin/japanese-/etc.-teaching and/or, and (for the most motivated) income-generation, as skilled conversation partners/material developers, especially as micro-enterprise projects for the many experienced english teachers in india and the philippines. such a project is in harmony with the wikinomics best-practices for successful peer production: 1. the object of production is information or culture, since this keeps the cost of participation low for contributors; 2. tasks can be chunked out into segments which individuals can contribute in small increments and independently of other producers; 3. the costs of integrating these multiple pieces into a finished end product, including the leadership and quality-control mechanisms, must be low (tapscott & williams, p. 182). consider the following examples from wikinomics (pp. 183-84):  wind-up records--fans have voluntarily invested over a quarter of a million hours producing and sharing more than three thousand music videos, using their pcs to synchronize japanese animé art with popular music tracks to create animé music videos. the website (http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/) contains a large collection of these videos, and it also offers free training and information-sharing regarding editing, and other technical or aesthetic areas.  creative commons developing nations license has allowed creators to make their works available for attributed free distribution (copies can be freely shared, providing the original creator is credited) in the global south, while still retaining all copyright control in the global north. creative commons has developed a mashup platform (http://ccmixter.org), which uses the mass collaboration/open source phrase "download, sample, cut-up, share" and describes its focus: "ccmixter is a community music site featuring remixes licensed under creative commons where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want."  bbc's backstage project (http://backstage.bbc.co.uk) invites developers to create new prototype services built around bbc content.  bbc's creative archive initiative, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/creativearchive/?inc=news), has opened up portions of the vast bbc tv archives, as well as film clips from the british film http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/ http://ccmixter.org/ http://creativecommons.org/ http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/creativearchive/?inc=news asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, kevin gaudette institute, allowing the public the legal freedom to use/mix/mash the content as they like, for noncommercial purposes.  taking itglobal, whose membership has exceeded 230,000 active members from about 261 countries. tig's website (www.tigweb.org/about/) uses as key words: "inspire. inform. involve" and describes its mission as: "prepare students for today's knowledge economy...provide opportunities for learning, capacity-building, cross-cultural awareness, and self-development through the use of information and communication technologies." tig could be an excellent partner in helping develop a global language-learning peerproduction/mass collaboration movement, which would be in harmony with tig mission, as well as an income generator for tig and its members. community language learning and peer production communities for the whole-brained wikinomics-based morphing of ecs with wechat/meetup, next steps could include: 1. developing wechat-/meetup-based materials and training to expand the content and process of english corners, by promoting the use of role play/discussion of movies and presentations such as those developed by ted.com and rsa animate. before coming to the ec, participants would be able to prepare for the process, by:  viewing movie segments/ted/rsa animate shows on-line,  reading selected segments of movie reviews (such as those from www.metacritic.com and www.imdb.com) and transcripts of the ted/rsa animate shows  vearing/reading discussions of the movie/movie reviews/ted/rsa animate on voicethread/wechat,  hearing/preparing audio-edited versions of these discussions (using software such as audacity for repetition, echo, dichotic/bilingual input etc.),  preparing role plays based upon the movie segments/ted/rsa animate. . 2. developing bi-lingual community language learning groups at ecs/meetups, based upon mandarin-english/mandarin-japanese/korean-japanese/etc. role play and discussion of chosen movie segments and ted/rsa animate shows, while using wechat (with only audio, or with both audio and video functions) to record (only with quality microphones) the process. these bilingual translations/recordings can be valuable, both for lower-level learners (allowing them to hear/record their native language speech translated into their target language), and for more advanced learners (serving as translators, promoting their bi-lingual fluency, with assistance from their peers in the group). by developing a bi-lingual environment in china’s ecs/meetups, for example, more english-speaking mandarin learners may choose to participate. for mobile audio access, bi-lingual dichotic audio materials (aarons, 1987/1990) can also be produced and tested, particularly regarding the nature of mixed hemispheral dominance for native-level speakers of tonal languages such as mandarin/thai/vietnamese etc. (bbc, 2003; university of california, irvine,2006; rice university,2009; rice university,2012). audio materials can also offer options for a variety of background “mind-music” selections (halpern, 2013). 3. in the case of china, these mandarin-english digital audio materials can be used for editing, via wiki-style mass collaboration, for both english learners as well as for mandarin learners, and using other internet-based materials--in english and in mandarin--for audio post-production. http://www.tigweb.org/about/ http://www.metacritic.com/ http://www.imdb.com/ asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, kevin gaudette while online, learners (of mandarin or english) will collaborate with native speakers to edit digital audio according to their own krashen-ian "i+1"comprehension levels. by editing for their own comprehension levels, using repeat, pulsing, silence, mind-music background etc., the learners can create a digital product which could also be suitable for millions of others at similar comprehension levels. using wiki-community formats, such individuals will be able to make connections with each other and collaborate on the co-production of language-learning materials, some for free and some for a fee. the modulation of attention to these intonation units can be facilitated with free audio-editing software (such as audacity and nanogong), allowing the editor/audience to both hear and see (especially with the zoom-in function) such intonation units. various advanced editing methods (repetition, pulsing, silence, fade-in/fade-out, mind-music background, dichotic bilingual audio background, mix&mash-up) can be used to improve listening comprehension and memorability. such editing can be a group project-based learning (pbl) process, in which students do the audio editing to suit their own levels of comprehension and personal preferences. these audio can be uploaded to voicethread.com files (each voicethread project can hold up to 1,000 audio files), and learners can select, comment on, and vote for audio-projects they prefer. as an example of the massive audio options available, consider the wide range of youtube etc. videos relating to popular movies, and the possibilities for pbl/mass collaboration:  voicethread/wechat members choose the movie reviews they wish to audio-edit and upload to voicethread as mp3 audio files, while posting the url on ec/wechat sites;  then they and others comment (with text, audio, or web-cam) upon:  the ideas/feelings expressed in the voicethread/wechat audio  the comments of other voicethread/wechat members. an optimal synergy of youtube etc./voicethread/wechat/pbl could include:  memorable movie segments uploaded to youtube etc., including current as well as classic scenes (such as those selected at www.filmsite.org)  voicethread/wechat uploading of mp3 audio from the movie segments (both unedited, as well as edited in a variety of formats);  voicethread/wechat uploading of movie reviews from www.metacritic.com;  voicethread/wechat uploading of pbl by members, including (1) audio description/commentary about the scene/movies/characters, (2) audio commentary/discussion of fellow members’ uploads, (3) audio commentary/discussion about various movie reviews from www.metacritic.com (chafe, 1998);  downloading of audio files to learners’ smart phones, allowing for mobile audio input, expanding the i+1 comprehension levels. the depth and vocabulary-range of such discussions can be expanded by the inclusion of movie reviews, especially in the format of www.metacritic.com, which gives both complete reviews as well as a graded scale of evaluations of the movie, with brief phrases (intonation units) from each review, showing the variety of opinions. these review-snippets can be used as another pbl activity, by having members choose which snippet(s) they wish to read aloud (with spirit!) and upload to the voicethread/wechat project. first they could listen to a variety of uploaded voicethread/wechat audio files, read by native speakers and others, with expressive voices, and (extremely important!) quality microphones. these nss and other members can later comment upon the readings of the other members. http://www.filmsite.org/ http://www.metacritic.com/ http://www.metacritic.com/ http://www.metacritic.com/ asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, kevin gaudette metacritic movie review segments http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-english-teacher “…where different perspectives draw on the power of the negative to lead to a higher integration of understandings. practices that value difference and a dialogic approach to language and learning are not easy to formulate or to employ in our academic environment.” (cooper, 1998, p. 82) 75 the screenplay, by husband-wife team dan and stacy chariton, is thin as a poker chip but as clever as it is contrived 75 sometimes it’s just plain fall-down funny. 75 …could benefit from being a bit more daring. 50 …a predictable and flimsy backstage farce…the husband-and-wife writing team of dan and stacey chariton can’t decide whether they want to flatter or talk down to their audience. 50 …feels like a movie written as a homework assignment…unfortunately, the story goes soft when it should be at its most daring: the film loses its bite. 50 the line between “cute” and “cutesy” is violated, repeatedly, in the sometimes funny, often cloying comedy “the english teacher.”… that sense that it’s all pre-ordained mutes the film’s potential big laughs and makes even the chuckles few and far between. as an english teacher might put it, they aimed (and missed) at light comedy when they should have reached for farce. 50 …boasts few surprises—except perhaps its message, which seems to be that selling out isn’t so bad. chalk it up to a case of “write what you know.” 50 …aims to channel great, time-honored storytelling without being able to tell a great story. 40 it is a movie at odds with itself. 30 a tragedy masquerading as a comedy and doing a disservice to both 20…reveals that a respectable cast and much noisy boisterousness isn't enough to generate a single laugh…a cartoony stew of unlikable characters. 20 a tone-deaf comedy flipping like a gasping fish between silly and maudlin…100 percent predictable, so there aren’t even shocks to wake you from the unfunny torpor…goes through the motions of allegedly dramatic romantic misunderstandings and overblown backstage hijinks. conclusion the interactive web 2.0 has transformed internet activities from passivity to peering: "sharing, socializing, collaborating and, most of all, creating loosely connected communities" (tapscott & williams, 2008, p. 41). some us critics warn that open source and wikinomics dynamics promote a trend to "collectivism." digital pioneer howard rheingold points out: "collectivism involves coercion and centralized control; collective action involves freely chosen self-selection and distributed coordination" (tapscott & williams, 2008, p. 17). the ohloh website, which tracks the open source industry, lists over 1,400,000 people working voluntarily on 540,000 open source projects. in wired magazine this global open source movement is described as "the new socialism" (kelly, 2009). http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-english-teacher asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, kevin gaudette the old socialism the new socialism gaudetteity centralized among elite officials power distributed among ad hoc participants limited resources dispensed by the state unlimited, free cloud computing forced labor in government factories volunteer group work a la wikipedia property owned in common sharing protected by creative commons governmentcontrolled information real-time twitter and rss feeds harsh penalties for criticizing leaders passionate opinions on the huffington post source: wired magazine if english corners become meetup-/wechat-connected peer-production communities, members will both improve their english skills as well as develop the collaborative skills which will be increasingly valued in the new digital economies. for corporations, success in the new world of co-creation and combinatorial innovation will depend upon building a loyal base of innovators that strengthen institutional ecosystems. using meetup-wechat synergies, ecs can facilitate the development of guildlike peer production communities, with codes of conduct that set the formal and informal norms and rules of practice. peer-to-peer reputation-rating can help to identify high-quality, reliable collaborators for projects. engaging in such meaningful activities can cultivate social consciousness. morphed ecs can serve as training grounds, preparing participants for success in the world of wikinomics, based upon the principles of "openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally" (tapscott & williams, 2008, p.267), as well as “…effective habits of discriminating tested beliefs from mere assertions, guesses, and opinions…sincere, and open-minded preference for conclusions that are properly grounded, and …methods of inquiry and reasoning appropriate to the various problems that present themselves.” (dewey, 1910/1997, p. 28). we derive our competence from forming connections... chaos is a new reality for knowledge workers... unlike constructivism, which states that learners attempt to foster understanding by meaning-making tasks, chaos states that the meaning exists, the learner's challenge is to recognize the patterns which appear to be hidden. meaning-making and forming connections between specialized communities are important activities. (siemens, 2005, para. 15) references atkisson, a. (2010). believing cassandra: how to be an optimist in a pessimist's world. london: earthscan publications. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, kevin gaudette aarons, l. (1987). dichotic-diotic paired-association for learning of verbal materials. us patent 4,710,130, 1987 google patents. retrieved from http://www.google.com/patents/us4710130 aarons, l. (1990). the bilingual‐dichotic method for learning a foreign‐language vocabulary. applied cognitive psychology, 4(5). 383–392. retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acp.2350040504/abstract bbc. (2003). chinese 'takes more brainpower'.june 30. retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3025796.stm blatner, a. & blatner, allee. (1991). imaginative interviews: a psychodramatic warm-up for developing role-playing skills. journal of group psychotherapy, psychodrama & sociometry, 44(3), 115-120, fall. retrieved from http://www.blatner.com/adam/pdntbk/talksho.htm blatner, adam. (1995). drama in education as mental hygiene: a child psychiatrist's perspective. youth theatre journal, 9, 92-96. retrieved from http://www.blatner.com/adam/level2/dramaed.htm blatner, a. (2009).thinking about roles. retrieved from http://www.blatner.com/adam/psyntbk/rolequestions.html blatner, a. (2010) role playing in education. retrieved from http://www.blatner.com/adam/pdntbk/rlplayedu.htm brown, j. s., collins, a. & duguid, p. (1989). situated cognition and the culture of learning. educational researcher, 18(1), 32-42. burston, j. (2013). mobile-assisted language learning: a selected annotated bibliography of implementation studies 1994-2012. language learning & technology, october, 17(3), 157–225. retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/issues/october2013/burston.pdf chafe (1998). things we can learn from repeated tellings of the same experience, narrative inquiry, 8(2), 269-285. retrieved from http://preview.tinyurl.com/chafe-seesay cole, m. (1991). on socially shared cognitions. in l. resnick, j. levine & s. behrend (eds.), socially shared cognitions (pp. 398-417). hillsdale, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates. cooper, m. m. (1998). dialogic learning across disciplines. in f. farmer (ed.), landmark essays on bakhtin, rhetoric and writing: volume 13 (pp. 81-96). mahwah, nj: erlbaum. dewey, j. (1910/1991). how we think . new york: prometheus. downes, s. (2004). e-learning 2.0. elearn magazine: education and technology in perspective. retrieved from http://www.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=29-1 halpern, s. (2013). music for accelerated learning. retrieved from http://www.innerpeacemusic.com/prod/music-for-learning/musicforacceleratedlearning.html honna, n. (2005). english as a multicultural language in asia and intercultural literacy. intercultural communication studies xiv(2). retrieved from http://www.uri.edu/iaics/content/2005v14n2/06%20nobuyuki%20honna.pdf kelly, k. (2009). the new socialism: global collectivist society is coming online. wired magazine:17.06. retrieved from http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/1706/nep_newsocialism?currentpage=all kreijns, k., kirschener, p. a. & jochems, w. (2003). identifying the pitfalls for social interaction in computer-supported collaborative learning environments: a review of the research. computers in human behaviour, 19, 335-353. lave, j. & wenger, e. (1991). situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. new york: cambridge university press. li, bing. (2013). evaluation of a mobile assisted english teaching approach. 2013 international conference on advances in social science, humanities, and management (asshm 2013). retrieved from http://tinyurl.com/wechat-english lipman, m. (2003). thinking in education (2nd ed.). cambridge: cambridge university press. http://www.google.com/patents/us4710130 http://www.google.com/patents/us4710130 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acp.2350040504/abstract http://www.blatner.com/adam/level2/dramaed.htm http://www.blatner.com/adam/pdntbk/rlplayedu.htm http://llt.msu.edu/issues/october2013/burston.pdf http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/jbp/nari http://www.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=29-1 http://tinyurl.com/wechat-english asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) 2014 – special issue – asiacall2013 proceedings, kevin gaudette ma, r. (2014) more than messaging: why you should stop comparing wechat to whatsapp. retrieved from http://thenextweb.com/asia/2014/01/24/messaging-stop-comparing-wechat-whatsapp/#!wilja macknight, c. b. (2000). teaching critical thinking through online discussions. educause quarterly, 23(1). retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eqm0048.pdf millward, s. (2013). wechat is now the 5th most used smartphone app in the world retrieved from http://www.techinasia.com/wechat-fifth-most-used-smartphone-app-in-the-world/ pawan, f., paulus, t. m., yalcin, s. & chang, c.-f. (2003). online learning: patterns of engagement and interaction among in-service teachers. language learning & technology, 7(3). retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/vol7num3/pdf/pawan.pdf perkins, d. n. (1993). person-plus: a distributed view of thinking and learning. in g. saloman (ed.), distributed cognitions: psychological and educational considerations (pp. 88-110). new york: cambridge university press. rice university. (2012). music underlies language acquisition, theorists propose. sciencedaily, 18 september. retrieved from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120918185629.htm rice university. (2009). neural substrates of tonal processing. retrieved from http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~lngbrain/tones.htm scardamalia, m. & bereiter, c. (1996). computer support for knowledge-building communities. in t. koschmann (ed.), cscl: theory and practice of an emerging paradigm. mahwah, nj:lawrence erlbaum associates. siemens, g. (2004) connectivism: a learning theory for the digital age elearn magazine: education and technology in perspective. retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/articles/connectivism.htm swann, j. (2010). a dialogic approach to online learning. australasian journal of educational technology, 26(1), 50-62. retrieved from http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet26/swann.html tapscott, d. & williams, a. (2008) wikinomics: how mass collaboration changes everything. new york: portfolio trade. university of california irvine. (2006). mandarin language is music to the brain. sciencedaily. retrieved from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061212213436.htm vygotsky, l. s. (1986). thought and language (a. kozulin, trans.). cambridge mass: mit press. wenger, e. (1998). communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. new york: cambridge university press. xu, zhujun. (2011). a probe study of encouraging high level thinking in english in online discussion. journal of qingyuan polytechnic 2011-04 http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eqm0048.pdf http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120918185629.htm http://www.elearnspace.org/articles/connectivism.htm http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet26/swann.html http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061212213436.htm http://en.cnki.com.cn/journal_en/h-h132-qyzj-2011-04.htm •vanlang university moralitywill cmlliviry as acall the asia association of computer assisted language leaming abstracts of the 17th asia association of computer assisted language learning international conference and vltesol 22 23 january 2021 van lang university, 69/68 dang thuy tram, ward 13, bmh thanh dist., ho chi minh city, vietnam . . r.<:"r-.��--"'i:r,...�-... ,,.....,n, 'lo'.., .... a::o rr ... ,,,..., "'ij' ·-... ..,. ·1�,... . .,. .-.v, ·1� j . . -y--:·wt..· ............ j ._ -•.. _. •--... .� • • ! i • • •• · : ,•, ... . t ' '' -.. i .j:. . ., . . · ,... . t , -( / i i • • _j : in r•j • •r11 • j i i it. •..,. •••••••••••••••••-•••••m••••••••••••••••••••m••••• i -. . • i . i , i : 1 -� 1 : · , : . ·, · ·i....' -, acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 2 notes from the president welcome to asiacall2021, the 17th international conference of the asia association of computer-assisted language learning (asiacall). asiacall is a research and professional association dedicated to bringing people together in research and professional ventures. it is also committed to enabling access for everyone to new knowledge and to encourage collaboration in new technology-based ventures relating to language education. to this end, it has always been successful in finding ways of bringing together researchers and practitioners from all over the world, and asia in particular, with no regard to status, income or experience so as to attain the highest levels of intellectual and cultural diversity as a way of enriching the field of technology and language learning. this year is no exception, and it is made more challenging by the covid-19 pandemic that is sweeping the world. covid19 has touched the lives of a huge number of people and its aftermath will impact the lives of all inhabitants of the planet perhaps forever. this is the reason that covid-19 has been incorporated into the conference theme and we note that many people have devoted their time and energy to analyse the situation and arrive at conclusions for how to ensure good language education given the limitations on travel and contact that we all have to endure. and the asiacall community has responded strongly to this challenge through its various research agenda. indeed, we are very lucky to have received some 110 abstracts from a little more than 200 authors covering the entire range of topics specified in the conference theme. these 200 authors come from vietnam, of course, but also from 14 other countries and from every continent. they truly represent the intellectual and cultural capital and diversity that defines our existence and enrich us all. this book of abstracts represents, in summary form, the many intellectual and research endeavours of conference participants that are to be delivered online or in person. some presentations, already reviewed in a double-blind process, will be converted to written articles and will then be further reviewed as they are published in the proceedings published through atlantis or as articles in the asiacall online journal. we hope that participants will benefit from these publication arrangements. in closing, i should like to express asiacall’s heartfelt gratitude to all who helped make this conference possible, from the workers on the ground to the principal organisers of the conference. in particular, i wish to thank van lang university for making its wonderful facilities available both physically and virtually. without the support of van lang university this conference would certainly not have happened. very special thanks indeed also go to associate professor dr. pham vu phi ho from the faculty of foreign languages of van lang university who organized every aspect of this conference, and dr. phan the hung, dean of the faculty of foreign languages at van lang university. we are honoured that he has accepted to be the chairman of asiacall2021 and, in that capacity, he has played a critically important part in the creation of the best possible environment for the conference. sponsors are of great importance too and we wholeheartedly recognize their continuing support for asiacall. finally, i wish to thank the participants. you are the most important people here as you are the very lifeblood of any conference or association. congratulations on choosing to connect with asiacall2021 and may your deliberations and friendships both old and new grow to be warm and fruitful. professor dr. andrew p. lian president of asiacall andrew lian is professor of foreign language studies, school of foreign languages, suranaree university of technology, nakhon ratchasima, thailand. he is also professor of postgraduate studies in english language education at ho chi minh city open university, hcmc, vietnam and professor emeritus of languages and second language education at the university of canberra, canberra, act, australia. he is the current president of asiacall, the asia association of computer-assisted language-learning, a research and professional association focusing on the uses of technology to enhance second/foreign language learning in asian contexts. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 3 notes from chair of asiacall2021 & vltesol welcome to january 2021, the international conference conducted by asiacall and vltesol at van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam. the conference topic is “call in asia and the world in the covid and post-covid eras: innovative scholarship, practical solutions, enhanced sustainability.” we are happy to present a broad range of abstracts reflecting a wide variety of research and writing styles from the researchers and the educators from many countries. in this edition, we have papers coming from australia, thailand, japan, poland, taiwan, india, indonesia, malaysia, china, usa, pakistan, the philippines, ethiopia, and sri lanka, and vietnam – diverse locations showing the breadth in which second language studies and technology-based education have broached the globe. the conference proceedings are published in both the asiacall online journal with no submission fees and the atlantis press with low submission fees. we present 99 articles from all the presenters at our conference in these abstract proceedings, including all the keynote speakers. we hope this collection of papers may help those interested in the field but who were unable to attend the sessions. in the proceedings of our conference, we have compiled a selection of papers and broadly grouped them under the following categories: 1. perspectives on innovation & motivation 2. effective platforms for e-learning 3. collaborative & interactive learning/teaching 4. implementations of teaching activities in a virtual environment 5. perceptions & practices of teaching/learning during and post covid-19 we would like to thank the reviewers, the editors, and the authors of the papers collected here for their cooperation and patience with the editing process, and of course, for making their contributions to these proceedings. we hope that you will enjoy reading the papers in this publication in your own pursuit of professional excellence. regards dr. phan the hung, chair of asiacall2021 & vltesol dean of the faculty of foreign languages, van lang university, vietnam dr. phan the hung is dean of faculty of foreign languages, van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam. he is also the director of the national center of english language testing of vlu. he earned his m.a. degree in applied linguistics at northern iowa, usa and his phd. degree in linguistics at queensland university, australia. he has another phd degree in language studies at hcmc university of education, vietnam. in terms of management, dr. phan the hung used to be dean of faculty of foreign languages & international studies from 2005 to 2012 at da lat university, vietnam. from 1991-1999, he the director of center of foreign languages, and later from 2005-2012, the vice-director of center for korean-vietnamese culture. in terms of publications, dr. phan the hung has published a number of books and research articles in linguistics and applied linguistics. his main interests are in linguistics, applied linguistics, culture and language. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 4 17th asia association of computer assisted language learning international conference and vltesol organizing committee chair: dr. phan the hung – dean of faculty of foreign languages – van lang university vice-chairs: associate professor dr. pham vu phi ho vice-president for administrative affairs of asiacall – van lang university ms. le thi ngoc diep – vice-dean of faculty of foreign languages – van lang university conference secretary: dr. nguyen hoa mai phuong – lecturer – van lang university members: dr. ngo minh hung – head of department of international cooperation – scientific research van lang university mr. nguyen the vinh head of center for information technology – van lang university ms. nguyen thi men – head of admission & communication department – van lang university mr. nguyen thanh minh – deputy head of department faculty of foreign languages – van lang university mr. do phu anh – deputy head of department – faculty of foreign languages – van lang university mr. le quang thao – deputy head of department – faculty of foreign languages – van lang university ms. nguyen thi thanh van – student affairs – faculty of foreign languages – van lang university ms. le thi hong yen – faculty secretary – faculty of foreign languages – van lang university ms. nguyen thi thu thuy – lecturers – faculty of foreign languages – van lang university reviewers professor dr. andrew p. lian president of asiacall dr. ania b. lian vice-president of asiacall research and innovation dr. phan the hung dean, faculty of foreign languages, van lang university associate professor dr. pham vu phi ho vice-president for administrative affairs of asiacall ms. le thi ngoc diep van lang university dr. nguyen hoa mai phuong van lang university ms. le thi ngoc diep van lang university mr. do phu anh van lang university mr. nguyen hai long van lang university mr. do huy liem van lang university ms. tran thi ngoc linh van lang university acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 5 mr. nguyen thanh minh van lang university mr. le quang thao van lang university ms. ngo thi cam thuy van lang university ms. nguyen ngoc hoang vy van lang university ti m e lo ca tio n 7: 00 8: 00 8: 00 8: 15 8: 15 -8 :1 8 8: 18 8: 25 8: 25 9: 00 9: 00 9: 35 9: 35 10 :1 0 10 :1 0 1 0: 25 10 :2 5 1 0: 45 h al l ti m e a .5 .1 a .5 .3 a .5 .5 a .5 .7 n 2t 1 bu ild in g c is su es in in no va tio n & m ot iv at io n ef fe ct iv e pl at fo rm s/s oc ia l n et w or k fo r ele ar ni ng c ol la bo ra tiv e & in te ra ct iv e le ar ni ng /te ac hi ng im pl em en ta tio ns o f t ea ch in g ac tiv iti es o n v ir tu al e nv ir on m en t po st c ov id -1 9 pe rc ep tio ns & pr ac tic es o f t ea ch in g/ le ar ni ng m od er at or : t ra ng p ha m m od er at or : m ai t u m od er at or : h an g v o m od er at or : q ua ng t ha o m od er at or : t ha nh m in h 10 :5 0 1 1: 10 n gu ye n th i m y h an h a n o ve rv ie w o f s tu de nt e ng ag em en t w ith w rit te n fe ed ba ck in e fl w rit in g cl as s v . t . m l uu , a nd re w l ia n, & p . si ri yo th in a c om pu te ra ss ist ed p ro so dy -b as ed pl at fo rm fo r i m pr ov in g ef l v ie tn am es e le ar ne rs ’ l ist en in g a bi lit y n gu ye n d ie u n go c & h o th i h ie n ev al ua tin g th e im pa ct s o f v irt ua l ex ch an ge o n la ng ua ge l ea rn in g an d in te rc ul tu ra l c om pe te nc e: a ca se s tu dy n gu ye n h uu n go c a c as e st ud y of o nl in e te ac hi ng a nd le ar ni ng p ra ct ic e at t on d uc t ha ng u ni ve rs ity d ao t hu y d uy en & v u th i t ha nh a st ud y on in te ra ct io n pa tte rn s i n la ng ua ge le ar ni ng o nl in e cl as se s – ad ap ta tio n an d ef fic ie nc y 11 :1 5 1 1: 35 jo hn b la ke (v ir tu al ) tr an sit io n fr om te xt bo ok to d ig ita l de liv er y ph an t hi n go c th ac h & h uy nh t hi n hu d uy en im pr ov in g n on -m aj or ed s tu de nt s' en gl ish s pe ak in g fl ue nc y in th e o nl in e en vi ro nm en t v ia m ic ro so ft te am ph am t hi n go an th e im pa ct o f p ro je ct w or ks o n sp ea ki ng p er fo rm an ce o f en gl ish m aj or ed s tu de nt s a t n gu ye n ta t t ha nh u ni ve rs ity lu d in h ba o th e a pp lic at io n of m et ac og ni tiv e st ra te gi es in c om pu te ra ss ist ed li ste ni ng c om pr eh en sio n cl as s h ir oy uk i o ba ri (v ir tu al ) im pa ct o f a i a nd ic t in la ng ua ge t ea ch in g be fo re & w ith co v id -1 9 in ja pa n 11 :4 0 1 2: 00 r ey na ld a lfr ed s y (v ir tu al ) cl as sr oo m in no va tio n: a dd re ss in g en gl ish c la ss ro om n ee ds th ro ug h d es ig n th in ki ng c ha n h ai l in & y im s an n g (v ir tu al ) a s tu dy o n th e ef fe ct iv en es s o f t he o nl in e pl at fo rm in t er tia ry e du ca tio n in a m al ay sia n u ni ve rs ity n go n . p . q uy nh u sin g pe er a ss es sm en t i n w rit in g fo r e fl l ea rn er s la la s ud im an ta ra (v ir tu al ) rh yt hm , i nt on at io n, m ov em en t, an d em ot io n (r im e) : i nt ro du ci ng a m ul tis en so ria l-m ul tic og nt iv e li te ra cy pe da go gy in a n a ca de m ic w rit in g u ni t i n in do ne sia r ud i c oh en cr iti ca l p er sp ec tiv es o n d ig ita l to ol s: th e pi cra t fr am ew or k t he 1 7t h a si a a ss oc ia tio n of c om pu te r a ss is te d l an gu ag e l ea rn in g in te rn at io na l c on fe re nc e (a si ac a l l 20 21 & v l t e so l ) fr id ay , 2 2 ja nu ar y 20 21 ev en t re gi str at io n n 2t 1 bu ild in g c m us ic al p er fo rm an ce w el co m in g r em ar ks ch ai r o f a sia ca ll 20 21 & v lt es o l d r. ph an t he h un g, d ea n of f ac ul ty o f f or ei gn l an gu ag es , v an l an g u ni ve rs ity , v ie tn am pr es id en tia l k ey no te a dd re ss w he re to fr om h er e? g en er at in g th e ne w n or m al in th is ex tra or di na ry c en tu ry . pr of es so r a nd re w p . l ia n, s ur an ar ee u ni ve rs ity o f t ec hn ol og y, t ha ila nd , h o ch i m in h ci ty o pe n u ni ve rs ity , v ie tn am a nd u ni ve rs ity o f c an be rr a, a us tra lia k ey no te a dd re ss se co nd la ng ua ge le ar ni ng c on te xt s a fte r c o v id -1 9: re co nc ep tu al iz in g cl as sr oo m a nd st ud y ab ro ad -le ar ni ng pr of es so r m . r af ae l s al ab er ry , m ar y g ib bs jo ne s p ro fe ss or o f h um an iti es , r es ea rc h d ire ct or , c en te r f or l an gu ag es a nd in te rc ul tu ra l c om m un ic at io n, ri ce u ni ve rs ity , u sa pl en ar y se ss io n ca ll in a sia d ur in g co vi d19 a nd m od el s o f e -le ar ni ng a ss oc ia te p ro fe ss or p ha m v u ph i h o, f ac ul ty o f f or ei gn l an gu ag es , v an l an g u ni ve rs ity , v ie tn am w el co m e by t he p re sid en t o f a sia ca ll pr of es so r a nd re w p . l ia n ph ot og ra ph y se ss io n t ea -b re ak pa ra lle l s es si on s 12 :0 0 1 3: 30 c an te en o n 4t h fl oo r 13 :3 0 1 4: 10 n 2t 1 bu ild in g c m od er at or : h an g n gu ye n m od er at or : m ai t u m od er at or : t uy et k ha m od er at or : h oa ng p ha n m od er at or : t ha nh m in h 14 :1 5 1 4: 35 n gu ye n n go c h oa ng v y & h uy nh n go c th an h th e ef fe ct s o f i nt eg ra tin g lis te ni ng a nd sp ea ki ng sk ill s i nt o m oo dl eba se d ac tiv iti es n gu ye n tu ye n, a nd re w l ia n, & n gu ye n th uy n ga d ev el op in g en gl ish s pe ak in g sk ill s i n re m ot e se tti ng s: id en tif yi ng c ha lle ng es a nd o ff er in g so lu tio ns tr an q uo c th ao & d uo ng h uy te rti ar y n on -e ng lis h m aj or s’ a tti tu de s t ow ar d a ut on om ou s te ch no lo gy -b as ed l an gu ag e le ar ni ng n ad ya a ul ia m al au & h us ni r ah m an y og a (v ir tu al ) m id dl e ch ild ho od ’s a nd p ar en t’s pe rc ep tio n of v irt ua l e ng lis h le ar ni ng d ur in g th e co vi d19 in m ar en da l, n or th s um at er a 14 :4 0 1 5: 00 k ri st of fe r c on ra d te ja da (v ir tu al ) id eo lo gi ca l c on str uc tio ns in o nl in e n ew s d isc ou rs e pr es en te d in p hi lip pi ne br oa ds he et s: in pu t t o in no va tio ns in la ng ua ge e du ca tio n tu p hu ng n go c & l uo ng t hi k im ph un g o nl in e la ng ua ge l ea rn in g vi a m oo dl e an d m ic ro so ft te am s: st ud en ts’ pe rc ep tio ns a nd s ug ge sti on s f or im pr ov em en t tr an h oa ng a nh , t ra n th i t hu h a & p ha n th i n go c th ac h h ow to s m oo th ly m an ag e th e tr an sit io n fr om o ff lin e to o nl in e le ar ni ng fo r n on -m aj or ed s tu de nt s tr an t hi k im t uy en te ac hi ng a nd l ea rn in g en gl ish fo r to ur ism a fte r t he c ov id -1 9 pa nd em ic in u ni ve rs iti es a nd so lu tio n pr op os al s 15 :0 5 1 5: 20 fl oo r 5 15 :2 0 1 5: 40 n gu ye n th i n go c a nh & l e th an h h uy en te ch no lo gy in e ng lis h ed uc at io n in re m ot e m ou nt ai no us a re as : b ei ng fl ex ib le to b en d d o bi ch le ar ne rs ’ p er ce iv ed e ff ec ts of v id eo ba se d la ng ua ge l ea rn in g a pp s’ a ct iv iti es to im pr ov e en gl ish l ist en in g sk ill s n or f az lin m oh d r am li, m oh am m ad r ad zi m an ap , a in i a km ar m oh d k as im , n oo r a hn is o th m an , n ur ze ti a bd ul g ha fa r, & m oh d a sr i a rs ha d (v ir tu al ) d oc um en tin g a v isu al ly im pa ire d le ar ne r's e xp er ie nc e u sin g a ud ib le du rin g co vi d19 p an de m ic ph am t hi t hu y le im pa ct s o f d ig ita l t ea ch in g on tr ad iti on al a ss es sm en t: a n in ve sti ga tio n of v ie tn am es e en gl ish te ac he rs d ur in g co v id -1 9 pe rio d 15 :4 5 1 6: 05 lo v an p an g o nl in e te ac hi ng a nd le ar ni ng ch al le ng es in m ou nt ai no us a nd re m ot e ar ea o f v ie tn am tr uo ng h on g n go c st ud en ts’ p er ce pt io n to w ar d th e u se o f m oo dl eba se d lm s in l ea rn in g sp ea ki ng s ki lls a t t er ia ry l ev el n gu ye n ta n lo i & p ha m v u ph i h o in di ca tio ns o f p ai re d v s. g ro up ed -p ee r f ee db ac k on st ud en ts’ w rit in g a ct iv iti es tr an q uo c th ao & n gu ye n ph am th an h th ao n on -e ng lis h m aj or ed st ud en ts’ u se o f en gl ish v oc ab ul ar y le ar ni ng st ra te gi es w ith te ch no lo gy -e nh an ce d la ng ua ge le ar ni ng to ol s n gu ye n th i h a ch al le ng es in o nl in e le ar ni ng du rin g th e co vi d 19 p an de m ic 16 :1 0 1 6: 30 n gu ye n th i l an h uo ng & v u n go c tu ng d ev el op in g en gl ish -m aj or t ea ch er tr ai ne es ’ a ge nc y w ith r ef le ct iv e pr ac tic e: a c on ce pt ua l f ra m ew or k an d an e xa m pl e of c la ss -le ve l i nt er ve nt io n m uf ee da ir sh ad (v ir tu al ) te ac he r p er ce pt io n of f ac eb oo k as a m od e of a ss es sm en t to ng t ri eu a nh t hu , n gu ye n th i k im c hu ng , n gu ye n lo ng ti en , & l e th i n go c tu ye n a pp ly in g on lin e co lla bo ra tiv e w rit in g to e nh an ce s iu so ph om or e en gl ish m aj or s’ w rit in g sk ill s: a c as e stu dy a t t he sa ig on in te rn at io na l u ni ve rs ity n gu ye n th i p hu on g th ao th e u se o f v id eo d ub bi ng to en ha nc e n on -e ng lis h m aj or s tu de nt s' sp ea ki ng s ki ll at h un g v uo ng u ni ve rs ity h an a a zm i z ak iy ya h m us ta qi m ah , w ak hi d n as hr ud di n, & h en di h id ay at (v ir tu al ) co nt en t a nd p ed ag og ic al d im en sio n of c a ll : h ow c om pu te r a ss ist ed la ng ua ge l ea rn in g in th e 21 st ce nt ur y sh ou ld b e? 16 :3 5 1 6: 55 le tic ia p ag ka lin aw an (v ir tu al ) in cr ea sin g st ud en t e ng ag em en t th ro ug h cr ea tiv e an d te ch -b as ed m et ho ds o f l ea rn in g a kh an d sh ar m a & s hy am s un de r si ng h (v ir tu al ) th e im pa ct o f c o v id -1 9 on a do le sc en t l ei su re a ct iv iti es : w ith sp ec ia l r ef er en ce to s a a rc c ou nt rie s k ez he n li u, a nd re w l ia n, & bu ts ak or n y od ka m lu e (v ir tu al ) in te gr at in g in fo rm at io n lit er ac y tr ai ni ng in a n en gl ish -s pe ak in g co ur se in th e ch in es e co nt ex t m uh am m ad s af da r bh at ti (v ir tu al ) in ve sti ga tin g th e ro le o f i ct fo r te ac hi ng e ng lis h at e le m en ta ry l ev el n gu ye n h uy en u ye n n hi & d uo ng ly n ha t t am th e ch al le ng es o f e -le ar ni ng th ro ug h m ic ro so ft te am s f or e fl st ud en ts at v an l an g u ni ve rs ity in co v id -1 9 l un ch b re ak pl en ar y se ss io n bl en de d le ar ni ng w ith a n in te gr at ed m od el in o nl in e le ar ni ng a nd t ea ch in g d r. ph an , t he h un g, d ea n of f ac ul ty o f f or ei gn l an gu ag es , v an l an g u ni ve rs ity , v ie tn am pa ra lle l s es sio ns t ea -b re ak ti m e a .8 .4 a .5 .2 a .5 .4 a .5 .9 a .5 .1 1 is su es in in no va tio n & m ot iv at io n ef fe ct iv e pl at fo rm s/s oc ia l n et w or k fo r ele ar ni ng c ol la bo ra tiv e & in te ra ct iv e le ar ni ng /te ac hi ng im pl em en ta tio ns o f t ea ch in g ac tiv iti es o n v ir tu al e nv ir on m en t po st c ov id -1 9 pe rc ep tio ns & pr ac tic es o f t ea ch in g/ le ar ni ng m od er at or : t ra ng p ha m m od er at or : h uy c uo ng m od er at or : h an g v o m od er at or : q ua ng t ha o m od er at or : t hu t hu y 8: 00 8: 20 tr an k y m in h u ye n th e a tti tu de s a nd m ot iv at io ns to w ar ds d ist an ce l ea rn in g of t on d uc t ha ng u ni ve rs ity s tu de nt s a nd t ea ch er s tr an l e h oa i v u u sin g g ro up o ra l p re se nt at io ns a s a fo rm at iv e a ss es sm en t i n te ac hi ng en gl ish fo r v ie tn am es e ef l st ud en ts n gu ye n h uu n gh ie m th e ef fe ct s o f t as kba se d le ar ni ng o n n on -e ng lis h m aj or st ud en ts’ r ea di ng co m pr eh en sio n at n ii e n gu ye n ta t t ha nh u ni ve rs ity n gu ye n th an h m in h & d in h tr an n go c ph uc th e im pl em en ta tio n of e -l ea rn in g in to l an gu ag e le ar ni ng : a c as e of en gl ish m aj or s a t v an l an g u ni ve rs ity ja ro sla w k ra jk a (v ir tu al ) tr an sf or m in g la ng ua ge e du ca tio n to th e o nl in e m od e d ur in g co vi d19 t im es – o n a pp ro ac he s u se d in pa nd em ic l an gu ag e te ac hi ng 8: 25 8: 4 5 tr an t hi t hu y o an h th e ef fe ct iv en es s o f e -te ac hi ng a ct iv iti es in t ea ch in g sp ea ki ng s ki lls fo r e ng lis h m aj or s tu de nt s tr an v u m ai y en & n gu ye n tr an u ye n n hi o nl in e en gl ish t ea ch in g an d le ar ni ng w ith m ic ro so ft te am s: re al ity a nd so lu tio ns tr an m in h tu ng d ev el op in g q ua lit y h os pi ta lit y st ud en ts th ro ug h si m ul at io n an d ex pe rie nt ia l l ea rn in g – a n em pi ric al s tu dy a t f pt u ni ve rs ity d an an g n gu ye n h a & n gu ye n c uo ng en ha nc in g v ow el p ro nu nc ia tio n am on g en gl ish m aj or s u sin g m ob ile ba se d g am es : a c as e st ud y at v an la ng u ni ve rs ity le h a & t ru on g c an h te rti ar y st ud en ts’ p er sp ec tiv es o n o nl in e le ar ni ng d ur in g em er ge nc y re m ot e te ac hi ng (e rt ) i n th e co nt ex t o f c ov id -1 9: a c as e st ud y 8: 50 9: 30 9: 30 9: 45 fl oo r 5 9: 4 5 1 0: 0 5 k az um ic hi e no ki da , m its uh ir o m or ita , t at su ya s ak au e, s hu sa ku k id a, & s hu ic hi a m an o (v ir tu al ) u pd at in g an o rig in al v oc ab ul ar y li st fo r t he e ff ec tiv e im pl em en ta tio n of o nl in e es l co ur se s ph an t hi k im t ha o v ie tn am es e u nd er gr ad ua te s’ a tti tu de s to w ar ds th e u se o f f ac eb oo k fo r la ng ua ge t ea ch in g an d le ar ni ng n go c on g le m (v ir tu al ) a ss es sin g le xi ca l f ea tu re s a nd pr ov id in g fe ed ba ck o n ef l le ar ne rs ’ i el ts w rit in g w ith la m bn lp n gu ye n th u n gu ye t m in h, t ra n th i y en n hi , d o th an h tu ng , & n gu ye n q uo c h uy im pl em en tin g ele ar ni ng fo r b as ic co m pu te r s ub je ct a tv an l an g u ni ve rs ity , p er io d 20 17 20 20 h oa p ha m ch al le ng es d ef in in g a li fe p ur po se in a n ex am -d riv en c ul tu re : a c as e of v ie tn am 10 :1 0 1 0: 30 le d uc h an h & h oa ng n go c tu e v oc at io na l e ng lis h te ac he rs ’c ha lle ng es to s hi fti ng to w ar ds v irt ua l c la ss ro om t ea ch in g tr an q ua ng h ai d isc ou rs e a na ly sis o f e fl s tu de nt s' a tti tu de s a nd s oc ia l i nt er ac tio ns to w ar ds a v irt ua l c la ss ro om p. k ri sh na ve ni (v ir tu al ) fu zz y lo gi c ba se d q ue ry fo cu se d le ar ni ng m at er ia ls su m m ar iz at io n le t hi t ie u ph uo ng in co rp or at in g in te rn et -b as ed a pp lic at io ns in t ea ch in g in te gr at ed la ng ua ge s ki lls to e fl s tu de nt s n gu ye n th i t hu h uo ng & n gu ye n th i h on g n ha t a n in ve sti ga tio n in to e fl h ig h sc ho ol t ea ch er s’ p er ce pt io ns a nd ex pe rie nc es o f b le nd ed l ea rn in g in v ie tn am 10 :3 5 1 0: 55 tr an t hi m in h ph uo ng u sin g cl as sr oo m m an ag em en t t oo ls fo r t ea ch in g la ng ua ge in h ig he r ed uc at io n n gu ye n th i h on g n ha t d ev el op in g bo tto m -u p li ste ni ng s ki lls an d le ar ne r a ut on om y in a g oo gl e cl as sr oo m -b as ed e fl c ou rs e n gu ye n v . m y th e li ng ui sti ca lly -c re at ed co nc ep tu al iz at io n in t ea ch in g en gl ish a s a f or ei gn l an gu ag e: fr om u nd er sta nd in g to p ra ct ic e n gu ye n h oa m ai p hu on g th e us e of d ra m a ro le pl ay in g in te ac hi ng l ite ra tu re fo r e ng lis h m aj or ed st ud en ts: a n ac tio n re se ar ch at v lu tr uo ng t hi m . h an h in sig ht s f ro m d iff ic ul tie s en co un te re d am on g st ud en ts w ho se m aj or is t ra ns la tio n & in te rp re tin g in e ng lis h 11 :0 0 1 1: 20 fa ri na t az ija n, r of iz a a bo o ba ka r, & f az lin r am li (v ir tu al ) lo ck do w n re ad in g: a t ra ns m ed ia re ad in g m ot iv at io n pe rs pe ct iv e n go t hi c am t hu y ef l te ac he rs ’ e m ot io n re gu la tio n in re sp on se to o nl in ete ac hi ng a t v an la ng u ni ve rs ity a nd re w l ia n, x iru i c ai , y in m o, & y ao pi ng s hi (v irt ua lly ) o pt im iz in g au di to ry la ng ua ge in pu t f or fo re ig n la ng ua ge le ar ne rs th ro ug h a ve rb ot on al ap pr oa ch w ith c a ll sy ste m s v uo ng t hi h ai y en fr eq ue nc y em pl oy m en ts of d ire ct re fu sa l s tra te gi es b y th e n at iv e sp ea ke rs o f a m er ic an e ng lis h an d th e v ie tn am es e bu i t hi l oc th e ro le o f c ol lo ca tio n in e ng lis h te ac hi ng a nd l ea rn in g sa tu rd ay 2 3 ja nu ar y 20 21 pl en ar y se ss io n (r oo m a .8 .4 ) in te gr at in g in no va tio n in to e lt in sc ho ol s i n so ut h ea st a sia : p er sp ec tiv es fr om c am bo di a d r. a ni a li an , c ol le ge o f e du ca tio n, c ha rle s d ar w in u ni ve rs ity , a us tra lia t ea -b re ak 11 :2 5 1 1: 4 5 lu u th an h, n gu ye n q ui , n gu ye n th an h, & n gu ye n th e h un g th e n ee d of a pp ly in g en gl ish le ar ni ng s of tw ar e to h el p v an l an g u ni ve rs ity s tu de nt s i m pr ov e th ei r sp ok en e ng lis h pe rf or m an ce ph uo ng v o & h an g v o h o ch i m in h ci ty c ol le ge s tu de nt s’ a tti tu de s t ow ar ds th e ie lt s a ca de m ic te st tr uo ng v an a nh h ow f or ei gn l an gu ag es in flu en ce v ie tn am es e in b ac li eu d uo ng t ha nh h un g d uc & n gu ye n d ai t ra ng n ha u sin g co llo ca tio ns to e nh an ce ac ad em ic w rit in g: a su rv ey st ud y at v an l an g u ni ve rs ity n gu ye n th i n go c la n a n em pi ric al st ud y of fa ct or s in flu en ci ng la ng ua ge p ro fic ie nc y of v ie tn am es e stu de nt s 11 :4 5 1 3: 30 c an te en o n 4t h fl oo r 13 :3 0 1 4: 10 m od er at or : h oa ng p ha n m od er at or : b ic h tr am m od er at or : h uy c uo ng m od er at or : x ua n tu m od er at or : t hu t hu y 14 :1 5 1 4: 35 le t hi q uy nh n hu , n gu ye n th i tr an g, t ri nh s an g tr an g, h o th i th an h tu ye n, & n gu ye n ph u h un g th e im pa ct s o f m en ta l p ro bl em s o n st ud en ts’ p re se nt at io n sk ill a t v an la ng u ni ve rs ity n gu ye n th an h tr un g & q ua ch v i tu on g th e im pa ct s o f t he b ili ng ua lit y on le ar ni ng a t hi rd l an gu ag e fo r t hi rd ye ar e fl s tu de nt s i n v an l an g u ni ve rs ity tr an h oa ng t hi en , n gu ye n q uo c h oa ng , & n gu ye n h ai lo ng u sin g v irt ua liz ed c la ss ro om to al le vi at e th e lim ita tio ns o f t he tra di tio na l t ea ch in g an d le ar ni ng en gl ish a t v an l an g u ni ve rs ity n gu ye n v y u ye n th an h, n gu ye n th i ba o u ye n, h a y en n hi , b ui t hi x ua n tr an g, & n go t hi c am t hu y a s tu dy o n co lla bo ra tiv e o nl in e le ar ni ng a m on g ef l st ud en ts in v an l an g u ni ve rs ity (v lu ) tr in h th i l an a nh , t ra n th i k im n ga n, v o th uy b ao n go c, & h uy nh t hi t hu s uo ng th e d iff er en ce e ff ec ts of p ap er d ic tio na ry v s. o nl in e d ic tio na ry 14 :4 0 1 5: 00 n gu ye n tr an t ru on g th in h, l e tr in h m in h k ho i, & t ra n th i n go c li nh th e be ne fit s o f u sin g te ch no lo gi ca l to ol s f or p ro je ct -b as ed le ar ni ng ac tiv iti es in l ite ra tu re a t l ý th ườ ng k iệ t h ig h sc ho ol bu i t ri nh , n gu ye n th oi , l e se n, & tr an t hi t ru c th an h th e im pa ct s o f s el fle ar ni ng st ra te gi es : t he q ua lit at iv e an d q ua nt ita tiv e st ud y of e fl s tu de nt s a t v an l an g u ni ve rs ity su a i a nh t hu , t u c ao , t ri nh n gu ye n, a nh n gu ye n, & l e d o la m v y im pr ov in g en gl ish s pe ak in g a bi lit y th ro ug h ele ar ni ng n gu ye n n go c ba o tr an g & t ra n n gu ye n th u th uy d iff ic ul ty in w rit in g en gl ish o f v an la ng u ni ve sit y stu de nt s bu i v y & v o h an g m en ta l h ea lth s ta te s o f s en io ry ea r st ud en ts at t hr ee u ni ve rs iti es in h o ch i m in h ci ty a nd a ss ist ed re co m m en da tio n 15 :0 5 1 5: 25 fl oo r 5 15 :3 0 1 6: 15 16 :1 5 1 6: 30 pl en ar y se ss io n (r oo m a .8 .4 ) ef fe ct iv en es s o f a s ec on d li fe v irt ua l l ea rn in g en vi ro nm en t f or l an gu ag e tr ai ni ng in h os pi ta lit y an d to ur ism a ss oc ia te p ro fe ss or n gu ye n n go c v u, v ic epr es id en t, h oa s en u ni ve rs ity , v ie tn am l un ch b re ak t ea -b re ak a si ac a l l a nn ua l g en er al m ee tin g (a g m ) c lo si ng se ss io n pa ra lle l s es sio ns r oo m a . 8 .4 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 6 table of contents notes from the president ....................................................................................................................................................... 2 notes from chair of asiacall2021 & vltesol ............................................................................................................. 3 keynote speaker: second language learning contexts after covid-19: reconceptualizing classroomand study abroadlearning professor m. rafael salaberry ........................................................................................................................................ 13 keynote speaker: call in asia during covid-19 and models of e-learning pham vu phi ho ............................................................................................................................................................. 14 plenary speaker: blended learning with an integrated model in learning and teaching phan, the hung, ph.d. ................................................................................................................................................... 15 plenary speaker: integrating innovation into english language teaching (elt) practice in general education in south east asia in the post-covid19 era ania lian ........................................................................................................................................................................ 16 plenary speaker: effectiveness of second life virtual learning environment for language training in hospitality and tourism nguyen ngoc vu, vo thuy linh, nguyen thi thu van, nguyen thi hong lien ........................................................ 17 1. a case study of home-based teaching and learning practice at ton duc thang university nguyen huu ngoc .......................................................................................................................................................... 18 2. the effects of integrating listening and speaking skills into moodle-based activities nguyen ngoc hoang vy, huynh ngoc thanh .............................................................................................................. 19 3. effects of collaborative writing on efl learners’ writing ability at high school tran thi cam loan ........................................................................................................................................................ 20 4. online language learning via moodle and microsoft teams: students’ challenges and suggestions for improvement tu phung ngoc, luong thi kim phung ........................................................................................................................ 21 5. the effectiveness of using technology in learning english van lam kieu, dang truc anh, pham d. bao tran, vo t. thanh nga , pham v. phi ho .......................................... 22 6. a study on collaborative online learning among efl students in van lang university (vlu) bui thi xuan trang, ha yen nhi, nguyen thi bao uyen, nguyen vy uyen thanh , ngo thi cam thuy ............... 23 7. improving english speaking ability through e-learning su ai anh thu, le do lam vy, nguyen le ngoc trinh, nguyen thi lan anh ......................................................... 24 8. improving non-majored students' fluency in the english speaking skill in the online environment via ms-team thach thi ngoc phan, duyen thi nhu huynh .............................................................................................................. 25 9. the effects of ubiquitous learning on learning experience and learners’ engagement in english speaking class huynh t. thu nguyet ..................................................................................................................................................... 26 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 7 10. teachers’ perspective on implementing presentation – practice – production (ppp) approach to teach english grammar in vietnam nguyen ngoc huy .......................................................................................................................................................... 27 11. a study of facebook-based peer comments on l2 writing ho vu phi pham, anh thi hoai nguyen ....................................................................................................................... 28 12. discourse analysis of efl students' attitudes and social interactions towards a virtual classroom hai tran quang .............................................................................................................................................................. 29 13. developing education in vietnam in the context of international integration nguyen minh tri ............................................................................................................................................................ 30 14. insights from difficulties encountered among students whose major is translation and & interpreting in english truong thi mai hanh ..................................................................................................................................................... 31 15. using peer assessment in writing for efl learners ngo nhat phuong quynh ............................................................................................................................................... 32 16. students’ perception toward the use of moodlebased lms in learning speaking skill at teritary level h. n. truong ................................................................................................................................................................... 33 17. the impact of project works on speaking performance of englishmajored students at nguyen tat thanh university pham thi ngoan ............................................................................................................................................................. 34 18. the use of video dubbing to enhance non-english major students' speaking skill at hung vuong university nguyen thi phuong thao .............................................................................................................................................. 35 19. ho chi minh city college students’ attitudes towards the ielts academic test phuong ngoc ho, hang thi thu vo .............................................................................................................................. 36 20. the role of collocation in the english teaching and learning bui thi loc ..................................................................................................................................................................... 37 21. lockdown reading: a transmedia reading motivation perspective farina tazijan, rofiza aboo bakar, & fazlin ramli ..................................................................................................... 38 22. assessing lexical features and providing feedback on efl learners’ ielts writing with lambnlp ngo cong-lem ............................................................................................................................................................... 39 23. measuring digital competence of buh lecturers in distant online learning during the covid-19 pandemic nguyen quang nhat, nguyen hong oanh ..................................................................................................................... 40 24. indications of pairedvs. grouped-peer feedback on students’ writing activities loi nguyen tan, pham vu phi ho ................................................................................................................................ 41 25. a study on interaction patterns in language learning online classes – adaptation and efficiency thanh vu thi, duyen dao thuy .................................................................................................................................... 42 26. transition from textbook to digital delivery john blake ...................................................................................................................................................................... 43 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 8 27. frequency employments of direct refusal strategies of offers by the native speakers of american english and the vietnamese yen vuong thi hai ........................................................................................................................................................ 44 28. tertiary non-english majors’ attitudes towards autonomous technology-based language learning thao quoc chan, huy duong ........................................................................................................................................ 45 29. using collocations to enhance academic writing: a survey study at van lang university duc thanh hung duong, nha dai trang nguyen ......................................................................................................... 46 30. the impacts of the bilinguality on learning a third language for senior efl students in van lang university tuong v. quach, trung t. nguyen ............................................................................................................................... 47 31. blended learning with technology-based activties in interpreting courses – a trial in vietnam nguyen thi nhu ngoc ................................................................................................................................................... 48 32. mental impacts on efl junior students’ presentation skill at van lang university ho thi thanh tuyen, le thi quynh nhu, nguyen thi trang, trinh sang trang, nguyen phu hung ........................ 49 33. documenting a visually impaired learner's experience using audible during covid-19 pandemic nor fazlin mohd ramli, noor ahnis othman, aini akmar mohd kasim, mohammad radzi manap, nurzeti abdul ghafar, mohamad asri arshad ...................................................................................................................................... 50 34. the challenges of e-learning through microsoft teams for efl students at van lang university in covid-19 nguyen huyen uyen nhi, duong ly nhat tam ............................................................................................................ 51 35. difficulty in writing english of van lang univerity students nguyen ngoc bao trang, tran nguyen thu thuy ........................................................................................................ 52 36. ideological constructions in news discourse presented in philippine broadsheets: input to innovations in language education kristoffer conrad m. tejada .......................................................................................................................................... 53 37. the need of applying english learning apps to help van lang university students improve their spoken english performance luu le phuong thanh, nguyen thi ngoc qui, vo nguyen thai thanh, nguyen minh the hung ............................. 54 38. the impact of covid-19 on adolescent leisure activities: with special reference to saarc countries akhand sharma, shyam sunder singh .......................................................................................................................... 55 39. technology in english education in remote mountainous areas: being flexible to bend nguyen thi ngoc anh, le thanh huyen ...................................................................................................................... 56 40. middle childhood’s and parent’s perception of virtual english learning during the covid-19 in marendal, north sumatera nadya aulia malau, husni rahman yoga ..................................................................................................................... 57 41. the impact of teaching on mobile devices on efl teachers’ abilities to use mobile devices: from content delivery to blended interaction vo van loc, nguyen ngoc vu , vo thuy linh ............................................................................................................. 58 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 9 42. rhythm, intonation, movement, and emotion (rime): introducing a multisensorial-multicogntive literacy pedagogy in an academic writing unit in indonesia lala sudimantara ............................................................................................................................................................ 59 43. online english teaching and learning with microsoft teams: reality and solutions tran vu mai yen, nguyen tran uyen nhi .................................................................................................................... 60 44. teaching and learning english for tourism after the covid-19 pandemic in universities and solution proposals tran thi kim tuyen ....................................................................................................................................................... 61 45. how to smoothly manage the transition from offline to online learning for non-majored students tran hoang anh, tran thi thu ha, phan thi ngoc thach ............................................................................................ 62 46. the implementation of e-learning into language learning: a case of english majors at van lang university minh nguyen thanh, phuc dinh tran ngoc ................................................................................................................. 63 47. decisive factors challenging digital pedagogy during covid-19 pandemic: teaching methods or teaching applications? nguyen thi ha ............................................................................................................................................................... 64 48. an overview of student engagement with written feedback in efl writing class hanh thi my nguyen ..................................................................................................................................................... 65 49. the effects of task-based learning on non-english major students’ reading comprehension at niie nguyen tat thanh university nguyen huu nghiem ...................................................................................................................................................... 66 50. developing english-major teacher trainees’ agency with reflective practice: a conceptual framework and an example of class-level intervention nguyen thi lan huong, vu ngoc tung ........................................................................................................................ 67 51. investigating the role of ict for teaching english at elementary level muhammad safdar bhatti ............................................................................................................................................... 68 52. effects of online reading in the era of technology for students at university of transport and communications nga thi bui .................................................................................................................................................................... 69 53. non-english majored students’ use of english vocabulary learning strategies with technology-enhanced language learning tools tran quoc thao, nguyen pham thanh thao ................................................................................................................ 70 54. applying online collaborative writing to enhance siu sophomore english majors’ writing skills: a case study at the saigon international university nguyen thi kim chung, tong trieu anh thu, le thi ngoc tuyen, nguyen long tien ............................................ 71 55. a computer-assisted prosody-based platform for improving efl vietnamese learners’ listening ability v. t. m luu, a-p. lian, p. siriyothin ............................................................................................................................ 72 56. using group oral presentations as a formative assessment in teaching english for vietnamese efl students vu tran le hoai ............................................................................................................................................................ 73 57. the effectiveness of e-teaching activities in teaching speaking skills for english major students acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 10 tran thi thuy oanh, ho thi yen lan, le thi hai yen ............................................................................................... 74 58. teacher perception of facebook as a mode of assessment mufeeda irshad ............................................................................................................................................................... 75 59. the difference effects of paper dictionary vs. online dictionary trinh thi lan anh, tran thi kim ngan, vo thuy bao ngoc, huynh thi thu suong ................................................ 76 60. online teaching and learning challenges in mountainous and remote area of vietnam van pang lo ................................................................................................................................................................... 77 61. developing quality hospitality students through simulation and experiential learning – an empirical study at fpt university danang tran minh tung ............................................................................................................................................................. 78 62. the attitudes towards distance learning of ton duc thang university students and teachers minh uyen ky tran ....................................................................................................................................................... 79 63. learners’ perceived effects of video-based language learning apps’ activities to improve english listening skills do bich ........................................................................................................................................................................... 80 64. enhancing vowel production among first-year english majors using mobile-based games: a case study at van lang university nguyen ha, nguyen cuong ........................................................................................................................................... 81 65. an investigation into efl high school teachers’ perceptions and experiences of blended learning in vietnam nguyen thi thu huong, nguyen thi hong nhat .......................................................................................................... 82 66. evaluating the impacts of virtual exchange on language learning and intercultural competence: a case study nguyen dieu ngoc, ho thi hien ................................................................................................................................... 83 67. the application of metacognitive strategies in computer-assisted listening comprehension class lu dinh bao .................................................................................................................................................................. 84 68. mental health states of senior-year students at three universities in ho chi minh city and assisted recommendation hang vo thi thu, bui khanh vy thi ............................................................................................................................ 85 69. efl teachers’ emotion regulation in response to online-teaching at vanlang university ngo thi cam thuy ......................................................................................................................................................... 86 70. challenges defining a life purpose in an exam-driven culture: a case of vietnam pham thi hoa ................................................................................................................................................................. 87 71. transforming language education to the online mode during covid-19 times – on approaches used in pandemic language teaching jaroslaw krajka .............................................................................................................................................................. 88 72. updating an original vocabulary list for the effective implementation of online esl courses kazumichi enokida, mitsuhiro morita, tatsuya sakaue, shusaku kida, shuichi amano ............................................ 89 73. implementing e-learning for basic computer subject at van lang university, period 2017 – 2020 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 11 nguyen thu nguyet minh, tren thi yen nhi, do thanh tùng, nguyen quoc huy ................................................... 90 74. student-teachers’ satisfaction from blended learning phan thu nga ................................................................................................................................................................. 91 75. tertiary students’ perspectives on online learning during emergency remote teaching (ert) in the context of covid-19: a case study ha le, canh truong ....................................................................................................................................................... 92 76. the impacts of self-learning strategies: the qualitative and quantitative study of efl students at van lang university sen le, thoi nguyen, trinh bui, and thanh tran ......................................................................................................... 93 77. using virtualized classroom to alleviate the limitations of the traditional teaching and learning english at van lang university ............................................................................................................................................................................ 94 tran hoang thien, nguyen quoc hoang, nguyen hai long ........................................................................................ 94 78. vietnamese undergraduates’ attitudes towards the use of facebook for language teaching and learning ............ 95 phan thi kim thao ........................................................................................................................................................ 95 79. the linguistically-created conceptualization in teaching english as a foreign language: from understanding to practice ................................................................................................................................................................................ 96 nguyen v. my ................................................................................................................................................................ 96 80. incorporating internet-based applications in teaching integrated language skills to efl students ......................... 97 phuong thi tieu le ........................................................................................................................................................ 97 81. impacts of digital teaching on traditional assessment: an investigation of vietnamese english teachers during covid-19 period pham thi thuy le .......................................................................................................................................................... 98 82. vocational english teachers’challenges to shifting towards virtual classroom teaching hoang ngoc tue, le duc hanh ..................................................................................................................................... 99 83. how foreign languages influence vietnamese in bac lieu anh van truong ........................................................................................................................................................... 100 84. the integration of 21st century-skill and virtual learning with covid-19 hiroyuki obari .............................................................................................................................................................. 101 85. using classroom management tools for teaching language in higher education tran thi minh phuong ................................................................................................................................................. 102 86. a study on the effectiveness of the online platform in tertiary education in a malaysian university chan hai lin, ng yim san .......................................................................................................................................... 103 87. increasing student engagement through creative and tech-based methods of learning leticia c. pagkalinawan ............................................................................................................................................... 104 88. the use of drama role-playing in teaching english literature for english majored students: an action research at van lang university nguyen hoa mai phuong ............................................................................................................................................. 105 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 12 89. developing bottom-up listening skills and learner autonomy in a google classroom-based efl course nguyen thi hong nhat ................................................................................................................................................ 106 90. an empirical study of factors influencing the language proficiency of vietnamese students lan thi ngoc nguyen, nga thi thanh tran, huyen thi nguyen, minh quang le ................................................... 107 91. content and pedagogical dimension of call: how computer assisted language learning in the 21st century should be? hana azmi zakiyyah mustaqimah,wakhid nashruddin, hendi hidayat .................................................................... 108 92. critical perspectives on digital tools: the pic-rat framework rudi cohen ................................................................................................................................................................... 109 93. fuzzy logic based query focused learning materials summarization krishnaveni p , balasundaram s r ............................................................................................................................... 110 94. the benefits of using technological tools for project-based learning activities in literature at lý thường kiệt high school nguyen tran truong thinh, le trinh minh khoi, tran thi ngoc linh .................................................................... 111 95. developing english speaking skills in remote settings: identifying challenges and offering solutions nguyen chau bich tuyen, andrew lian, nguyen thuy nga ..................................................................................... 112 96. optimizing auditory language input for foreign language learners through a verbotonal approach with call systems andrew lian, xirui cai, yin mo, yaoping shi ........................................................................................................... 113 97. classroom innovation: addressing english classroom needs through design thinking reynald alfred sy ........................................................................................................................................................ 114 98. integrating information literacy training in an english-speaking course in the chinese context kezhen liu , andrew lian, butsakorn yodkamlue ...................................................................................................... 115 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 13 keynote speaker second language learning contexts after covid-19: reconceptualizing classroomand study abroad-learning professor m. rafael salaberry mary gibbs jones professor of humanities, research director, center for languages and intercultural communication, rice university, usa abstract the health emergency prompted by the pandemic caused by covid-19 has put on hold the study abroad experience that had become an increasingly important aspect of a second language experience of so many university students worldwide. on an even larger scale, the entire university educational system of most countries has, functionally, moved to an online-setting for almost a year. this unprecedented situation has brought into focus a long-standing debate on the relationship between the latest uses of technology (primarily communication-based) and the study abroad experience. the analysis of both affordances and constraints of new technologies (e.g., chun, 2015; godwin-jones, 2016, 2019; hampton, 2015; kinginger, 2008; o'dowd, 2018; thorne, 2010) can now be reviewed with a new perspective given the sudden emergence of an online-oriented model of education. will the current forced (and unwelcome) educational experiment lead to changes in the structuring of learning opportunities associated with a study abroad setting in a postcovid-19 world? to what extent have restrictions on social-physical contact prompted a reanalysis of the value we place on face-to-face social encounters provided by the sa context? to what extent should we fast-track the development of technology-enhanced proxies for such personal interactions? in this presentation i will address possible answers to these questions in an effort to reframe the relationship between virtual exchanges and the on-site study abroad experience. keynotes: online-oriented model, social-physical contact, face-to-face social encounters, technology-enhanced proxies, virtual exchanges, on-site study abroad biodata i am a professor in the department of modern and classical literatures and cultures at rice university, where i conduct research in a number of areas associated with the fields of applied linguistics, second language acquisition, multilingualism and bilingual education. currently, i am on the editorial board of the following peer-reviewed journals: the journal of multilingual theories and practices, the online journal language@internet and the journal of spanish language teaching. i am also on the international advisory board of ilce (instituto de lengua y cultura españolas) – universidad de navarra (spain). acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 14 keynote speaker call in asia during covid-19 and models of e-learning pham vu phi ho van lang university corresponding author’s email: ho.pvp@vlu.edu.vn abstract corona virus’ pandemic (covid-19) has affected all of the world's aspects, such as economics, lifestyles, culture, education, etc. most schools and universities have been shut down for the safety of students. then e-learning has been employed in many schools and universities to keep education going on. however, many lecturers/teachers and students in vietnam have not been familiar with this teaching/learning mode yet. training lecturers/teachers to use the e-learning system at a school or university is an essential issue for teaching/learning and school management. few research studies have been investigated to study the useful model of e-learning classrooms during this critical time. this paper presents an overlook of e-learning issues around asia during the corona virus pandemic. it provided the problems of e-learning applied in vietnam before the pandemic of the corona virus; then examined a case study on the implementation of elearning at a university in vietnam during the lockdown situation. the study revealed that the implementation of elearning in vietnam still had many obstacles in terms of internet connection, available devices, economic conditions, and the students' unwilling-perceptions. the study also provided a model of e-learning for the school/university management and the lecturers/teachers who wish to run their e-learning classes effectively. keywords: corona virus’ pandemic, covid-19, e-learning, online-meeting, lms biodata assoc. prof. pham vu phi ho, ph.d., faculty of foreign languages, van lang university, vietnam. he used to be a vice-president of ba ria – vung tau university and vice-president of van hien university, vietnam. pham has been published 40 research articles in both local and international journals (isi/scopus-indexed) and seven books and coursebooks. he has international experience teaching english at suranaree university of technology, thailand; especially, he worked as a professor for gyeongju university, south korea, in 2014. pham v. p. ho is the vice president for administrative affairs of the asiacall and the managing editor of its asiacall online journal (acoj). he is also an editor for the asian journal of applied linguistics (scopus-indexed), an international journal of english linguistics editor. pham vu phi ho is even a peer reviewer for some international journals indexed in isi/scopus, such as computer assisted language learning, open sage, international journal of instruction. his main interests include academic writing, peer responses, translation, teaching methodologies, and technology-enhanced learning. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 15 plenary speaker blended learning with an integrated model in learning and teaching phan, the hung, ph.d. van lang university abstract in digital education, there are several challenges for schools and teachers to apply the concept of education 4.0: (1) curriculum and teaching methodology, (2) no flipped classes, individualized learning, mostly synchronous, not asynchronous activities based on their syllabus or learning programs, (3) the application of artificial intelligence, the search for information in database, especially virtual reality (vr), (4) the tendency of self-learning, self-improvement, cooperation and communication, solutions to problems, creativity, and (5) long-life learning are the skills for the learners of today. to overcome these challenges, digital literacy is very important to both teachers and learners so that schools are set up as a digital environment including teachers and learners, knowledge, technology, and all the activities. in a national conference in december, 2020, the ministry of education and training (moet), vietnam, also confirmed the digital transformation as the most important role of all the higher education systems in vietnam in the period 20212025 with the hope that all the universities and colleges in vietnam can mainly contribute to the development of the economy in vietnam in the digital era. the recent tendency in education in vietnam is to promote an updated process in delivering methods in education together with technology-enabled learning and teaching in many countries in the world. that is the reason why blended learning has become more and more popular with the development of the computer and the internet, creating opportunities for many learners in multiple locations to get access to user-friendly resources for their web-based learning. in addition, teachers are still the key performers in teaching and learning. online education is still an updated argument and application in the digital transformation in the world. the article just introduces some major theories related to technology associated with learning. one critical question concerned whether an integrated or unified theory of online education could be developed to overcome its challenges. key words: digital transformation, blended learning, integrated model, technology-enabled learning and teaching biodata dr. phan the hung is dean of faculty of foreign languages, van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam. he is also the director of the national center of english language testing of vlu. he earned his m.a. degree in applied linguistics at northern iowa, usa and his phd. degree in linguistics at queensland university, australia. he has another phd degree in language studies at hcmc university of education, vietnam. in terms of management, dr. phan the hung used to be dean of faculty of foreign languages & international studies from 2005 to 2012 at da lat university, vietnam. from 1991-1999, he the director of center of foreign languages, and later from 2005-2012, the vice-director of center for korean-vietnamese culture. in terms of publications, dr. phan the hung has published a number of books and research articles in linguistics and applied linguistics. his main interests are in linguistics, applied linguistics, culture and language. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 16 plenary speaker integrating innovation into english language teaching (elt) practice in general education in south east asia in the post-covid19 era ania lian charles darwin university email: ania.lian@cdu.edu.au abstract currently, the government of cambodia is in the process of modernising its education systems, including the quality of english language teaching. however, our preliminary research shows that in practice, change is expensive, the impacts are scattered and uncertain, and the direction for future unknown. learning continues to rely on following textbooks, while the ground-breaking outcomes of education projects by international scholars, such as sugata mitra, are ignored. there is a need for new models of learning that are better equipped to comply with the transformative education goals recently adopted in cambodia. this plenary address will explain those goals and will share with the asiacall audience recently obtained evidence on the impacts of the current approaches to change in cambodia and the implications for future. biodata dr. ania lian works at the college of education, charles darwin university, darwin, australia. ania teaches undergraduate and postgraduate teacher education courses, focusing on numerous aspects concerning theories of teaching and learning, especially in relation to languages and literacy. ania is an experienced doctoral students’ supervisor. among her recent publications is a co-edited book, challenges in global learning: international contexts and cross disciplinary perspectives. it concerns issues of relating to concept and policy development, education philosophy and the use of technology as the pillars informing current pedagogic developments in australia and southeast asia. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 17 plenary speaker effectiveness of second life virtual learning environment for language training in hospitality and tourism nguyen ngoc vu1* , vo thuy linh2 , nguyen thi thu van3 , nguyen thi hong lien4 1,4hoa sen university 2,3sai gon university *corresponding author. email: vu.nguyenngoc@hoasen.edu.vn abstract virtual learning environment (vle) systems have been widely used in higher education as an effective e-learning platform. with its large user community and virtual facilities in various disciplines, including education, recreation, tourism, business, etc. second life (sl) has become one of the most dominant vle systems for hospitality and tourism training. with better student devices and faster internet connection, language education in vietnam recently saw soaring interest in using sl for training, especially in an esp area like english for hospitality and tourism. however, there are still very few researches on the effectiveness of sl vle for language training in hospitality and tourism. this fifteen week quasi-experimental study was conducted on two classes (n = 81) in order to investigate the effectiveness of sl vle for language training in hospitality and tourism with a focus on speaking skill. the instruments included english speaking tests, attitudinal questionnaire, and semi-structured interview. the findings of the study indicated that language training activities in sl positively contributed to students’ language proficiency progress. besides, students have positive perceptions about the use of sl vle in their training. it is recommended that language training programs in hospitality and tourism make more substantial use of virtual restaurants, hotels, resorts, and entertainment places in sl to enrich students’ learning experience. hospitality and tourism training institutions should spend resources on formal sl vle training for teachers and students and build their sl facilities. keywords: virtual learning, sl, language education, hospitality, tourism, esp. biodata nguyen ngoc vu is vice president of hoa sen university and chairman of stesol founded by the association of vietnam universities and colleges. dr. vu has 12 years of experience building and consulting ict integration into project-based teaching and english language teaching in vietnam. he won vietnam technology innovation award in 2012 and got recognized as microsoft innovative educator (mie) master trainer in 2014. his research interests include computer assisted language learning, cognitive linguistics, educational technology, and elt methodology. nguyen thi thu van is lecturer of english at saigon university, vietnam. her research interests include english phonetics and phonology, language teaching methodology and educational technology. nguyen thi hong lien is lecturer of english at hoasen university, vietnam. her research interests include teaching language skills, business english and computer assisted language learning acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 18 a case study of home-based teaching and learning practice at ton duc thang university nguyen huu ngoc ton duc thang university e-mail: nguyenhuungoc921@gmail.com abstract online teaching is apparently not a new concept to teachers and students in the era of technology-driven world. however, it has not been widely applied in education until the severe widespread outbreak of covid-19 pandemic at a global scale. like other educational institutions, ton duc thang university promptly switched to online teaching practice for all courses for the sake of teachers’ and students’ safety and health protection. in line with this, english courses have been applied accordingly with the aid of online zoom cloud meetings. for the purpose of investigating the implementation of homebased teaching practice at tdtu as well as its advantages and disadvantages, the research entitled “a case study of homebased teaching and learning practice at ton duc thang university” was launched with the participation of three teachers and 76 non-english major students from three english classes at elementary and pre-intermediate level. with the use of observations and interviews, the researcher found that there are generally three main stages in every three-period online lesson: teacher’s presentation with zoom – students’ assignment in google classroom – teacher’s constructive feedback with zoom. teachers and students have certain benefits regarding geographical convenience, time flexibility, customized learning environment. however, there are several hindrances to this mode of teaching and learning, namely technical problems, no self-discipline, limited interactions, difficulty in class controls and teachers and students’ anxiety over the use of technology. these findings contributed to further research on online teaching practice as well as considerations as to whether face-to-face teaching and learning should be replaced in the long run. keywords: home-based teaching and learning, ton duc thang university, zoom biodata i graduated from hcmc university of pedagogy, majoring in teaching english as a foreign language. i am currently an ma candidate at the university of social sciences and humanities with the same major. i am working at ton duc thang university as a lecturer of english. moreover, i am an english teacher at the vus. my research interests are pedagogical approaches of teaching english, learner autonomy and language testing and assessment. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 19 the effects of integrating listening and speaking skills into moodle-based activities nguyen ngoc hoang vy1 , huynh ngoc thanh2 1,2 language institute, van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam *corresponding author’s email: vy.nnh@vlu.edu.vn abstract many researchers have conducted studies on teaching listening skills to examine the possible influences of different instruments, such as video programs, audiobooks, multimedia, authentic materials-based activities. however, there is little literature mentioning the impacts of the integrated skills approach through an e-learning tool on specific language skills. as a result, this paper aimed to investigate whether there are any different effects between listening and speaking instructions in integration and listening instructions only on listening comprehension with moodle platform's implementation. sixty-eight non-english primary first-year students at van lang university were picked up and divided into two groups: an experimental group (eg) and a control group (cg). using the task-based approach, the researchers focused the integrated skills on the eg’s learning process while no speaking training was given to the cg. data collected from a pre-posttest design were analyzed to determine whether there are differences between the two groups in terms of listening comprehension while a semi-structured interview was performed for both groups to explore students’ attitudes towards moodle-based activities. the study’s results revealed that both groups' students significantly improved their listening comprehension. there was no considerable difference in terms of listening skills between the students in the eg and cg. besides, the data obtained from the interview indicated that all participants had positive attitudes towards moodle-based activities. the study results also recommended that the employment of a moodle platform combined with teachers’ devotion should undoubtedly lead to practical effectiveness in teaching and learning listening. keywords: moodle-based, e-learning, listening, speaking, integrated skills. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 20 effects of collaborative writing on efl learners’ writing ability at high school tran thi cam loan mong tho secondary school, chau thanh, kien giang email: loanttc.c3mongtho@kiengiang.edu.vn abstract this quasi-experimental study investigates the effects of collaborative writing on efl learners’ writing ability at high school. 64 grade 11 students were recruited to participate in the study. tests and questionnaires were the two instruments used in this study. tests on english writing were used to examine the effects of collaborative writing on learners’ ability to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. questionnaires were used to gain participants’ perception about collaborative writing. results show the positive effects of collaborative writing on learners’ writing ability. learners from the experimental group outperformed the ones from the control group, especially in terms of the writing ability. the findings from the questionnaire also support the conclusion that the learners had positive attitudes towards the use of collaborative writing. pedagogical implications are also provided with regard to implementing collaborative writing in a high school context. keywords: writing ability, collaborative writing, perception biodata my full name is tran thi cam loan. i work at mong tho high school, kien giang province, vietnam. i have been working as an efl teacher since 2000. i earned my master’s degree in theory and methodologies of english language teaching from tra vinh university. my research is on collaborative learning and teaching. telephone number: 0983110403 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 21 online language learning via moodle and microsoft teams: students’ challenges and suggestions for improvement tu phung ngoc1 , luong thi kim phung2 1school of chinese language and literature, nanjing normal university, jiangsu, china 2faculty of foreign languages, van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam *corresponding author. email: phung.ltk@vlu.edu.vn abstract although technology has long been integrated in efl classes and blended learning has achieved immense popularity, fully online language learning is still a novel approach in vietnamese context. besides its obvious benefits, this learning mode also poses considerable challenges. this study aims to explore perceptions of efl students in respect of challenges faced by english majors during their online language learning via moodle and microsoft teams and to provide teachers and students some practical suggestions for tackling these challenges. this study surveyed 212 english majors’ perceptions of online language learning at a university. quantitative data was collected from a questionnaire and qualitative one was collected from a follow-up interview. quantitative results showed that, students generally had negative attitudes towards online education and confronted serious challenges such as technical problems, distractions and lack of interaction with their peers. however, online educational experience can deal with the problem of poor technical skills and make students have a more positive attitude towards online course achievement and this learning mode. in addition, several factors associated with a high level of supportive attitude towards online education and some suggestions for the use of moodle were found. the results of this research help efl teachers to justify their teaching methods to tackle their students’ problems and help school administrators to develop long-term strategies to achieve their goal of providing effective total online language courses. keywords: online learning, moodle, microsoft teams, english learning and teaching biodata 1 tu phung ngoc is a third-year phd student in applied linguistics at nanjing normal university, china. she holds an ma in tesol and a ba in chinese linguistics and literature from the university of social sciences and humanities, hcmc. she focuses her research on efl learners’ learning motivation, learning styles and strategies, english communication skills and reflective writing skills. her recent research interests include psycholinguistics and cognitive linguistics, particularly in the context of teaching and learning foreign languages. in her future career, she hopes to contribute to the field of second language acquisition via the research in her aforementioned interests. 2 luong thi kim phung is a lecturer of english at van lang university. she obtains her ba in english linguistics and literature and ma in tesol from the university of social sciences and humanities, hcmc. her recent research interests include computer assisted language learning, instructing english writing skills, language anxiety, and distance language learning. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 22 the effectiveness of using technology in learning english van lam kieu1 , dang truc anh2 , pham d. bao tran3 , vo t. thanh nga4 , pham v. phi ho5 1,2,3,4,5 van lang university, vietnam correspondence: van lam kieu, email: vanlamkieu0907@gmail.com abstract this study found out about the effectiveness of using technology in learning english. however, few studies have been shown the effectiveness of technology in all english skills: speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills. third-year students of the foreign language department at van lang university participated in this study for 2 weeks. the questions revolve around learning english and using technology in learning english. the researchers will then collect all the data of the responses to come to general conclusions for the study. the goal of using technology in learning english brings a strong potential to enhance language skills for learners and promote the process of learning english quickly. after using technology in learning english, we will see the effectiveness of the four skills, and this effect is expressed as a percentage (30%, 50%, 80%) based on the results obtained from the questionnaires. keywords: technology, learning english, effectiveness of using technology, english skills. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 23 a study on collaborative online learning among efl students in van lang university (vlu) bui thi xuan trang 1 , ha yen nhi 2* , nguyen thi bao uyen 3 , nguyen vy uyen thanh 4 , ngo thi cam thuy 5 1,2,3,4 juniors, van lang university, faculty of foreign languages 5 mentor, lecturer, ma, van lang university, faculty of foreign languages *corresponding author’s -mail: hayennhi080800@gmail.com abstract the study aims to investigate the benefits as well as drawbacks that efl students met when they studied in group online in van lang university. this based on the theoretical framework of laila rawahi and abdu mekhlafi (2015). this study was conducted with 60 students from freshmen to seniors majoring in foreign languages in van lang university (vlu) and already experienced online learning, they answered a questionnaire to point out what they faced with when working in group via internet. the results show while some students find collaborative virtual learning methods beneficial in term of distance and the elimination of time as well as financial border, other elf students had troubles in interaction and concentration. moreover, findings suggest that some technological problems such as the internet connection, weak computer skills still play as main threat leading to controversial issues between teammates. moreover, some distractions such as social media, noisy outside environment and talkative members also influence the learning progress. it is implied from the study that e-learning is such an evolution in education; however, it is not totally effective for learning in group online. the purpose of this study will suggest some upsides and downsides of online collaborative learning so that schools and lecturers can seek solutions to solve the problems and enhance the positive impacts of online collaborative learning. keywords: online learning, collaborative learning, learning in group, working in group biodata we have 4 students and one lecturer as our mentor in our team, and 5 of us are learning and working for van lang university (vlu) in vietnam. four of us are just third-year students of the faculty of foreign languages, and this is the first time we have worked in a research paper with the help of our mentor, ms. ngo thi cam thuy, who is experienced in doing a research paper. we had considered a lot before making the last decision, and we surely think that our work can be a source of information for others. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 24 improving english speaking ability through e-learning su ai anh thu1 , le do lam vy2 , nguyen le ngoc trinh3 , nguyen thi lan anh4 1,2,3,4van lang university, ho chi minh city corresponding author’s email: khanhhang61@gmail.com abstract e-learning is an alternative approach to education, which mentions the utilization of information and transmission technologies to allow the way to online learning. many previous studies have compared e-learning with face-to-face learning to find out the benefits and drawbacks of each method, and to see if they could substitute the other. however, few studies examined to see whether e-learning effects on english as foreign language (efl) in speaking skill, some were successful to investigate but some were not. in order to fill this gap, this study demonstrates the effectiveness of elearning in improving english speaking ability. to achieve the goal, the researchers used a random sampling method with twenty questionnaires and five questions to interview. participants were fifty junior students of the faculty of foreign language, who had two years of experience of studying speaking skills at van lang university (vlu) in ho chi minh city. the procedure of collecting results lasted two weeks and data collection was analyzed based on the results presented in the chart. these findings shed light on the difficult factor students encountered when speaking english and highlight the progression of development speaking ability via e-learning. keywords: e-learning, speaking ability, traditional learning, efl. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 25 improving non-majored students' fluency in the english speaking skill in the online environment via ms-team thach thi ngoc phan1* duyen thi nhu huynh1 1 language institute, van lang university, vietnam *corresponding author. email: ngocthach197@gmail.com abstract teaching the speaking skill for non-majored students in the online environment with a large class size is a challenge for efl teachers. therefore, this study aims at exploring english speaking difficulties in the online environment in terms of interaction, and concentration in the relationship with the students’ speaking fluency. the study involved about 70 nonenglish majors at van lang university in answering a questionnaire. the results revealed that although students were taught the prescribed syllabus of balancing integrated skills, their teachers still had the trend of avoiding (or lessen the time) teaching the speaking skill online. the results further indicated that the learning of speaking online was passive, mostly because of the students’ lack of input due to their low level and their lack of interaction with their teacher and peers. findings are hoped to contribute to a better understanding of non-english majors’ speaking fluency’s difficulties in the online efl context. then, a solution of adopting microsoft whiteboard, which is already integrated in microsoft teams, is suggested to partly help enhance the teacherstudents’ interaction, the most frequent and typical interaction, as a method to increase the students’ fluency when learning online. keywords: non-english major, speaking fluency, online learning, big size class, low level. biodata the authors of this paper are phan thi ngoc thach and huynh thi nhu duyen (both are ma. in tesol). they are currently working in van lang university, vietnam as lecturers for english non-majored students. they are strongly inspired by eflresearch which leads to improvement in teaching and learning. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 26 the effects of ubiquitous learning on learning experience and learners’ engagement in english speaking class huynh t. thu nguyet national taiwan normal university email: httnguyet@ufl.udn.vn abstract although ubiquitous learning has been widely implemented in classrooms of other subjects, its existence in the language classroom is still scarce. accordingly, this study aimed to examine how mobile learning could affect learners’ learning experience and their engagement in a foreign language (i.e. english) classroom. this teaching methodology drew on learners’ perception and background knowledge to enhance their learning experience. specifically, twenty college students from a university in vietnam, who were taking an english course at b2 level (cefr), were invited to participate in the experiment. they were exposed to two learning conditions: learning with textbook-provided photos versus learning with their self-taken photos. in the latter condition, learners were asked to explore their surroundings and take photos on a designated theme. the self-taken photos were then used as alternatives to textbook-provided photos. the results revealed that learners preferred to learn with their self-taken photos as they found more familiarity, which subsequently reduced their perceived task difficulty and enhanced their course satisfaction. regarding learners’ engagement, data from the motivated strategies for learning questionnaire (mslq) also recorded variations in the strategies used in two conditions. overall, this pilot study evidenced the efficiency of mobile learning in the language classroom, and reinforced the importance of learners’ background knowledge in language learning. keywords: ubiquitous learning, speaking, engagement, satisfaction, background knowledge biodata thu-nguyet t. huynh is a lecturer at university of foreign language studies, the university of da nang, viet nam. she received her ma in tefl from university of groningen, the netherlands in 2015. she is currently a doctoral candidate at national taiwan normal university, taipei, taiwan. her focal research interests are, but not limited to, cognitive psycholinguistics, call, and language teacher education. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 27 teachers’ perspective on implementing presentation – practice – production (ppp) approach to teach english grammar in vietnam nguyen ngoc huy van lang university email: huy.nn@vlu.edu.vn abstract this paper illustrated a survey of vietnamese teachers' perspective towards carrying out presentation – practice – production method in order to teach english grammar in their teaching contexts, especially in vietnam by employing questionnaires. this research is conducted in a university in vietnam. additionally, the research aims to the finding the teachers’ point of view, the factors influencing teachers’ choice of applying ppp approach when teaching english grammar. the research instrument: questionnaire is employed to collect the reliable and valid data for the study. the research questionnaire distributes to 64 teachers in the vlu (van lang university). the study has found that there are many factors affecting the choice if implementing ppp approach to teach english grammar and various views about the role of grammar in english language teaching in vietnam. keywords: ppp (presentation – practice – production), vlu (van lang university), pov (point of view) acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 28 a study of facebook-based peer comments on l2 writing ho vu phi pham1,* anh thi hoai nguyen2 1 faculty of foreign languages, van lang university, vietnam 2 faculty of foreign languages, college of foreign economic relations, vietnam *corresponding author. email: ho.pvp@vlu.edu.vn abstract over the last decade, various studies have contributed to the field of research around computer-mediated communication (cmc) tools such as facebook group as an alternative method for teaching english writing. in the review of facebook in the l2 writing process, the study has found that the advent of facebook integrated into a conventional writing class further necessitates the need for scrutinizing how to shape the quality of comments posted on facebook group and how to make use of these given comments in writing. the aim of this study is to further explore the study of facebook-based peer comments on efl students’ writing revisions, which may aid in answering how facebook-based peer comments help learners improve their writing. the contribution of this study is to address writing teachers that play an important role in applying technology into their own writing classes to help students with peer commenting activities and also students who actively take advantage of facebook group in learning outside classrooms. keywords: peer comment, writing revision, facebook-based acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 29 discourse analysis of efl students' attitudes and social interactions towards a virtual classroom hai tran quang hoa sen university *corresponding author’s email: tranquanghaisp@gmail.com abstract this paper aims to examine the discourse of english as a foreign language (efl) learners’ attitudes and social interactions towards a virtual classroom of hoa sen university mlearning system. the system is built on moodle platform where educators and learners are empowered to create personalized virtual classrooms in a secure and integrated environment. through social network-like features, teachers and learners have opportunities to exchange more ideas about lessons after school to promote independence in learning and strengthen social relationships. computer-mediated communication (cmc) refers to interactivity between or among people through mediated channels of communication. a myriad of studies on the use of cmc of foreign language learners have been conducted; however, there is little research using discourse analysis to explore students’ attitudes and social interactions in language learning contexts. this paper uses an interpretive methodology by working from quantitative and qualitative data. the participants were 100 non-english major students of an english writing class for one semester. besides, statistics from students’ interactions and post-interviews were analyzed based on discourse analysis. the results showed that learners had positive responses and attitudes towards the virtual classroom. finally, some implications for efl learning and teaching using virtual classrooms were discussed. keywords: discourse analysis, cmc, virtual classrooms, efl learners, attitudes and social interactions. biodata hai tran quang is currently a lecturer of english at hoa sen university, vietnam. his accumulated experience from working at various educational institutions has equipped him with ample confidence and skills in language teaching. his interests are linguistics, virtual communities, and teaching learning practices. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 30 developing education in vietnam in the context of international integration nguyen minh tri politics and national defense education center, hcmc university of technology (hutech), *corresponding author. email: nm.tri@hutech.edu.vn abstract with a lofty goal and mission, it is the mission of "cultivating people". education and digging have an important role to play in the development of society. education not only trains people with good knowledge and expertise, but also trains people with good moral and physical qualities, effectively serving the socio-economic development associations of each country, each ethnic group. today, all countries in the world, including vietnam, consider investment in education and training to be investment in development not only for today's generation, but also for the next generation, and identify development of education and training as a top national policy. in the context of international integration, vietnam's education faces many difficulties and challenges when our education is still too heavy on transmitting knowledge but not directed to the quality and capacity development of learners; the quality of the contingent of teachers and administrators is not equal; the infrastructure system still has many limitations. the problem is that vietnam needs appropriate solutions to develop education to meet the requirements posed by citizens in the process of international integration. keywords: education, training, international integration, vietnam. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 31 insights from difficulties encountered among students whose major is translation and & interpreting in english truong thi mai hanh van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam *corresponding author’s email: hanh.ttm@vlu.edu.vn abstract one area that remains problematic among students whose major is translation and interpreting in english is the ability to understand and deal with basic and necessary concepts in the field of banking and finance in english. this article reports initial findings from a case study done with the students taking an english for banking and finance course in a university. the paper initially provides different views of difficulties in learning and proceeds with describing the setting of the present investigation. based on qualitative inquiry, self-reports and interviews, data are collected and themes are drawn. moreover, the article concludes with useful insights on strategies from the students to address their own problems and implications for possible techniques in helping students address these issues. key words: english for banking and finance, learning strategies, teaching techniques biodata: trương thị mai hạnh holds an m. a in tesol from university of social sciences and humanities and her dissertation which delves on reading skills in english in 2007. she is currently a lecturer at faculty of english at van lang university in ho chi minh city. her research interests are on the areas of applied linguistic. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 32 using peer assessment in writing for efl learners ngo nhat phuong quynh* faculty of foreign languages, van lang university, hochiminh city, vietnam email: quynh.nnp@vlu.edu.vn abstract this study aimed at exploring the effect of using peer assessment in writing improvement of efl students. in this paper, 30 students have to be guided by using peer assessment approach in their writing skill at class and after that they take their classmates’ feedback into account as a tool in order to reflect their own improvement. what is crucial here is whether the peer assessment method can boost the learners’ writing performance or not as well as how profound their upgrade in writing is which play an integral role in this paper. additionally, there are some related papers pointing out the benefits and drawbacks when the teachers apply the peer assessment in considering their students’ progress in learning writing. besides, the specific data are provided which is yielded to reach the key targets at the end. more specifically, the results of this paper are linked to students’ attitudes regarding learning writing by applying peer assessment that will help the teachers in selecting the more compatible method for writing class in the foreseeable future. keywords: writing performance, writing a paragraph, peer assessment approach, the learners’ improvement. biodata my full name is ngo nhat phuong quynh. at present, i am an english teacher at van lang university. also, i am living in vietnam, ho chi minh city. in relation to my teaching fields, i am into teaching speaking, reading, writing as these subjects are complementary to each other. thereby, i am keen on conducting research in speaking, reading, writing. finally, i have 7 years in teaching. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 33 students’ perception toward the use of moodlebased lms in learning speaking skill at teritary level h. n. truong van lang university, faculty of foreign languages, ho chi minh city, viet nam email: ngoc.th@vlu.edu.vn abstract technology has profoundly changed the way knowledge is transmitted and acquired, from exclusively classroom-based instruction to the hybird of on-class interaction and online study. given the prominence of blended learning in the field of language acquisition, the study aims to set light on the students ‘attitude toward the implementation of moodle-based lms in teaching and learning speaking skill at van lang university. the study employed quantitative research method and a questionaire was selected as the research instument to find out the opinions of 24 english-majored students at van lang university. the finding showed that the majority of the participants found the additional practices on lms useful for developing speaking skills, particularly grammatical competence including grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. in addition, the recommendations on the hallmarks of desirable feedbacks on students’ recordings may as well help teachers to design appropriate criteria for constructive criticism on students’ spoken performance. in essence, while face-to-face interaction still remains indispensable in improving speaking skills, it should be supplemented with moodle-based lms practices for the better acquisition of speaking competence. keywords: blended learning, moodle-based lms, speaking skills. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 34 the impact of project works on speaking performance of englishmajored students at nguyen tat thanh university pham thi ngoan nguyen tat thanh university email: phamngoan1990@gmail.com abstract thanks to global integration, english language has increasingly played a crucial role in people’s work and life. among four skills, speaking seems the most challenging. therefore, lots of teaching approaches have been adopted to improve speaking skills. the current study entitled “the impact of project works on speaking performance of englishmajored students at nguyen tat thanh university” was conducted with the participation of 80 english-major freshmen. the objectives included the investigation of pbl’s effects on oral performance improvement and students’ attitude toward this approach. the study design was combined between quasi-experimental (video making) and qualitative approach with the utilization of pre-posttests, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. after having analyzed the data, there were some major findings revealed. firstly, pbl did not significantly impact on students’ speaking in general and had both insignificant and significant effects on their vocabulary and interactive communication. secondly, students expressed their positive attitude toward the impact of pbl on interactive communication and neutral attitude toward vocabulary and speaking affected by pbl. moreover, they strongly agreed that pbl is effective in enhancing their confidence, motivation, teamwork and critical thinking. keywords: project, speaking, mixed method, attitude biodata pham thi ngoan is an english language lecturer at nguyen tat thanh university, vietnam. she completed bachelor’s degree in business english at hcmc university of pedagogy in vietnam. furthermore, she obtained master of arts degree in teaching english to speakers of other languages (tesol) at hcmc open university in vietnam. her current interests are composed of language assessment, linguistics, and teaching methodology in vietnam and other contexts. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 35 the use of video dubbing to enhance non-english major students' speaking skill at hung vuong university nguyen thi phuong thao hung vung university email: nguyent.phuongthao@hvu.edu.vn abstract mastering speaking skill has become a desired aim for language learning due to its importance in the globalized world. however, it is not easy for english learners to achieve their fluency and proficiency in english speaking skill. this experimental study aimed to improve the students’ english speaking skill by using video dubbing as homework tasks. the participants were 33 second-year non-english major students who were at pre-intermediate level. random technique was used to assign students into two groups: control group and experimental group. the experimental group (n=17) was taught by using video dubbing method while the other group (n=16) was taught by ppp (presentation – practice – production) teaching method. data was collected through speaking test scores of students by dubbing videos posted on flipgrid throughout each week before it was analyzed with spss software. the rest results revealed that the students’ fluency and proficiency were much significantly improved. moreover, the study also showed the students’ positive attitudes toward speaking tasks’ fulfillment at home. the study has created a significant effect on both students and teachers at hung vuong university as well as has promoted english learning movement in hvu community. keywords: video dubbing, speaking skill, positive attitudes acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 36 ho chi minh city college students’ attitudes towards the ielts academic test phuong ngoc ho1 ,* hang thi thu vo2 1,2 van lang university *corresponding author’s email: phuong.187na11197@vanlanguni.vn abstract the ielts test has expanded its availability and reliability worldwide. the test is not only open in more than 90 countries, but also is used as a proof of one’s english proficiency in 10,000 organizations (why accept ielts scores?, 2020). that is why there is a rapid increase in the amount of research embarked to investigate the attitudes of ielts test takers in various countries, including vietnam. nevertheless, a few research was conducted to find out the overral attitudes of vietnamese test takers to the ielts test and its four components, which are listening, reading, speaking and writing. therefore, our research aims to fill this gap. this study follow qualitative design. accordingly, a 20-item online questionnaire was developed and 253 answers was recorded. we also invited 10 students to participate in our semi-structured interview. the findings shows that nearly 90% of the participants, college students majoring in social sciences and natural sciences, greatly appreciate the role of the ielts test as well as its quality in term of examiers and tests. besides, the writing section of the ielts test is considered to be the most difficult section. these findings can clarify the attitudes of college students towards each section of the ielts academic test and the relationship between their attitudes and their educational background or age. keywords: attitudes, college students, ielts. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 37 the role of collocation in the english teaching and learning bui thi loc van lang university email: loc.bt@vlu.edu.vn abstract english collocation is a huge part of english language. it comprises much of speech and writing. the proficiency in english depends greatly on the use of collocation. acquiring the collocation is crucial and challenging as well as problematic to non-native english speakers. it is, nevertheless, noticed that collocation is still underestimated in different efl contexts, which may hinder the fluency in speaking and writing of english learners. this paper, therefore, is devoted to the elaboration on the concept of collocation, the significance of collocation and some suggestions on how to teach and learn collocation in order to improve speaking and writing skills. keywords: collocation, elaboration, efl contexts, concept acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 38 lockdown reading: a transmedia reading motivation perspective farina tazijan, rofiza aboo bakar, & fazlin ramli universiti teknologi mara, cawangan pulau pinang corresponding author’s email: ftazijan@gmail.com abstract during this covid-19 pandemic, many online platforms surface to help young adults cope with loneliness, isolation and emptiness of not being able to socialize with friends. online games like isolation, pathogens, the state, the economy, playgrounds, life after crisis, solitaire, the plague emerge with a common theme which is about covid-19. as online games move towards this theme, online fictional stories also flourished. many young writers and readers turn to wattpad to write during this pandemic. wattpad emerges as one of the largest platforms for user-generated stories or transmedia stories during this period. hence, young adult readers turn to online platform or story sharing site to read. motivation to read this type of online stories seemed to increase during this lockdown. with this in view, this study seeks to investigate the reading motivation of young adults reading transmedia stories during this lockdown period. a semi-structured interview was conducted to provide the insights of the reading motivation among young adults and results yielded the reading habit and attitude during this lock down period. it is hope with this research, a better understanding of of the phenomena of reading habits and attitude towards transmedia stories in malaysia is gathered. keywords: reading motivation, transmedia stories, wattpad biodata farina tazijan is a senior lecturer in universiti teknologimara, penang, malaysia. her interest is on the research field of the new media, social media language learning (smll) ,particularly on transmedia narratives and gamification learning. she has published research works on transmedia narratives on language learning, gamification and motivation on young adult learners. nor fazlin mohd ramli (phd) is an english as second language senior lecturer at the akademi pengajian bahasa (apb), universiti teknologi mara malaysia. she has been teaching english proficiency courses as well as applied linguistic courses for 18 years. she completed her phd at universiti kebangsaan malaysia. currently, she holds the post of the head of postgraduate study centre of apb, uitm. her research interests lie in the area of esl reading online, online esl adult learners, instructional design and learners’ metacognitive strategies. besides teaching, she also conducts workshops, gives talks and collaborates with other researchers in related disciplines. she has published both nationally and internationally. dr. rofiza aboo bakar is attached to the universiti teknologimara, penang, malaysia and has been with the university for twenty-three years. for the entire tenure, she has had the experience of being a lecturer, writer, researcher, trainer, consultant and administrator. she is currently the head of centre for the academy of language studies. she holds a phd degree in educational psychology from the university of science, malaysia. in 2015, she was also conferred by the university the tun tan sri dato’ dr. haji hamdan sheikh tahir medal for being the best phd student in the school of educational studies. she also holds a master’s degree in educational psychology from the university of science, malaysia, and the bachelor’s degree in teaching of english as a second language from the university of malaya. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 39 assessing lexical features and providing feedback on efl learners’ ielts writing with lambnlp ngo cong-lem monash university email: ngoconglem@gmail.com abstract ielts is a widely recognized test across institutions in the world. with an increasing trend of applying l2 standardized proficiency as admission requirement and benchmark graduation, more english as a foreign language (efl) learners are increasingly drawn toward taking the test. among the four skills assessed in the language test, writing is one of the most difficult skills to master. to improve this skill, it is essential for language learners to receive feedback frequently from their teachers or trainers. yet, grading writing is often a daunting task for teachers due to its laborious nature, which is exacerbated with their heavy teaching workload. in addition, as humans, grading a large number of students’ essays can make the language educators ineffective and subjective to judgemental errors. natural language processing (nlp) techniques have long been applied in writing evaluation, for example, the writing e-rater of educational testing service (ets) in the usa. however, such effort is still carried out in a limited manner, largely due to the lack of appropriate applications to perform such a task. this presentation reports on a web-based application, lambnlp, developed by the author utilising both statistical and rule-based nlp methods to assess and provide feedback on learners’ ielts writing (i.e., both writing task 1 and task 2). specifically, to be presented are how the web app was developed, the linguistic aspects it evaluates and a demonstration of its usage. the ubiquity of this web-based technology together with its useful features of lambnlp are promising for various language learning and assessment purposes, empowering both language teachers and learners in ielts writing training. pedagogical implications are discussed. keywords: natural language processing, web-based language learning, ielts, writing skill, writing evaluation biodata: ngo cong lem is a former lecturer at dalat university, and is currently a phd candidate at monash university, australia. he was awarded a master of arts degree from the national taiwan university of science and technology, taiwan, in 2019. his research interests involve tesol, computer-assisted language learning, and teacher professional development. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 40 measuring digital competence of buh lecturers in distant online learning during the covid-19 pandemic nguyen quang nhat, nguyen hong oanh banking university hcmc corresponding email: nhatnq@buh.edu.vn abstract the overall vision for 21st century learning has incorporated digitalisation as a key focus in teaching and learning practices. this shift became more prevalent during the covid-19 outbreak when all teaching and learning were provided online via distant social learning. consequently, a number of practitioners and researchers have attempted alternatives forms of teaching and learning based on an active learning philosophy to provide better learning outcomes during this special era. using the digicompedu (2017), this study investigates to what extent lecturers at banking university hcmc (buh) are digitally competent. the 22-item quantitative survey indicates that about 50% of the sample is at one competency band. digital competence also varies with and without formal ict-certification. for substantial transformative changes to occur, a more varied and individualised cpd is recommended, using the digicompedu as a diagnostic guide. these results aim to inform more local initiatives to facilitate the shift towards a bottom-up process, informed by actual realities with regards to skills and competences. keywords: digital competence, professional development, distant online learning, covid-19 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 41 indications of pairedvs. grouped-peer feedback on students’ writing activities loi nguyen tan1* , pham vu phi ho2 1hcmc university of information technology 2van lang university *corresponding author. email: nguyentanloi2802@gmail.com abstract l2 teachers in writing have long been using peer feedback to help students improve their skills in writing in the classrooms. while findings from nearly all studies have shown paired-peer feedback and grouped-peer feedback to enhance student writing performance, few studies have attempted to compare the effect of paired and grouped-peer feedback on writing performance. if the results of paired and grouped-peer feedback are thus proposed, the view of using paired and grouped-peer feedback is further clarified in the efl written guidance, so teachers can have a clearer understanding of the appropriate arrangement for students to receive paired or clustered peer reviews. this helps educators to organize their students in a writing classroom. first, in the current post, we shall address the theoretical basis of peer reviews. we will review previous feedback studies by analyzing paired-peer feedback and grouped-peer feedback behaviors in both foreign and vietnamese contexts. finally, we will define the research differences on the basis of theoretical review and previous studies. keywords: writing activities; paired-peer feedback; writing performance; grouped-peer feedback biodata 1i am currently a guest lecturer at vietnam national university ho chi minh city, university of information technology and university of social sciences and humanities. i have been teaching general english for non-major students since 2017. i am particularly interested in language learners’ writing skill development. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 42 a study on interaction patterns in language learning online classes – adaptation and efficiency thanh vu thi1 , * duyen dao thuy2 1 international school – vietnam national university, hanoi, vietnam. 2 people’s police academy, hanoi, vietnam. *corresponding author. email: vuhathanh.3110@gmail.com abstract the aim of our research entitled “a study on interaction patterns in language learning online classes – adaptation and efficiency” is to elaborate that in an online esl/efl class, tremendous interaction patterns can be employed by the teacher in order to enhance classroom atmosphere for students’ better involvement and collaboration as well as alter the pace of a lesson. similar to offline classes, there are several prevailing interaction patterns in internet-based language learning classes namely teacher-centered and student-centered. drawn on several frameworks on interaction, this study aims to explore different types of interaction forms applied in two distinct language learning online classes with 45 participants including both teachers and students at an international primary institution in hanoi during the covid-19 pandemic. furthermore, the researchers compared the interaction patterns taking place in both classes to identify their similarities and differences. findings show that the most dominant interaction adopted in the two classes was teacherstudent, especially instructor to the whole class, instructor to each member in the classroom and learners to instructor and there were no obvious distinctions of interactions used in the class by the two teachers but the teacher’s preference in utilizing certain interaction forms based on the characteristics of every single class. additional pedagogical recommendations for online english courses would then be put forth based on the data gathered. keywords: interaction patterns, language learning, online classes. biodata 1. m.a. vu thi thanh, vietnam national university, hanoi, vietnam. she has been working as an english lecturer of vietnam national university, hanoi, vietnam. she used to be an english lecturer in faculty of english, hanoi national university of education from 2016 to 2018. her main interests include textbook writing, academic translation, academic writing, teaching methodologies. 2. m.a. dao thuy duyen, faculty of foreign languages, people’s police academy, vietnam. she used to be an english lecturer in faculty of english, hanoi national university of education from 2008 to 2010, and is working as an english lecturer of people’s police academy since 12/2010. she has been published 5 research articles in local journals. she pursued her master degree in philipps marburg university in germany from 2017-2019. she has international experience in participating in international conference at free university in berlin in 2018. her main interests include academic writing, teaching methodologies. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 43 transition from textbook to digital delivery john blake university of aizu jblake@u-aizu.ac.jp abstract this paper describes, explains and evaluates the transformation of a text-based course into a multimodal, open-access course website. based on an extensive needs analysis, a course website was selected to house materials for a tailormade thesis writing and presentations course for computer science majors. the theoretical underpinnings based on beliefs regarding language, learning and learners were formulated. one of the core concepts was the desire to develop learner autonomy. with this pedagogic base, the scope, focus and objectives of the course units were decided and then the course content was created. some practical website design concepts, including the separation of content, styling and behaviours are discussed. extensive usability testing was conducted using focus groups to identify potential improvements to the readability and usability of the website. this course website has been positively evaluated by both course tutors and learners since its initial release. the currently deployed version is a user-friendly, learner-friendly website that is easy to maintain and update. future work will focus on improving learner engagement and improving the user experience. keywords: online course development, learner autonomy, website development, readability, usability biodata: john blake is a senior associate professor in the center for language research at the university of aizu in japan. he holds degrees in linguistics, education, computer science and management. his research draws on corpus linguistics to analyze texts and computational linguistics to create rule-based and probabilistic-based pattern-matching tools acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 44 frequency employments of direct refusal strategies of offers by the native speakers of american english and the vietnamese yen vuong thi hai lecturer of english, faculty of foreign languages, hanoi metropolitan university email: vthyen@daihocthudo.edu.vn abstract according to searle (1969), the production of speech acts, such as making requests, asking questions, making promises, or refusing have existence in all languages. like other speech acts, refusals of requests, offers, invitations, suggestions etc are widely used to express the recipients’ declination in conversations. up to now, there have been many researchers conducting the speech acts of refusals in the world as well as in vietnam. in fact, it is interesting but also causes a lot of confusions for the people who have different cultures. the refusal is contrary to the interlocutor's desires. therefore, how to refuse not making other people feel hurt and how to be in good terms with other people are very essential and vital. this study focuses on discovering some frequency employments of direct refusal strategies of offers used by the native speakers of american english and the vietnamese. 85 vietnamese literary works; 35 american ones and some vietnamese and american films broadcast on vietnam television station were collected and sorted out. through the article, the writer hopes that similarities and differences in frequency employments of direct refusal strategies of offers in both languages drawn from the research will partly contribute to improve the qualities of teaching learning english for the vietnamese as well as vietnamese to foreigners. keywords: speech acts of refusals, offers, refusals of offers, direct refusal strategy, frequency employments biodata: dr. yen vuong thi hai is an english lecturer at hanoi metropolitan university, vietnam. she has been teaching english for 20 years. her interests are teaching english linguistics and educational linguistics; phonetics and phonology; online teaching and learning; teaching language skills; teaching vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation; english teaching methodology and contrastive analysis. she has published one book and many articles about english teaching methodology issues and contrastive analysis of linguistics. she can be reached at: vthyen@daihocthudo.edu.vn acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 45 tertiary non-english majors’ attitudes towards autonomous technologybased language learning thao quoc tran1 ,* huy duong2 1 ho chi minh city university of technology (hutech), vietnam 2 da lat university, vietnam *corresponding author’s email: tq.thao@hutech.edu.vn abstract technology has emerged as an indispensable part of general education and, in particular, english language education. accordingly, the utilization of technology for autonomous language learning (all) should be imperative. this research, therefore, aims to scrutinize non-english majors’ attitudes towards autonomous technology-based language learning (atll) at the context of da lat university. the research participants were 425 non-english majors conveniently sampled answering the closed-ended questionnaires, and 25 of whom were invited for semi-structured interviews. the quantitative data from questionnaires were processed by spss, while the qualitative data from interviews were analyzed employing the content analysis approach. the results unraveled that the research participants had positive attitudes towards atll. among three components of attitudes, it was found out that non-english majors were highly conscious of the important roles of technology in all (cognitive attitudes), they had positive feelings towards the use of technology in all (affective attitudes), and they were unsure of activities for using technology for all (behavioral attitudes). such preliminary results are expected to contribute to the understanding on the enhancement of learner autonomy by integrating technology into autonomous english language teaching and learning. keywords: attitude, autonomy, non-english major, technology, language learning acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 46 using collocations to enhance academic writing: a survey study at van lang university duc thanh hung duong1 ,* nha dai trang nguyen2 1 department of english, faculty of foreign languages, van lang university, hcmc 2 department of english, faculty of foreign languages, van lang university, hcmc *corresponding author’s email: duc.dth@vlu.edu.vn abstract collocations, as formulaic language, have brought not only benefits but also challenges to efl learners’ academic writing. the functions of these chunks in academic writing need examining for a long time. under certain constraints of the research setting, the current study explored both students’ and lecturers’ standpoints on using collocations to enhance academic writing. as one of quite a few studies in vietnamese context, the research included 47 english-major juniors and 5 english lecturers at van lang university, hochiminh city, in the first semester of 2020-2021 academic year. two research instruments were employed: the online questionnaire (to students) and the email interview (to lecturers). thematic analysis and descriptive statistics by spss (version 20) were utilized to describe both stakeholders’ insights into the research problem. major findings illustrated that the students’ demotivation of extensive reading and collocational practice were additional barriers to the collocational acquisition. learners’ and teachers’ perspectives on the benefits of collocations in academic writing are congruent; however, the ignorance of collocations in language instruction and ineffective learning strategies might cause many constraints. the study results might provoke questions of whether using corpus-based tools (instruted or non-instructed) could have any impacts on students’ collocation use in their academic writing. thus, the results might draw attention to the need of teachers’ and learners’ reflection and recommends a few ideas for future research. keywords: collocations, formulaic language, academic writing, corpus-based tools biodata duong thanh hung duc graduated from hochiminh city open university in 2017 with his ma in tesol. he has been teaching reading, writing, and grammar to english-major students at van lang university for 7 years. he is interested in researching language testing and mall. nguyen dai trang nha graduated from hochiminh city university of social science and humanities in 2016 with her ma in tesol. she has been teaching all four language skills to english-major students at van lang university for nearly 3 years. incorporating innovations into language teaching is her main research interest. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 47 the impacts of the bilinguality on learning a third language for senior efl students in van lang university tuong v. quach1* , trung t. nguyen2 1 quach vi tuong, van lang university, vietnam. e-mail: tuong.187na11305@vanlanguni.vn 2nguyen thanh trung, van lang university, vietnam. e-mail: trung.187na00793@vanlanguni.vn *corresponding author’s e-mail: tuong.187na11305@vanlanguni.vn abstract in this modern time, the trend of being able to use more than two languages has been popular all over the world, especially in developed countries, and vietnam is not an exception. in vietnam, van lang university (vlu) is a university which its faculty of foreign languages teaches japanese, chinese and french as a mandatory subject beside english major. in previous language research, researchers only focused on the european (latin based) languages having same forms of language. therefore cannot fully reflect the impacts of bilinguality on the learning of all forms of language. this research aims to illuminate whether or not bilinguality has positive impacts over those who speak one language on the acquisition of a new language that in different language forms. researchers collect data by interviewing and conducting surveys on 200 efl students in vlu whose third language are chinese, japanese. after all bias factors have been taken into consideration, it is readily apparent that bilinguality has many impacts on the participants’ languages acquisition. key words: senior efl students in vlu; bilinguality; mono tongue; impacts; third language acquisition; mandatory subject biodata nguyen thanh trung third-year efl students in vlu, vietnam, 4-essential english skills, basic level of japanese and teaching skills. taking research interest in figuring out the relationship between chinese-vietnamese sounds system and kanji characters in japanese, to understand how it helps us to shorten our study process. quach vi tuong third-year efl students in vlu, vietnam, 4-essential english skills, teaching skills. taking interest in finding out how efl students deal with their third language acquisition and how previous experiences have impacts on them. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 48 blended learning with technology-based activties in interpreting courses – a trial in vietnam nguyen thi nhu ngoc university of social sciences & humanities, vietnam national university ho chi minh city email: nhungoc@hcmussh.edu.vn abstract translation education has now witnessed its great development in many universities, especially those in asian developing countries, including vietnam. for students of generation z in the time of technology 4.0, traditional methods using texts in books for written translation and audio-visual tapes for spoken translation is no longer a premier choice because they favor technology-based ones. in this paper, a trial of blended learning with technology-based activities in an interpreting class of 30 translation majors in vietnam was conducted. the instructor designed and employed digital technology-based activities in the form of blended learning. based on a survey on the students’ experience with such activities, the paper finds out positive effects of blended learning and technologies on students’ interpreting competence. this combination really provides students with hands-on practice for their future career, and is supposed to be a new choice for teachers of translation with similar teaching contexts in asia. keywords: translation, interpreting, blended learning, technology, learning activity acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 49 mental impacts on efl junior students’ presentation skill at van lang university ho thi thanh tuyen1 , le thi quynh nhu2 , nguyen thi trang3 , trinh sang trang4 , nguyen phu hung5 1,2,3,4,5 van lang university, vietnam corresponding author’s email: bui.number1@gmail.com abstract in the modern era, presentation skill is known as a fundamental and essential skill for everybody. numerous researchers have already been and are doing research, for example, efl junior students’ educational background and their learning subjects (speaking and public speaking). accordingly, this research aims to have a look at challenges in the psychological field. the qualitative method and the quantitative method are research measures in this study, in which 200 efl junior students of van lang university. the information collections are gotten by a mix of interviews and surveys with questions concerning the challenges in presentation skill. the results of this research may show that students experience problems with presentation skill in the field given anxieties, regrets, and stress. additionally, the outcomes may show that students have obstacles to presentation skill on account of vocabularies and grammar. this research investigated presentation challenges in the psychological field and a few basic obstacles, for example, the feelings of presenters/audience members, the practice at university/home, and so on. this study also provides some guidance for everyone to improve presentation ability in both academic and non-academic environments. keywords: anxiety, regret, stress, presentation skill, public speaking biodata 1. ho thi thanh tuyen, student, van lang university, vietnam, 4-essential english skills, take research interest in observing students' public speaking skills and realizing that most of them having obstacles, experience in translation. 2. le thi quynh nhu, student, van lang university, vietnam, 4-essential english skills and teaching skills, take research interest in finding out why students are so afraid of presentation, experience in teaching. 3. nguyen thi trang, student, van lang university, 4-essential english skills take research interest in helping students to discover the obstacles therefore helping researchers in return. 4. trinh sang trang, student, van lang university, 4-essential english skills, take research interest in learning students' mental state while giving a presentation. 5. nguyen phu hung, student, van lang university, 4-essential english skills and teaching skills, take research interest in wanting to know why junior students have bad presentations. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 50 documenting a visually impaired learner's experience using audible during covid-19 pandemic *nor fazlin mohd ramli1* , noor ahnis othman2 , aini akmar mohd kasim3 , mohammad radzi manap4 , nurzeti abdul ghafar5 , mohamad asri arshad6 1,2,3,4,5,6 universiti teknologi mara, shah alam, selangor, malaysia *corresponding author’s email: norfa707@uitm.edu.my abstract language instructors face various challenges in fulfilling their tasks. addressing the special needs of students with different needs is one of the greatest challenges confronting them. such challenge could be even more daunting when there is little support provided by the institution when it comes to special needs students. this paper focuses on documenting how a visually impaired language learner uses available technology to assist him in attending a language course at tertiary level. this paper highlights several advantages as well as disadvantages of an application called audible from the perspective of a visually impaired language learner. apart from that, the student’s hopes and expectations related to the application were also recorded. this documentation may help enlighten relevant parties including language instructors, application designers or even policy makers, on the challenges faced by visually impaired students in learning. this in turn will help the relevant parties to provide better assistance to the students. keywords: visually impaired, audible, assistive technology, inclusive education acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 51 the challenges of e-learning through microsoft teams for efl students at van lang university in covid-19 nguyen huyen uyen nhi1* , duong ly nhat tam2 1,2van lang university corresponding author’s email: uyennhi09012000@gmail.com abstract e-learning, which is gradually becoming popular all over the world, is broadly used in higher education. tamm (2019) found that e-learning means the learners use products of technology to acquire knowledge. rouse (2020) defined microsoft teams as a software in the office 360 software suite, its notable functions include file sharing, messaging, video calling, and video conferences. in previous research papers, there have been topics related to online learning in covid-19, but there may be no topic related to a specific software like microsoft teams so the study will focus only on analyzing the difficulties of efl students at van lang university while they take an online course via microsoft teams in covid-19. the research is done by both quantitative and qualitative methods for 200 efl students in van lang university to find the answer for the problems. one of the most interesting things about the research is the study being done after the outbreak of corona disease; therefore, all the survey participants had to study online. to sum up, this paper is suggested that identifying these challenges may help english teachers and instructors in well-designing teaching methods. that is the reason why they will have a right look at the roles of e-learning, so the result of the research is something worth looking forward to. keywords: e-learning, microsoft teams, challenges, covid-19 biodata nguyen tran uyen nhi is a lecturer in the esp department, dufl. she received her master of education from queensland university in australia, and her bachelor in english language from dufl. her teaching areas and research interests include linguistic subjects, and interpretation area alike. she has been a member of the university group carrying out the 2020 national project of foreign languages. she is (co-)author of several journal papers and publications in international conference proceedings. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 52 difficulty in writing english of van lang univerity students nguyen ngoc bao trang1* , tran nguyen thu thuy2 1,2van lang university *corresponding email: nguyenngocbaotrang.00@gmail.com abstract in the modern era, writing english is an essential element for everyone and a primary role in promoting the development of the world. however, people believe that it is a difficult skill as well as a huge barrier for the world in general and van lang university students in particular. therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate difficulties in academic english writing. the probability method of sampling is a research measure in this study, in which 200 students of van lang university is divided into two groups, each group has 100 students. specimens are randomly selected from each group to get samples for this research. the data collections of this research are received by a combination of interviews and questionnaires with clear questions about the difficulty in writing english. the results of this research showed that students who have difficulties in writing english academics because of a lack of grammatical structure, poor academic vocabulary, and difficulty in organize ideas. the junior (jn) has more writing difficulties than the freshman (fm). this research explored writing difficulties in the english academic and several basic causes of these difficulties which always exist with us but it is ignored by students such as habits in writing, practice at home, etc. besides that, this benefit of this study is to point out the mistakes of them to help them improve their skill in writing english academics. keywords: english language, academic writing, writing difficulties, problems, writing skill. biodata nguyen ngoc bao trang third year efl in van lang university, 4 essential english skills, basic level of business and japanese. conducting research of difficulty in english writing of student of the world in general and van lang university in specific to finding out the solutions to this problems. tran nguyen thu thuy – third year efl students in vlu, vietnam, 4-essential skills, basic level of teaching skills. taking interest in finding out the difficulty, the barrier of vlu students in writing english. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 53 ideological constructions in news discourse presented in philippine broadsheets: input to innovations in language education kristoffer conrad m. tejada batangas state university, philippines kristofferconrad.tejada@g.batstate-u.edu.ph abstract the study investigated the discursive nature of reportage in news presented in leading philippine broadsheets, and established how purposive linguistic choices lead to biases that shape ideology. cda was used as the study’s operational framework, while sfl guided textual analysis, specifically on the system of transitivity for analyzing process types. evaluative language was analyzed using the appraisal theory. the research involved 585 news articles, mining 231,985 words to form the corpus. the analysis revealed that the discursive nature of news reportage is non-conventional in terms of passive agent deletion in headlines and the strategic use of evaluative language to forward ideologies. the news discourse used the material process type often and for particular socio-political personalities. the news stories were also found to have visibility bias the most, while the use of evaluative language was a source of bias in the discourse. these results, together with the framework developed as the study’s output, serve as inputs for innovations in language education, especially in courses in communication, genre-based linguistics, and media studies. these provide oppositional and/or fresh perspectives in language teaching in the new normal, where careful and appropriate use of language is key in forwarding critical information to the public. keywords: critical discourse analysis, discourse patterns, evaluative language, ideological constructions, process types acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 54 the need of applying english learning apps to help van lang university students improve their spoken english performance luu le phuong thanh1 ,*nguyen thi ngoc qui2 , vo nguyen thai thanh3 , nguyen minh the hung4 1,2,3,4 van lang university *corresponding author. email: thanh.187na00611@vanlanguni.vn abstract nowadays, the cutting edge of technology in ai has made many language learning apps available to assist learners. english, the current lingua franca, has been the focus of many language learning app developments. numerous studies have examined benefits and limitations of some english learning apps. evidence from the studies shows that user-friendly displays and a wide variety of topics from the apps have helped learners gain competencies in english overall. however, not many studies examine the effectiveness level of these apps in developing english-speaking competence. with the attempt to shed more light on this gap, the researchers focus on analyzing the use of some english learning apps to improve students’ speaking skills, within the scope of van lang university. to collect data for the research, 20 open-ended questionnaires and 10 semi-structured interview questions were distributed with the random sampling method to 400 students from van lang university in 04 majors which require good english-speaking skills. the result shows that elsa speak, duolingo, and bbc learning english are the most famous apps for learning english speaking skills with high effectiveness levels. keywords: spoken performance, software, learning apps, speaking ability, english learning biodata we're all third-year students from van lang university, vietnam. with a passion for research and learning english, we're hoping to gain more experiences through this event from other professors our research title is: the need of applying english learning apps to help van lang university students improve their spoken english performance. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 55 the impact of covid-19 on adolescent leisure activities: with special reference to saarc countries akhand sharma1 ,* shyam sunder singh2 1 research scholar, school of educational studies, doctor h.s.gour vishwavidyalaya, sagar, madhya pradesh, india 2 research scholar, school of educational studies, doctor h.s.gour vishwavidyalaya, sagar, madhya pradesh, india *corresponding email: akhand.sharmandl@gmail.com abstract today humanity is facing a serious threat in the form of a pandemic known as covid-19, even adolescents the vital section of the youth population is affected by it. psychologists believed leisure activities as an antecedent of the development of the adolescent. the objective of the study is to examine the change in adolescents' leisure activities, before lockdown (bld) and after lockdown (ald) due to this airborne disease. the study is a cross-cultural study of 255 adolescents in the age group of (15-19) years studying in senior secondary classes in india and its neighboring countries maldives and bhutan is the part of the selected sample. the study used the questionnaire leisure interest measure (lim by beard and ragheb, 1980) and a structured key information schedule designed for studying smartphone usage patterns (spup) by teens. spss-23 and other statistical packages were used for analyzing the data to study the change in leisure activities. the results of the study are quite interesting and will be helpful in policy formulation related to adolescents serious research work should be conducted in this area, as it is a sensitive issue and requires more concentration after all adolescent is the valuable asset for any nation. keywords: adolescent, covid-19, development, leisure activities, lock-down biodata akhand sharma1: i am associated as research scholar with department of education, doctor harisingh gour vishwavidyalaya (a central university), sagar, madhya pradesh. my area of research is adolescence and experimental psychology and other applied areas of educational psychology. more than 50 research papers published in reputed journals, some of them indexed in scopus, web of science and other eminent indexed sources. shyam sunder singh2: i am associated as srf with department of education, doctor harisingh gour vishwavidyalaya (a central university), sagar, madhya pradesh. my current area of research work is environmental conservation. more than 6 papers published in reputed journals some of them indexed in scopus, wos and ugc care list, apart of it members of many national and international academic organisation. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 56 technology in english education in remote mountainous areas: being flexible to bend nguyen thi ngoc anh1 , le thanh huyen2 1lang son college of education no 9 deo giang, chi lang ward, lang son city, lang son province 2 dien bien teachers' training college le quy don gifted high school, dien bien phu city, dien bien province corresponding email: anhntn17@gmail.com abstract technology has been proved to greatly facilitate english language education. it can be applied widely in a vast range of disciplines, ranging from teaching language knowledge to language skills. however, the application of technology may pose considerable challenges in remote and mountainous areas where the infrastructure and facilities are somewhat inadequate. the teachers in such regions, as a consequence, have managed to incorporate the use of technology in an appropriate way to take advantage of technology and enhance students’ language learning. in order to clarify how they do that in a disadvantaged environment, the authors surveyed 20 teachers in a remote mountainous province in the northern part of vietnam and conducted two in-depth interviews with two participant teachers. the study focuses on the flexibility of the teachers in employing technology in their teaching amid the limited conditions of their areas. it finds out that teachers there tend to apply technology in after-class activities instead of in-class ones, and make use of offline applications on smart phones to boost language teaching. it reaffirms the feasibility of technology-based learning even in less advantageous regions. keywords: technology, english education, remote mountainous area acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 57 47 middle childhood’s and parent’s perception of virtual english learning during the covid-19 in marendal, north sumatera nadya aulia malau1 , husni rahman yoga2 1islamic elementary school education, universitas islam negeri sumatera utara 2english education, universitas islam negeri sumatera utara coressponding email: husni.rahman@uinsu.ac.id abstract this research aim was to find children's and parents' perceptions of the virtual learning process during the spread of covid-19 on the english learning process in middle childhood (6-10 year old) in marendal, deli serdang, north sumatra. the research instrument was conducted using unstructured-interview technique and documentation with a qualitative approach. the research subjects were 5 children in the middle childhood category who came from 5 different schools and their parents. the results conducted for 2 weeks shown that the the interview used 4 different questions for each child and their parents stated that they did not agree with the virtual learning process, specifically in english learning that had been carried out for approximately 8 months since the spread of covid-19. then, from the observations it was found that the children were experiencing various barriers during the virtual learning process in terms of environment, family, and individual. keywords: covid-19, virtual learning, english learning, middle childhood, north sumatra biodata nadya aulia malau is the president of ltech which discusses the technology in language learning. she’s as an official campus ambassador of imun, presenter in the field of linguistic and tesol (japan, azerbaijan and turkey). she’s as well a young researcher of language and children. husni rahman yoga is the founder of dear and vice president of ltech which discusses the technology in language learning. he’s as an assistant language laboratory in prospect learning centre, presenter in the field of linguistics and tesol (japan, azerbaijan, turkey, singapore), young researcher scholarship award (sshra) and published international journal. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 58 the impact of teaching on mobile devices on efl teachers’ abilities to use mobile devices: from content delivery to blended interaction vo van loc1 , nguyen ngoc vu2 , vo thuy linh3 1.3sai gon university, 273 an duong vuong, district 5, ho chi minh city, 748000, vietnam 2hoa sen university, 8 nguyen van trang district 1, ho chi minh city, 71000, vietnam * corresponding author. email: vtlinh@sgu.edu.vn abstract learning through mobile devices (mobile learning) emerges as the great development of modern technology and the essential mark of technological revolution 4.0. it has proved that their smart functions were accompanied by the rapid expansion of mobile devices to support teaching of teachers everywhere and every time. although mobile technology is expected to apply suitably to teaching and learning, the capacity of efl teachers to use mobile devices to support their english teaching needs to be thoroughly evaluated. this paper is to present how efl teachers at a vietnam university can exploit mobile technology by questionnaire through a survey of 69 efl teachers. the survey took place during the second semester of the 2018 2019 school year. the quantitative approach has been used to gather and analyze data, and results have shown that efl teachers are confident of teaching english through mobile devices through their use of mobile devices. the findings find that teaching english by mobile devices is feasible and has strongly got positive perceptions from efl teachers. keywords: mobile learning, efl teachers, technology acceptance model, questionnaire. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 59 rhythm, intonation, movement, and emotion (rime): introducing a multisensorial-multicogntive literacy pedagogy in an academic writing unit in indonesia lala sudimantara charles darwin university, australia email: lalabumela.sudimantara@cdu.edu.au abstract the shift from teacher-centric pedagogy into the student-centric one has been echoed in the national standard of education enacted by the indonesian government since 2004. however, an over reliance on the modern linguistics – with a heavy emphasis on grammar and vocabulary acquisition –has blurred the multifaceted concept of studentcentered pedagogy. consequently, such monolithic pedagogy expects a steady compliance from the students in relation to learning, and thus learners’ creative agency was removed. this paper is a reflection on how the learning of academic writing unit was approached differently by using a multisensorial-multicognitive pedagogy. in order to support the learners’ agency, this new pedagogy used rhythm, intonation, movement, and emotion (rime) as the basis that informs learning. the four bio-psychological components of language (rime) were embedded in the three innovative learning tools to support their agentive learning practice: moodle with verbotonal exercises, reading for emotions, and aesthetics. the experiment of this new literacy pedagogy was successfully completed in indonesia in 2018 and is a part of a phd research project (a mixed-method study) conducted at charles darwin university, australia. statistical results showed that the experimental group had outperformed the control group in the posttest by a highly significant margin even though the control group had performed much better in the pretest. the pretest-posttest essays were blindly reviewed by three independent raters and the researcher was not involved at all in the essays assessment. this study suggests that the multisensorial-multicognitive literacy pedagogy provides a new insight how the future of teaching language (s) in the 21st century should be designed and implemented. last but not least, it is critical for any language teacher education programs to embrace a trans-disciplinary research attitude in designing the new pedagogy that is compatible with how our brain and body work. keywords: agency, new literacy pedagogy, rhythm, intonation, movement, emotion biodata lala bumela sudimantara is a phd candidate at college of education, charles darwin university, australia. his key research interests include speech neuroscience, literacy, technology. in the last 10 years he has taught many units such as phonetics/phonology, semantics, pragmatics, academic writing. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 60 online english teaching and learning with microsoft teams: reality and solutions tran vu mai yen1 , nguyen tran uyen nhi2 1,2da nang university of foreign language studies corresponding email: tvmaiyen@gmail.com abstract with the complicated happenings of the covid 19 epidemic recently, promoting online teaching at universities in vietnam has been an essential solution to ensure students’ learning progress. at member institutions of the university of da nang, the selection and use of microsoft teams for online teaching has met the requirements of the ministry of education in the context of epidemic prevention and got certain results on the quality of teaching and learning. this study describes the effectiveness of online teaching on microsoft teams (ms teams) in nonenglish major classes, through students’ feedback. we conducted a survey on fifty non-english major students at university of education-the university of da nang who attended online english courses from may to july, 2020 to evaluate teaching and learning activities with ms teams. the study also analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of online english teaching and proposes solutions to improve efficiency in innovation of teaching methods and forms of teaching. keywords: online teaching, microsoft teams, non-english major students, teaching and learning innovation biodata tran vu mai yen is currently a lecturer at esp department, university of foreign language studies, the university of danang, viet nam. she got a bachelor degree in tesol at the university of foreign languages, university of da nang, vietnam and an m.a degree in applied linguistics at griffith university, australia. she is particularly interested in teaching english as a foreign language and would like to work on different aspects of language teaching and learning. nguyen tran uyen nhi – university of foreign language studies, the university of danang (dufl). nguyen tran uyen nhi is a lecturer in the esp department, dufl. she received her master of education from queensland university in australia, and her bachelor in english language from dufl. her teaching areas and research interests include linguistic subjects, and interpretation area alike. she has been a member of the university group carrying out the 2020 national project of foreign languages. she is (co-)author of several journal papers and publications in international conference proceedings. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 61 teaching and learning english for tourism after the covid-19 pandemic in universities and solution proposals tran thi kim tuyen sai gon university email: ktuyensgu@gmail.com abstract the topic "teaching and learning english for tourism after the covid-19 pandemic in universities and solution proposals" is essential to the need for tourism sustainable development after the covid-19 pandemic and human resources training for tourism after the covid-19 pandemic. in this topic, we use rearching methods such as survey, list, analyze, describe and synthesize the effects of the covid-19 pandemic in teaching and learning english for tourism as well as in human resource training for tourism. since then, the author offers solution proposals about teaching and learning english for tourism at universities of covid-19 pandemic in order to improve students' learning outcomes and contribute to gradually improving the quality of teachingenglish for tourism major. in addition, we also contribute to timely respond to the necessary needs of the country not only in the language of tourism but also in the economic, cultural and social sectors on vietnam in the period of development and integration after the covid-19 pandemic. keywords: english for tourism, teaching and learning english for tourism, english for tourism after the covid-19 pandemic acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 62 how to smoothly manage the transition from offline to online learning for non-majored students tran hoang anh1* , tran thi thu ha2 , phan thi ngoc thach3 1,2,3 van lang university *corresponding author’s email: anh.tran@vlu.edu.vn abstract although online learning is a must in nowadays’s efl teaching contexts, especially in the abrupt and unexpected cases, such as pandemics, not all the students are beneficial from online learning. therefore, this study aims at exploring the students’ difficulties when learning online in the relationship with their level, and finding out how to create a smooth transition from the traditional offline learning to online learning. the study involved about 145 non-english majors at van lang university in answering a questionnaire. the results showed that learning online does not bring more progress, especially in the listening and speaking skills, to the medium-leveled and low-leveled students than the offline learning mode. the results further indicated that although the students are familiar with the learning online mode, they still have problems during their learning, especially with facilities, and their concentration. findings are hoped to contribute to a better understanding of non-english majors’ difficulties in the online environment. then, a solution of contemporaneously adopting collaboration, assessment, and students’ autonomy is suggested to straightforwardly shift to online learning. keywords: non-english majored, online learning difficulties, efl, collaborations, assessment, autonomy, learners’ autonomy biodata the authors of this paper are mr. tran hoang anh (m.a.), ms. phan thi ngoc thach (m.a.), ms. tran thi thu ha (m.a.). they are currently lecturers of english, all of whom have been working at van lang university for ten years or more. their major interest is english language teaching issues. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 63 the implementation of e-learning into language learning: a case of english majors at van lang university minh nguyen thanh1 ,* phuc dinh tran ngoc2 1,2 van lang university *corresponding author’s mail: minh.nt@vlu.edu.vn abstract in the context of the pandemic covid-19, higher education worldwide faced the difficulty of isolation and lockdown, which affects the traditional face-to-face classrooms. however, due to the technological advance and the blooming of elearning, many institutions had minimized the disease's consequences and created their way of teaching and learning. in vietnam, van lang university (vlu) is considered a pioneer in converting from face-to-face classrooms to virtual ones to adjust to the current situation. nevertheless, the issue of how vlu learners perceived this conversion was not paid enough attention. hence, this paper aims at investigating the factors affecting the implementation of e-learning at van lang university in light of students' perspectives. specifically, more than 300 english majors were involved in this survey study. all the students' responses were analyzed and synthesized using elam (e-learning acceptance model) and efa – exploratory factor analysis. the findings prevailed primary factors affecting students' perspective towards e-learning. also, some suggestions were made to enhance the current situation. keywords: e-learning, language teaching, english majors, van lang university. biodata nguyen, thanh minh is a lecturer at van lang university, ho chi minh, vietnam. he has attended some conferences in the field of language learning and teaching. his recent papers were “applying blended learning into teaching english at van lang university” and “constructive alignment in teaching english at tertiary level: an insight into an aun-designed course at van lang university” published in the proceeding of icoe2019 and of opentesol2020 (hold by hcmc open university). he has participated in teaching both english and non-english majors. his interests are curriculum development and language assessment. dinh, tran ngoc phuc is is a lecturer at van lang university, ho chi minh, vietnam. she has worked in the field of teaching english for both english and non-english majors for about over 10 years. her research interests are teaching methodology and teacher education. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 64 decisive factors challenging digital pedagogy during covid-19 pandemic: teaching methods or teaching applications? nguyen thi ha sai gon university email: ntha@sgu.edu.vn abstract due to the lockdown period of covid 19 pandemic and the swiftly spread of this infectious disease, the whole conventional education systems in vietnam has been influenced to a great extent. therefore, distance education is the optimal solution to deal with this unpredictable situation. the aim of this research was to address the challenges in online learning facing the sophomores as well as discovering their perceptions pertaining to the effectiveness and their productivity of this mode of education. the survey was based on a quantitative research method to design questionnaires. participants were given an online questionnaire form including both multiple-choice questions and yes-no questions. results indicate that different students display dissimilar attitudes and feelings towards online learning depending on individuals’ circumstances, and there are distinctive factors affecting the performance of learners. this investigation provides analysis for finding out practical solutions as well as information for further research into the obstacles of distance education. keywords: covid 19, distance education, challenges acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 65 an overview of student engagement with written feedback in efl writing class hanh thi my nguyen tien giang university, tien giang province, viet nam *corresponding author. email: nguyenthimyhanh@tgu.edu.vn abstract student engagement with written feedback plays an essential role in efl writing class. this topic has drawn the growing attention of many researchers as well as instructors teaching english writing worldwide. the current study was conducted to summarize main aspects relating to student engagement with written feedback. based on referring to previous research, the findings of the current research indicated that various studies focused on how student engaged affectively, behaviorally and cognitively with feedback activity. moreover, in terms of data collection instruments, few studies employed data collection instruments for quantitative analysis. instead, they paid more attention to instruments for qualitative data such as interviews, students’ written texts, teacher and peer written feedback, retrospective protocols, etc. also, the studies mainly based on feedback receivers’ perspectives. small sample size was frequently chosen by many researchers. therefore, further studies in different contexts with the use of data collection instruments for quantitative and qualitative data, different perspectives of feedback receivers and givers, sample size, factors affecting student engagement and longer period of time are recommended to be conducted for deeper understandings of student engagement with types of written feedback in english writing class. keywords: peer written feedback, student engagement, teacher written feedback biodata nguyen thi my hanh has worked as a lecturer of english at tien giang university, vietnam since 2013. she obtained her m.a. degree in tesol at open city university three years ago. currently, she is a ph.d student in tesol at open city university. she teaches general english, and her interests are english writing, ict in english language teaching and learning, student engagement, and so on. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 66 the effects of task-based learning on non-english major students’ reading comprehension at niie nguyen tat thanh university nguyen huu nghiem nguyen tat thanh university email: nghiemhuynh92@gmail.com abstract teaching reading is an indispensable part of english teaching. however, choosing appropriate teaching method is not simple. for this reason, this research “the effects of task-based learning on non-english major students’ reading comprehension at niie nguyen tat thanh university” was carried out with the aims to investigate if task based learning (tbl) was better than grammar translation method (gtm) which had been used widely in improving reading comprehension. moreover, the researcher wanted to investigate if there was significant difference in task focus achievements between tbl and gtm. finally, this study was designed to research how the students felt when implementing tbl in reading classroom practice. the study was conducted within 12 weeks over 29 students from experimental group taught by tbl and 30 students from control group taught by gtm. the data collection instruments were pre-test, post-test and interview. the findings of this study indicated that generally tbl is more effective than gtm in improving students’ reading comprehension. moreover, gtm is beneficial for teaching reading tasks related to identifying appropriate vocabulary and structural words while tbl is suitable for teaching reading tasks related to authentic readings, reading for gist or real conversations. finally, this study also pointed that the students did express the positive attitudes towards tbl. based on the findings, this study concluded with some recommendations for both teachers and students and limitations for future research in terms of tbl. biodata huynh huu nghiem (leo huang) is currently an english lecturer at nguyen tat thanh institute of international education in vietnam. he is in charge of teaching 4 skills, including reading, listening, writing and speaking. having a bachelor degree of english and master degree of tesol at the present, he does have a big interest in linguistic matters. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 67 developing english-major teacher trainees’ agency with reflective practice: a conceptual framework and an example of class-level intervention nguyen thi lan huong1 , vu ngoc tung2* 1university of language and international studies 2the university at albany suny corresponding author’s email: vungoctung2006@gmail.com abstract given the alarming effects of covid-19 pandemic, higher education (he) institutions around the globe have enacted a number of critical transitions involving technology in teaching and learning. online learning (ol) in response to social distancing has positively impacted on the quality of teaching and learning due to the closure of schools. our presentation will attend to english-major teacher education programs in which ol can greatly benefit teacher trainees regarding their developed sense of agency by employing the reflective practices during their engagement with ol in vietnam. the presentation has twofold purposes, one of which aims to help us inform a conceptual framework based on the recommendations of blended learning (graham, 2019; staker & horn, 2012) as an engaging platform to develop teacher trainees’ reflective capabilities. to do so, the perspectives of leijen et al. (2019) are useful regarding the development of teacher agency combined with various forms of reflective practices. for the second purpose, we will shed a light on the classroom innovations by giving an example of how you are expected to scaffold your teaching and adapt the framework in accordance with the audience’s teaching settings. some research and pedagogical implications will be presented. bio-data ms. huong nguyen is currently a middle administrator and teacher trainer in tefl at the university of languages and international studies, vietnam national university hanoi. she has designed and taught both pre-service and in-service teacher training courses on using technology in language teaching and learning nationwide, in face-to-face, blended and online modes. mr. tung vu is a doctoral student at the university at albany, suny. he has more than 5 years of teaching experience and published his work regarding english-major teacher development and intercultural communication on various globally highly-ranked journals and newsletters. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 68 investigating the role of ict for teaching english at elementary level muhammad safdar bhatti the islamia university of bahawalpur, pakistan email: safdarbhatti2001@gmail.com abstract today’s world is an ultra-modern world where new ways of communication are being explored continuously. technology continues to play an important role in elt. ict has become part and parcel of educational systems of the nations. as computers are coming rapidly into the classrooms that’s why parents feel the necessity of computer in education and they don’t want their children to be left behind. the present study explored the teachers’ opinions about ict use at elementary level. it tried to explore the possibilities of using computers effectively to teach english. the study seeks out the availability of ict facilities for the teachers at elementary level and to investigate the problems about accessing ict. the study was descriptive type in nature. fifty students from bahawalpur region participated in this study. the results showed positive attitudes of respondents toward the ict implementation. the results affirmed that use of computer in an efl classroom helps students in better comprehension of english language than the traditional methods of teaching english language. the recommendations are provided at the end. keywords: ict, role, facilities, attitudes, investigate biodata muhammad safdar bhatti is an elt expert with 26 years ielts & tefl teaching and training experience. he has served in the field of education in various capacities. he has authored four books, 30 publications & has presented 80 research papers in 60 international conferences. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 69 effects of online reading in the era of technology for students at university of transport and communications nga thi bui university of transport and communications, hcmc email: ngabui09@gmail.com abstract thanks to the remarkable development of technology 4.0, online reading is becoming more and more popular for students. higher education institutions encourage their students to participate in online learning courses as well as widening their knowledge by reading online after campus – based learning, especially in the covid19 epidemic. the study was conducted to investigate the effects of online reading for utc2 students and ways to access information accurately by collecting 200 students from five different majors including civil engineering, construction engineering, economics, mechanical engineering, and information technology. the qualitative approach with a well – structured questionnaire was used to collect the primary data from respondents. the findings pointed out that online reading is an effective way to improve their knowledge and the effectiveness of online reading significantly varies with their reading purposes, technology usage and skills. keywords: online reading, online reading effects, utc2 students. biodata i am bui thi nga. currently, i am a teacher at university of transport and communications in hcmc, vietnam (utc2). to be honest, i am in charge of teaching english for students following the program of cefr, so my best teaching skills are speaking and listening. at the university, i have just done several minor research on teaching english for non-majored english students so far and i take up doing this study for the first time this year. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 70 non-english majored students’ use of english vocabulary learning strategies with technology-enhanced language learning tools tran quoc thao1 , nguyen pham thanh thao2 1hutech 2hutech vocational training institute corresponding email: nguyenphamthanhthao@ymail.com abstract technology has become an integral part in language education in general and english language learning in specific. accordingly, the use of technology enhanced language learning (tell) tools in english language learning has become common as they can improve the knowledge retention and increase engagement. nation (2001) believes that by vocabulary learning strategies, learners can gain the large amount of vocabulary. although tell tools enhance wellbeing vocabulary learning, the strategies of the non-english majored students at ho chi minh city university of technology (hutech) have many challenges to use them. the study aims at unraveling the employment of tell tool based english vocabulary learning strategies among non-english majored students at hutech. the participants will be 240 first-year and second-year students answering the questionnaires and 20 students in responding the semi-structured interview questions. the quantitative data will be processed by spss in terms of descriptive statistics and t-test while the qualitative data are analyzed using content analysis approach. the results show that the participants will employ the tell tools based english vocabulary learning strategies at high level. keywords: english vocabulary; non-english majored students; strategies; tell tools. biodata 1. dr. thao quoc tran is a lecturer of english language at hutech faculty of english language, vietnam. his research areas are discourse analysis, english language skills, teacher professional development and instructional design model. 2. ms. nguyen pham thanh thao is a lecturer of english language of hutech vocational training institute, vietnam. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 71 applying online collaborative writing to enhance siu sophomore english majors’ writing skills: a case study at the saigon international university nguyen thi kim chung1 , tong trieu anh thu2 , le thi ngoc tuyen3 , nguyen long tien4 1,2,3,4the saigon international university corresponding author’s email: tongtrieuanhthu@siu.edu.vn abstract online learning that makes learning more engaging and stimulating has long been a part of 21st century education. this case study explores how online collaborative writing helps to improve efl students’ writing skills and how the use of this teaching method is perceived by students. the participants from the saigon international university included 19 englishmajored students who practiced writing collaboratively with google documents throughout a 15-week writing course. they were first instructed to individually brainstorm vocabulary and structures needed for an essay before working together in groups to create an essay outline. the teacher played the role as a facilitator to assign tasks for each group, supervise and provide instant feedback during the process of essay writing. data were collected through a pre-test, a posttest, and questionnaires, and then were analyzed using the mixed methods approach. the results indicated that most participants made a significant improvement in their writing abilities as well as tended to have a positive attitude towards this innovative method. due to the lack of past literature exploring the impacts of such an online teaching approach on enhancing writing skills, this case study is of vital importance as it provides in-depth understanding into the educational technology for improving learning performance. keywords: online collaborative learning, writing skills, perceptions biodata the researchers include nguyen thi kim chung, tong trieu anh thu, le thi ngoc tuyen, and nguyen long tien. they are english lecturers who teach english skills at the saigon international university, vietnam. their research interests are tesol, educational technology, e-learning, and cooperative learning. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 72 a computer-assisted prosody-based platform for improving efl vietnamese learners’ listening ability v. t. m luu1 , a-p. lian2 , p. siriyothin3 1,2,3suranaree university of technology, nakhon ratchasima, thailand corresdonding email: vyzebu@gmail.com abstract the use of computers in education has led to the growing normalization of educational computing beyond the classroom. for those using the technology, language learning has the potential to become less teacher-oriented and more learneroriented. one of the advantages claimed for computer-assisted language-learning (call) is the ability for learners to work at their own pace, in their own time, in their own space, and when they feel motivated to do so. this ability is crucial for developing listening ability because listening is a personalized activity in which learners construct meanings under the influence of their perceptual filters including experiences, world knowledge, linguistic knowledge, logical and representational systems, etc. for this reason, in the study reported here, an openly-available computer-assisted prosodybased listening platform was built in an attempt to develop the listening ability of 65 vietnamese college students of english as a foreign language (efl) at the beginner level. after a ten-week intervention, students working with this listening platform, and without a teacher, outperformed those taught listening with a traditional, teacher-led, classroombased approach. the approach utilized made use of an ensemble of related listening activities based on perceptual development (using a verbotonal approach) and shadowing and other exercises. the findings indicate that simple exposure to the listening activities on the website resulted in a significant improvement in learners’ listening ability. qualitative data show that learners had positive opinions about the listening platform. further pedagogical implications and recommendations will be discussed. keywords: listening ability, efl learners, call, prosody-based, perceptual filters biodata luu thi mai vy is a ph.d. candidate at suranaree university of technology in thailand. she is a lecturer in english at ho chi minh technical economic college. her research interests include language teaching, and listening comprehension. andrew lian is professor of foreign languages studies in the school of foreign languages, suranaree university of technology. he does research in computer-assisted language-learning, theory of learning, learning methodology, and verbotonal theory. peerasak siriyothin is currently a lecturer at the school of foreign languages, suranaree university of technology. his research interests include second language reading, second language acquisition, and language instruction. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 73 using group oral presentations as a formative assessment in teaching english for vietnamese efl students vu tran le hoai 1* , 1 language institution, van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam *corresponding authors’ email: tranlehoaivu1303@gmail.com abstract english is a compulsory subject at van lang university and students studying at this university have to match the program outcome standard in english. to achieve this requirement, the students have to get ielts 4.5 before they graduate. it requires that the students must achieve english ability equivalent to level b1, according to cefr, to graduate. however, there are a great number of students at van lang university showing incompetence in english, especially in speaking. thus, to enhance students’ competence in english, the researcher implemented a teaching method used as a formative assessment in classrooms, called group oral presentations (gops). this paper attempts to explore the attitudes and perceptions of both students and teachers on the method. the participants are 53 efl students studying at van lang university and 5 teachers teaching general english. to find out the results, we used a questionnaire for students and interviews for teachers. the findings revealed that most of students have positive attitudes towards this teaching method, although there were some facing problems when they made presentations in classrooms. besides, most teachers claimed that gops assisted students to enhance their speaking ability. however, employing this method too much made students who was not good at english less confident, even scared of speaking english. in general, even though there were some drawbacks, this method could be seen as an effective assessment that helped students improve their speaking ability. keywords: group oral presentations, efl students, attitudes, perceptions, speaking ability, cooperative learning biodata job position: lecturer institution: van lang university country: vietnam skill taught: general english research interests: teaching methods, especially call experiences: 5 years in teaching english. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 74 the effectiveness of e-teaching activities in teaching speaking skills for english major students tran thi thuy oanh1* , ho thi yen lan2 , le thi hai yen3 1,2,3university of foreign language studies – the university of da nang *corresponding author’s email: oanhthuytrandn@gmail.com abstract in recent years, universities in viet nam have paid great attention to implementing e-teaching activities, especially in the epidemic context of covid 19. due of time and human resource, the study focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of eteaching activities in teaching speaking skills for second-year students of english major. a survey was conducted in a group of 15 teachers and 100 students of university of foreign language studies the university of da nang (uflsudn) to figure out what the reality is. the findings indicated that the information technology infrastructure system of the school meets the needs of online teaching, most of teachers mastered e-teaching equipment, especially supporting software, applying teaching methods suitable to the online teaching model to integrate polarize learners' learning activities. moreover, most of students are self-consciously participating in the form of e-teaching and doing exercises as well as answering questions posed by teachers in the learning process. however, some teachers are still conscious in implementing this duty or spending time to draft lessons. the research proposes suitable and feasible solutions to improve e-teaching activities at ufls-udn in particular, at universities, faculties of foreign languages in viet nam in general. keywords: e-teaching, teaching speaking skills, online teaching, e-teaching activities biodata tran thi thuy oanh is a senior lecturer at university of foreign language studies – the university of danang, vietnam. she has a ph.d’s degree in english linguistics in vietnam and spent a researching course at university of nice sophia antipolis, french republic. her current research fields are english linguistics, pedagogy and education. ho thi yen lan is a lecturer at university of foreign language studies – the university of danang, vietnam. she has a m.a’s degree in english linguistics. her current research fields are english linguistics, esp education. le thi hai yen is a lecturer at university of foreign language studies – the university of danang, vietnam. she has a m.a’s degree in english linguistics. her current research fields are english linguistics, esp education. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 75 teacher perception of facebook as a mode of assessment mufeeda irshad university of sri jayewardenepura, sri lanka email: mufeedairshad@sjp.ac.lk abstract giving students who have studied in a medium of instruction other than english the space to think and write in english is a useful part of language development. this paper reports on one part of a study that examined the perception of tertiary level second language learners and teachers of english as a second language towards the use of the social media platform, the face book (fb), as a mode of assessment. the question that this part of the paper attempted to answer was how teachers’ perceived the use of fb assessment. the research was conducted in a tertiary level public institution in sri lanka. the sample consisted of 2 men and eighteen women aged between twenty eight and thirty nine (n=20) . the respondents were given two open ended questions and asked to respond to them in writing. the written responses obtained were manually coded in three stages ( (1) identification of potential themes and development of codes, (2) establishment of intercoder reliability for the themes, (3) application of codes) by two coders (kurasaki, 2000). the findings indicate that 55% of the respondents are positive, 35% negative, and 10% neither negative nor positive towards the use of fb for assessment. more research needs to be done with a variety of fb assignments and assessment methods and with a wider sample size before generalising the findings. the theoretical base of the main study is the complex dynamic systems theory which emphasizes the importance of taking into account both cognitive and environmental factors, stipulates that language learning is non-linear, and takes place progressively(godwin, 2018). keywords: teacher perception, facebook, assessment, second language development, writing biodata mufeeda irshad is a senior lecturer in business communication at the faculty of management studies and commerce, university of sri jayewardenepura, sri lanka. mufeeda obtained her phd (applied linguistics) from the university of groningen, the netherlands, in 2015. her main research interests are technology enhanced language learning, second language pedagogy, a dynamic usage-based approach to second language development, and language policy. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 76 the difference effects of paper dictionary vs. online dictionary trinh thi lan anh1* , tran thi kim ngan2 , vo thuy bao ngoc3 , huynh thi thu suong4 1,2,3,4van lang university, vietnam *correspondiong author’s email: trinhanh270520@gmail.com abstract dictionary appeared intending to help learning foreign languages more easily and with the invention of the online dictionary, users are supported more and more effectively in learning. therefore, many studies have also been conducted to show the influence of paper dictionaries and online dictionaries on users and problems arise in using processes these two dictionaries. this study was surveyed based on the opinions of 300 junior students from van lang university in ho chi minh city. through analysis, most of the results illustrated that the most common answer that people chose was "online dictionary" based on two main types of questionnaires, namely paper survey and internet survey with entries targets to "clarify", "develop" and "maintain". the survey also found that the majority of students use dictionary on a regular basis as an effective tool to improve their language levels when it comes to boosting the vocabulary bank. finally, the majority of students at van lang university tended to choose online dictionaries for learning new vocabularies although some of them still do not deny the value of paper dictionaries because of its benefits. especially, this study also shows the great value of online dictionaries for students in the 4.0 era today, and this will bring many positive effects for student's learning english in the future. keywords: paper, online, dictionaries, students, university, differences, benefit, advantages, effect biodata we are currently third-year students at van lang university in viet nam. we are majoring in english linguistics, faculty of foreign languages. through the "research methods" course at university, we have learnt about the structure of an academic research and how to organize the part appropriately. we have an interest in doing research related to areas such as environment, population, education, cultures as well as languages. we only have basic knowledges and experiences about doing research. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 77 online teaching and learning challenges in mountainous and remote area of vietnam van pang lo dien bien teacher training college corresponding author. email: lovanpang@gmail.com abstract this qualitative study explored the key challenges of teachers and students who are living in remote rural mountainous regions of northern vietnam. this study was carried out in dien bien province, one of the most disadvantaged areas of vietnam. even though, this issue has been studied by a large number of researchers and educators around the world and vietnam but it is not paid enough attention to remote and mountainous areas like dien bien. information was gathered using multiple interviews with 04 teachers and 04 students at 02 high schools in dien bien province. an analysis of the results of this study resulted in the identification of key challenges shaping the teaching and learning outcomes of studied participants. key influences identified were: technological challenges, pedagogical challenges, learning and teaching environment challenges, and social challenges. this study suggests some solutions for both government and individuals so as to have better educational outcomes. keywords: remote, rural, dien bien, mountainous, online teaching, online learning, challenges. biodata dr. lo van pang is a senior lecturer and the head foreign language department at dien bien teacher training college. he was born and grown up in an extremely remote and mountainous of vietnam. with his determination and efforts, he has overcome many challenges so as to be an english lecturer. with more than 20 years of experience dr. pang has been working with a diversity of students from secondary school to university level. he obtained a bachelor in english education (2000) from thai nguyen university, a master degree (2008) in english language teaching at ulis and a doctoral degree (2017) in indigenous education at flinders university, australia. pang is responsible for teaching and developing syllabi for students at school. his research interests include special need learning, indigenous education, english for specific purposes and young learners. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 78 developing quality hospitality students through simulation and experiential learning – an empirical study at fpt university danang tran minh tung hospitality division, fpt university danang email: tungtm6@fe.edu.vn abstract teaching quality is more and more profoundly decisive for the achievement of higher educational institutions. in this background, games-based learning (gbl) and experiential-based learning (ebl) are the key teaching methodologies and their applications which are often used to enhance the teaching-learning quality. this paper has three main objectives. first itseeks the theoretical framework on experiential learning through simulation games and on the theoretical framework on project-based learning as well as problem-based learning then, viathe application of this framework, the paper gradual integration of various types of experiential learning activities into a hospitality and tourism management syllabus. thirdly, it researches heuristic behavior method of the players of simulation games and the optimum circumstances for empirical learning through such games. the empirical analysis of a game-based project assigned to 27 players, who are hospitality students at fpt university danang, has shown very significant results. one of the primary outcomes of this research is to describe theoretical approaches mainly to gbl. another important finding is the gradual integration of various types of experiential learning activities into a hospitality and tourism management syllabus so as to make the teaching-learning more engaging, more fun and more efficient. keywords: games-based learning; simulation and experiential learning, problem and project-based learning, discovery learning, hospitality education biodata dba candidate tran minh tung business and hospitality lecturer , fpt university danang, vietnam. he has over 16 years of work experience and 10 years in teaching and sharing at both over 40 enterprises and over 22 higher educational institutions in vietnam. his research interests are in hospitality, marketing in higher education, experience learning and gamification. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 79 the attitudes towards distance learning of ton duc thang university students and teachers minh uyen ky tran creative language center, ton duc thang university, ho chi minh city, viet nam email: kytranminhuyen@gmail.com abstract high school and university students in vietnam are compelled to learn through the virtual classroom in the era of covid-19, which traumatized lots of students because it is the only choice at that time. this study looks into the attitudes towards distance learning of 15 teachers and more than 300 students in ton duc thang university during covid-19. to many teachers and learners, this was the first time they experienced classroom interaction through screen, which caused many problem during the lesson. overall, students’ attitude towards distance learning was negative. many of them were overwhelmed by the heavy workload and the flooded learning materials while the interaction with the instructor and other students was limited, which weakens their motivations to take on the assignments. teachers also experienced the difficulties of managing the class, creating an eager classroom atmosphere through the screen, and also a huge workload. acknowledging the adversity of distance learning from both teachers’ and learners’ view is the basic premise for the development of online language teaching methodology for vietnamese learners who have little exposure to learning through the screen. this study contributes to the elevation of distance language learning in vietnamese context. keywords: distance learning, challenges, solutions acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 80 learners’ perceived effects of video-based language learning apps’ activities to improve english listening skills do bich yuan ze university, taiwan email: bich33dhtm@gmail.com abstract prior studies have researched the use of mobile language apps in formal and informal language learning and have found positive results on language improvement and learner engagement; yet, the number of studies on video-based mobile applications for language learning still remains scarce. while the number of video-based language learning apps is increasing, not much information is available for teachers, parents, and learners in order to choose suitable apps to take advantages of them. this study aims to investigate what learning activities of commonly recommended video-based language learning apps facilitating english listening skills are preferred by learners and learners’ perceived effects of those activities to improve their english listening skills by using a questionnaire and an interview. fifty-seven taiwanese novice-level learners of english were given an introduction to the studied mobile applications and asked to use those apps for one semester. the present study is in the process of assessing and is expected to determine what kinds of learning apps activities are accepted by beginners in supporting their english listening skills. the results will provide insight in the selection of language learning apps to use in teaching or recommendations to parents and learners, or suggestions to app developers. keywords: video-based language learning apps, learning activities, english listening skills acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 81 enhancing vowel production among first-year english majors using mobilebased games: a case study at van lang university nguyen ha1 , nguyen cuong2 1,2 van lang university corresponding email: ha.nguyen@vlu.edu.vn abstract the issue of how to help efl/esl learners improve english pronunciation for successful oral communication has drawn much attention from educators and experts in the field (morley, 1991). however, teaching english pronunciation, especially vowel sounds, is a huge challenge for vietnamese teachers due to the difference between vowel sounds in the two languages (tang, 2007; pham & mcleod, 2016). with the speedy development of the internet and technology, it has been suggested that mobile game-based activities have significantly contributed to teaching and learning pronunciation (grimshaw, 2016; nguyen, 2016; tsai, 2019). therefore, the current research was conducted to investigate the effects of mobile apps on learning vowels among efl learners and their attitudes towards the apps with the participation of 34 first-year english majors at van lang university. a pre-test and post-test were employed to examine whether there was a considerable difference in learning vowel sounds among the participants, and a five-point likert scale questionnaire was designed to test their satisfaction with the apps. findings revealed that students had a great achievement in vowel articulation with a mean score of 11.18/14 in the posttest of the experimental group compared to 6.88 in the pretest of the same group; meanwhile, there was a modest improvement in the control group (m= 6.0 in the pretest and 8.47 in the posttest), and they also had remarkably positive feelings for learning with the apps with m= 3.96 for the questionnaire. keywords: mobile game-based apps/ activities, english pronunciation/ vowel sounds, oral fluency biodata nguyen thi ha is currently a lecturer of english in the faculty of foreign languages, van lang university. she mainly teaches english skills to mainstream students. she is particularly interested in doing research on how to integrate internet-based applications in english language teaching and on assessment in english teaching. huy cuong nguyen has been working as an english lecturer in the faculty of foreign languages, van lang university for 5 years. he teaches not only english skills but also english for specific purposes to english majors. carrying out research on applying new teaching techniques to enhance students’ pronunciation is his particular interest. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 82 an investigation into efl high school teachers’ perceptions and experiences of blended learning in vietnam nguyen thi thu huong1* , nguyen thi hong nhat2 1metropolis kindergarten, ha noi 2hanoi pedagogical university number 2 corresponding author’s email: hnguyenthithu22@gmail.com abstract blended learning is a natural evolution of the learning agenda and has been increasingly integrated into everyday instructional practice (thorne, 2003). so far, however, there has been little discussion about how efl teachers implement blended learning, especially in the context of vietnam. this ongoing research is conducted to investigate vietnamese high school english language teachers’ perceptions and practice of blended learning. the participants of the study are 100 efl high school teachers in vietnam. data is collected from a survey questionnaire (n=100) and interviews (n=30). the study is expected to provide insights into how vietnamese efl high school teachers understand dimensions of blended learning and how far they have implemented this educational mode in their teaching. the findings of this study will have a number of important implications on how to best prepare and support teachers for teaching in a blended language learning environment in future practice. keywords: blended learning, perceptions, experiences acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 83 evaluating the impacts of virtual exchange on language learning and intercultural competence: a case study nguyen dieu ngoc1 , ho thi hien2* 1posts and telecommunications institute of technology 2industrial university of ho chi minh city corresponding author’s email: hothihien@iuh.edu.vn abstract an eight-week virtual exchange (ve) was implemented between 68 teachers and students from 16 countries. the study investigated (1) the students’ interest in learning about different cultures and what effect the ve had on their level of interest; (2) their perceived importance of the learning of cultures in the learning of english and what effect the ve had on this self-assessment; and (3) their perceived effectiveness in the improvement of language skills and cultural knowledge and what effect the ve had on this. a mixed method was employed with quantitative and qualitative analyses conducted on the data obtained from weekly padlet writing, reflective flipgrid videos, videotaped videoconferences of the eight meetings and the pre-and postsurveys of 49 students for whom complete data were available. the results showed that students were highly interested in learning about other cultures before and after the ve and this was believed to be of great importance in foreign language learning. in addition, the participants noticed that their language skills and intercultural competence have been significantly improved thanks to their participation in the eight-week telecollaboration. some recommendations to ensure the effectiveness of a ve were also included in the study. keywords: virtual exchange, intercultural competence, efl acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 84 the application of metacognitive strategies in computer-assisted listening comprehension class lu dinh bao van lang university email: bao.ld@vlu.edu.vn abstract the use of computer-assisted language learning (call) in listening comprehension courses has long been proved its effectiveness in enhancing efl learner's listening proficiency as it creates enough space for students to individualize their learning process. it is, however, a need to provide students appropriate strategies to help them overcome various difficulties in their listening practice. this quasi-experimental research aims at investigating the influence of metacognitive strategies on efl learner's listening comprehension performance in call listening class. forty-nine vietnamese english major freshmen, from two intact classes at van lang university, participated in the study. during the 10-week listening comprehension course, learners in the experimental group were instructed to use metacognitive strategies, while those in the control group received no strategy instruction. the collected data from the pre-test and post-test were analysed by ttest using spss software. also, students were required to complete the metacognitive awareness listening questionnaire (malq), adopted from vandergrift (2004). the findings suggested that metacognitive strategy instruction has a positive effect on student’s listening comprehension competence. keywords: metacognitive strategies, computer-assisted language learning, teaching listening. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 85 mental health states of senior-year students at three universities in ho chi minh city and assisted recommendation hang vo thi thu1 , bui khanh vy thi2* 1,2van lang university *corresponding author’s email:hang.vtt@vlu.edu.vn abstract this paper reports on senior-year students' finding in dealing with mental problems during their learning procedure and suggest some assisted support. 90 senior-year students at three universities in ho chi minh city randomly participated in the survey. a mixed methodology approach has been employed to analyze the data, including dass 21, to evaluate students' mental disorders, questionnaires, and focus group interviews of their parents. data were collected and classified based on many factors that lead to mental health states. moreover, qualitative analysis data will clearly show the impact of difficulties in facing mental depression during their whole learning process at the university. the results show that mental disorders were becoming a serious concern for graduate students, especially it could be a key reason for committing suicide among young adolescents. some assistance from family and learning environment can be implemented to support students' mental well-being. keywords: efl students, senior year, depression, mental problem acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 86 efl teachers’ emotion regulation in response to online-teaching at vanlang university ngo thi cam thuy van lang university email: thuy.ntc@vlu.edu.vn abstract in an effort to expand existing research on the barriers of instructors experience in online learning environments (oles), the current study has been conducted to identify the types of emotions online efl teachers feel and the factors that influence these emotions in response to the experience of teaching online to university students in van lang university. a qualitative was conducted with 6 instructors (ranging from novice to 15-years experienced teachers) teaching in different oles formats (microsoft team, edusoft, zoom, google classroom and e-learning). five emotions linked to teaching online were identified: feeling restricted, stressed, devalued, validated, and rejuvenated. the article also provides practical strategies on how participating instructors attempted to manage the challenging emotions. the practical implications of these results are discussed. keywords: efl teachers’ emotions, teaching online, oles biodata thuy, ngo thi cam is a lecturer at the faculty of foreign languages, van lang university. she is currently a doctoral candidate at hue university. her focal research interests are cognitive psycholinguistics, call, and language teacher education. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 87 challenges defining a life purpose in an exam-driven culture: a case of vietnam pham thi hoa university of languages and international studies vietnam national university, hanoi email: hoapham.ulis@gmail.com abstract as thomas carlylea british historianonce said, “the person without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder”, the importance of having a purpose for life has long been emphasized by many celebrated names in history. however, results from recent studies, such as those from a research by boddy (2015), have revealed that many young people face the challenge of exploring their life’s purpose, which can be consistent with their exam-driven culture. intrigued by these findings, i carried out this current research to investigate the situation in vietnam, where the lack of a purpose compass and an exam culture have been criticized by the mainstream media but not widely discussed in academia. using a mixed-method approach with an online survey and semi-structured interviews, the study was carried out with 135 vietnamese students, who are either senior high schoolers or first year students in hanoi. findings confirmed that these students are left with little time to explore their life purpose, and there is a negative correlation between the exam culture and this lack of purpose. in addition, the research identified some helpful aspects in the educational system that guide students towards their life’s purpose, though most participants expressed expectations about the improvement in this function of the system. key words: life purpose, purposeful education, exam culture, innovative curriculum biodata hoa pham is a lecturer in hanoi, vietnam and is a fulbright vietnamese scholar. her research interests include curriculum design, adult development, transdisciplinary education, and teacher education. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 88 transforming language education to the online mode during covid-19 times – on approaches used in pandemic language teaching jaroslaw krajka maria curie-sklodowska university, poland email: jarek.krajka@gmail.com abstract technology has been called to the rescue on a number of occasions, be it in large classes, underresourced contexts, after earthquakes or other natural disasters. the covid-19 pandemic which struck the world in spring 2020 and afterwards necessitated sudden shift from face-to-face to distance teaching. with no preparation, no training and very little support from the state, language teachers had to find their own ways transferring language instruction to the online medium. due to the recency of this situation, research into transformation of language teaching from f2f to online mode is still in its infancy. the study explores modes, approaches, affordances and obstacles of covid-era english language teaching in poland. apart from exploring the shape of online teaching from two perspectives (student teachers and school teachers), the study confronts the approaches used in polish schools against well-established models: stages of call (warschauer and healey, 1998, bax, 2003), samr (puentedura, 2006) and skills pyramid (hampel and stickler, 2005). the data for the study were collected through observations of online lessons, analysis of lesson plans and interviews with teachers. the findings showed predominance of substitution mode, with little attempts at other stages, with teachers staying mainly at low levels of skills pyramid. keywords: distance education, covid-19, computer-assisted language learning, educational technology, samr acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 89 updating an original vocabulary list for the effective implementation of online esl courses kazumichi enokida1 , mitsuhiro morita2 , tatsuya sakaue3 , shusaku kida4 , shuichi amano5 1,2,3,4,5hiroshima university, japan corresponding author’s email: kenokida@hiroshima-u.ac.jp abstract the presenters have implemented online esl courses dedicated to vocabulary building, targeting approximately 1,000 first-year students at a national university in japan. an original vocabulary list was developed, consisting of 6,000 essential english words for daily communications and academic purposes. a web-based training system was also developed to facilitate online vocabulary learning and to manage learner data. the courses have been successfully implemented since its launch in 2011. this paper reports on a recent update on the vocabulary list that reflects the latest tendency of the students' english skills at the university over the past 9 years. the update was conducted by the presenters: first, each of the 6,000 words on the list was checked, and relatively unimportant words were excluded from the list. then, 1,070 new essential words that are not included in the list were collected from several well-known vocabulary lists, such as browne, c., culligan, b. & phillips, j. (2013). these words were rated on a 5-point scale according to the toeic(r) levels. as a result, 264 new words were selected to be included in the updated version of the list. the presenters will explain the way the vocabulary list has been developed, implemented, and updated. keywords: online course, vocabulary learning, web-based training acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 90 implementing e-learning for basic computer subject at van lang university, period 2017 – 2020 nguyen thu nguyet minh1* , tren thi yen nhi2 , do thanh tùng3 , nguyen quoc huy4 1,2,3,4van lang university vietnam corresponding author’s email: minh.ntn@vlu.edu.vn abstract basic computer department, van lang university implemented elearning from 2017 to 2020, divided into 3 phases, from level 2 to level 4 of elearning training. at each phases, there was a change in training methods, supported functions and, above all, the consolidation of the system, from online learning support functions, course management functions and other facilities, in order to provide learners with the most favorable learning environment and at the same time to assist teachers in teaching and publishing results. in the process of building an elearning system, different training methods are used depending on the requirement of the online class to account for 20% to 100% of the total teaching time. during the implement, we are constantly absorbing feedback from students and our lecturers are constantly improving the system, then we initially obtain encouraging results. keywords: e-learning, lms moodle, ms teams, basic computer acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 91 student-teachers’ satisfaction from blended learning phan thu nga hcmc open university email: nga.ptt@ou.edu.vn abstract one of the most influential definitions of blended learning in literature was that of graham (2006), who proposed that blended learning systems combine face-to-face instruction with computer-mediated instruction. krasnova (2016) defined blended learning as a method of teaching that combines the most effective face-to-face teaching techniques and online interactive collaboration, and both constitute a system that functions in constant correlation and forms a single whole. these two definitions have been considered the theoretical background of the investigation on student-teachers’ satisfaction from blended learning. the participants are 70 student-teachers in the tesol foundation course which started in october, 2020 and will finish by the end of december. in this course, students have to attend seven face-toface class meetings, and the rest time (less than 30 % out of the total periods of the whole course) is for online learning. students have to submit seven group assignments on lms (learning management system), attend three video conferences and take part in discussion boards on lms. student’s satisfaction has been examined in four dimensions (1) perceived ease of use of resources and tools; (2) perceived value (relevant and interesting contents on discussion boards); (3) positive learning climate; and (4) student-instructor interaction (video conferences and feedback on assignments). keywords: blended learning, online learning, satisfaction acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 92 tertiary students’ perspectives on online learning during emergency remote teaching (ert) in the context of covid-19: a case study ha le1* , canh truong2 1foreign trade university ho chi minh city 2canh truong, foreign trade university *corresponding author’s email: lethanhha.cs2@ftu.edu.vn abstract in the midst of a global pandemic, educational institutions in vietnam were forced to move all courses online. under that circumstance, emergency remote teaching (ert) is a conceivable alternative for onsite learning. this paper provides an insight into one specific case study of a university in ho chi minh city, vietnam. the study employed a likert scale survey, open-ended questions and a semi-structured interview to examine undergraduate students' perspectives and their engagement (n = 255) in the context of ert amid covid-19. our findings illustrated opportunities and obstacles entailing online video-conferencing lessons with multiple modalities in language teaching and learning. the results showed a rather skeptical view towards online language learning due to the lack of students student and student instructor interactions. the paper ends with some implications to improve students’ engagement in distance teaching and learning context. keywords: students’ engagement, emergency remote teaching, interaction, and distance education biodata ha thanh, le has shown great commitment in the field of english language teaching and education with a master in education in university of hull, uk. ha is an english lecturer at foreign trade university, hochiminh campus. her interest includes technology-infused learning, task-based language teaching, and students' motivation and engagement. truong canh is currently working as a lecturer of english at the faculty of english language department, foreign trade university, ho chi minh campus, vietnam. she holds an ma in applied linguistics and has nearly 10 years of teaching english for various types of students. her main interests of research are issues of english teaching methodology, the theory of multiple intelligences in english teaching and learner autonomy. she has presented at some conferences and published her papers on some journals acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 93 the impacts of self-learning strategies: the qualitative and quantitative study of efl students at van lang university sen le1 , thoi nguyen2 , trinh bui3 , and thanh tran4 1234faculty of foreign languages, van lang university, ho chi minh city, viet nam *corresponding author. email: sen.187na00588@vanlanguni.vn abstract the research mainly focuses on the influences on self-regulated learning strategies of efl students in van lang university. fifty efl students were divided into an experimental and a control group in this work. both qualitative and quantitative were applied to analyze the data. the empirical demonstration has been gathered and classified in four fields of effects, including motivation, self-discipline, academic performance, and time-management. the findings revealed that self-regulation had both positive and negative effects on their learning strategies. as a consequence, the experimental group had beneficial impacts while the other coped with challenges. also, the study is a positive sign for efl students to enhance their language abilities and improve the four basic language skills individually as well as explore new topics or tackle challenging schoolwork. after the study, efl students will be able to acknowledge the necessity of applying a specific strategy for self-learning. furthermore, undergraduates can set their learning goals and self-assessment strategies to foster learner autonomy and evaluate their learning experiences at the end of the semester. keywords: impact, self-learning strategies, efl students. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 94 using virtualized classroom to alleviate the limitations of the traditional teaching and learning english at van lang university tran hoang thien1 , nguyen quoc hoang2 , nguyen hai long3 1,3van lang university 2rmit university corresponding author’s email: thientranhoang45@gmail.com abstract on january 23th, 2020, the covid-19 outbreak in vietnam caused 100% of schools and universities to shut down and posed a horrendous impact on education. to get over it, virtualized classrooms is a proposed solution. this study investigated the impacts of virtualized classroom on traditional teaching and learning english at van lang university. the data is collected through questionnaires, interviews, and online surveys on google doc form. the result showed that 70% of respondents support the use of virtualized classroom for teaching and learning english. by alleviating the limitations of traditional approaches to teaching and learning, students and teachers are able to interact with each other in a 3d virtualized environment without having to physically attend the class. moreover, they stated that they demand physical interactions in the classroom, a factor that zoom and microsoft team are unable to provide. for these reasons, virtualized classroom can be seen as a solution to solve the problem. keywords: virtualized classroom, virtual reality (vr), solution for distance learning, covid-19, application for further follow-up, english teaching, english learning acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 95 vietnamese undergraduates’ attitudes towards the use of facebook for language teaching and learning phan thi kim thao freelancer email: thaokim.pt@gmail.com abstract it is undeniable to admit the popularity of facebook in all fields of life. for academic purposes, facebook is also used as a medium for english learning and teaching (elt). to gain some insight into it, this study is conducted to investigate vietnamese students’ attitudes towards using facebook in elt. there are 323 respondents in the study. the quantitative method is employed to collect data. the findings indicate that the students expressed positive attitudes towards facebook application for elt. furthermore, facebook is considered as an educational tool that facilitated their language learning process especially leaning vocabulary skill. keywords: facebook, elt, vietnamese students, attitudes, language teaching acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 96 the linguistically-created conceptualization in teaching english as a foreign language: from understanding to practice nguyen v. my hcmc university of education email: nguyenmydhsptphcm@gmail.com abstract no doubt that english education is a complicated process and its successes depend on different variables. of these, english-linguistic environments for regular practice is commonly accepted as a prerequisite in the contexts of english as a foreign language (efl). unfortunately, the questions of what the linguistic environment creating exactly are or how these are implemented, have not persuasively answered. the present paper aimed at twofold purposes, theoretically reviewing related concepts and critical discussions to conceptualize the linguistic environment settings. practically, some practical approaches were suggested for successful applications in real-life contexts of english education. it is hoped that the present paper contributes to the growing literature review of the linguistic environments on foreign language education and draws special attention to the important roles of the linguistic environment setting beside the focus on theories of elt methodology from elt scholars around the world. keywords: technology, linguistic environment creating, efl contexts, modeling acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 97 incorporating internet-based applications in teaching integrated language skills to efl students phuong thi tieu le1* 1 faculty of foreign languages and pedagogy, nong lam university – ho chi minh city vietnam * email: phuong.lethitieu@hcmuaf.edu.vn abstract nowadays, it has become more popular for teachers of english as a foreign language (efl) classes to engage their students in language learning by using internet-based applications. however, each application is often designed to teach a separate language skill, so there is a need to incorporate some applications to teach four language skills effectively. therefore, kahoot, wordwall, google form, and padlet were combined in this action research to support the teacher in teaching integrated skills to 104 intermediate-level students of 4 efl classes during a 15-week course at a tertiary institution in vietnam. the purpose of this research was to describe how these internet-based applications are incorporated in an efl classroom through a teacher's reflective teaching journal and identify the students' perceptions of this implementation through a questionnaire followed by a semi-structured interview. the research findings indicated that a great majority of students (90.4%) somewhat and strongly supported the model of incorporating these applications in efl classrooms with the four major benefits of facilitating their integrated language skill practices, fostering their active learning, encouraging self-studying, and increasing students’ attention span. accordingly, this paper concluded with a suggestion for more implementations at other institutions with similar contexts. keywords: internet-based applications, integrated skills, efl acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 98 impacts of digital teaching on traditional assessment: an investigation of vietnamese english teachers during covid-19 period pham thi thuy le wenzao university, kaohsiung, taiwan email: phamthuyle276@gmail.com abstract this study investigates and analyzes vietnamese english teachers’ main challenges when using technology as a teaching instrument and its impacts on traditional assessment practices in english classrooms during the covid-19 period. the paper was conducted with a qualitative approach to point out particular perspectives and practices associated with the chosen topic. the participants from different areas in vietnam were interviewed through online semi-structured interviews to collect the data. the present findings reveal that the teachers should receive more context-specific support through social networking site interactions to create content and control their teaching process. the results suggest that vietnamese english teachers need more opportunities to use digital tools and resources for enhancing their teaching skills. besides, few studies have focused on how traditional assessments have been affected in the pandemic; thus, the study may be a useful reference for other english researchers on this topic in the future. keywords: digital teaching, traditional assessment, vietnamese english teachers, covid-19 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 99 vocational english teachers’challenges to shifting towards virtual classroom teaching hoang ngoc tue, le duc hanh hanoi university of industry corresponding email: leduchanh.haui@gmail.com abstract covid19 pandemic has brought to significant influences on every aspect in our lives and society. with the determination to keep learning continued during covid19, education itself has innovated remarkably to adapt the lockdown situation in many regions in asia. among those, shifting from traditional face-to-face classrooms into online learning has been considered as ultimate solutions with tremendous approvals from all stakeholders at all levels. however, at some vocational institutions, the shifting to virtual classrooms has plenteous challenges to all involved partners. since teachers are the keys to effective implementation of this shifting during covid19, it is crucial to understand their challenges to the shifting towards virtual classroom teaching. this presentation aims to investigate the attitudes of the english teachers in some vocational colleges in vietnam and their challenges for transferring their classrooms into online ones. this research collected the data from questionnaire survey to 45 vocation english teachers at 5 vocational colleges and indepth interviews with nine teachers. the findings would be presented to firstly identify the vocational english teachers’ attitudes towards shifting to virtual classroom. then, this research also revealed some challenges of teaching online classroom from the teachers’ voices, such as students’ and teachers’ technologycompetences, students’ motivations, students’ technical support, teachers’ experiences, teachers’ willingness, and institutions’ purposes and strategies. the presentation would also illustrate some practical suggestions for teachers on how to face and solve these challenges, specifically during and post covid19 period, which may be effective for educators and teachers to adapt in their own context. keywords: challenges, online teaching, virtual classroom, covid19, teachers’ attitudes biodata dr. hoang ngoc tue is the dean of the faculty of foreign languages, hanoi university of industry, vietnam. he has been working as an english teacher and an educational administrator for more than 15 years. he has conducted many studies and projects to improve the quality of english language education at tertiary level. he received his doctor of education degree from queensland university of technology, australia in 2015. his research interests include ict in education, blended learning, english for occupational purposes, and teacher professional development. ms. le duc hanh has been working as an english lecturer at faculty of foreign languages, hanoi university of industry, vietnam since 2007. she currently works as a team leader of designing eap blended materials. she also takes responsibilities of designing, teaching eop blended program for technical students. her areas of professional interest include emi and blended learning. she can be reached at leduchanh.haui@gmail.com acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 100 how foreign languages influence vietnamese in bac lieu anh van truong 1 department for foreign language, sai gon university *corresponding author. email: tvanh@sgu.edu.vn abstract that many languages are used in society, especially in developed communities, is a natural phenomenon. bac lieu, a small province, does not escape this natural law. on the way of development, the languages of the communities in bac lieu are growing. then, there is a need for language interference to contribute to making the vietnamese language not to be hybrid but increasingly luxuriant. selecting and borrowing new words from other languages can make our mother tongue richer and more beautiful. however, it should be a careful refinery so that the identity and nuances of our language will be kept unchanged. keywords: borrowed word, cross-language, interference, language biodata name: master trương văn ánh affiliation: sài gòn university, 273 an dương vương, ward 5, hcmc title: senior lecturer major: tesol tel: 0918458968 email: tvanh@sgu.edu.vn acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 101 the integration of 21st century-skill and virtual learning with covid-19 hiroyuki obari aoyama gakuin university email: obari119@gmail.com abstract trilling and fadel emphasized the importance of 21st-century skills early in 2000. 3rs and 7cs were particularly important, but now 8cs should be added ‘coexistence with ai.’ 8cs should be emphasized in our pedagogy whatever subject we teach for 21st-century education. an empirical investigation was carried out from may 2020 to december 2020, targeting undergraduates in tokyo. from the first semester of 2020, all courses were taught online with a zoom. about 30% of students enrolled in all classes were satisfied with virtual online learning; however, 30% of students were unsatisfied with virtual online learning. the second semester we carried out the experiment to promote the virtual exchange program with the national university of singapore (nus) for eight weeks. how the students learned under covid-19 will be explained more in detail. keywords: 21st-century skills, flipped learning, peereval, zoom, virtual language exchange. biodata dr hiroyuki obari is a professor at aoyama gakuin university, college of economics, and a part-time lecturer at faculty of law, waseda university, he received a b.a. from the university of oklahoma (political science), an m.a. from icu (public administration), another m.a. from columbia university, and a phd from the university of tsukuba (computer science). he also serves as a visiting researcher at the university of oxford (1998, 2007, 2018~2020) and the national institute of advanced industrial science and technology (aist) (from 2006~present). he specializes in worldview study, ict/call, and tesol. his recent publications include mccarty, s., obari, h., & sato, t. (2017). implementing mobile language learning technologies in japan. springer. my url: https://raweb1.jm.aoyama.ac.jp/aguhp/kgapp?kojinid=abaibi acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 102 using classroom management tools for teaching language in higher education tran thi minh phuong university of social sciences and humanities, vietnam national university, hochiminh city email: minhphuongtrn@hcmussh.edu.vn abstract in recent years, the term “classroom management tool” has become very popular. however, it is also a new challenge for both teachers and learners to choose an appropriate tool to manage the process of teaching and learning languages. particularly, during the time of coronavirus pandemic, teaching face-to-face is replaced by teaching online in most of the educational institutions. in such a situation, this study carried out a research, based on the questionnaire getting opinions from 143 teachers and the interviews of 9 administrators in different universities in the south of viet nam, in order to: (i) analyze concretely necessary functions for classroom management from a specific tool; (ii) evaluate classroom management applications in different schools in the south of vietnam; and (iii) recommend criteria to choose appropriate classroom management tools in language teaching. the findings of this study may contribute to the theory of using technology in language teaching and suggest practical criteria to choose suitable tools for educational administration as well. keywords: classroom management tools, language teaching, teaching online biodata tran thi minh phuong is a fulltime lecturer at the faculty of english linguistics and literature, university of social sciences and humanities (ussh), vietnam national university, ho chi minh city (vnu-hcmc). she obtained her master degree and doctoral degree in comparative linguistics from ussh-hcmc-vnu and master degree in tesol from victoria university australia. her recent interests are testing and assessment, second language acquisition, applied linguistics, using technology in language teaching. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 103 a study on the effectiveness of the online platform in tertiary education in a malaysian university chan hai lin1 , ng yim san2 1,2universiti sains malaysia, malaysia corresponding author’s email: ysng@usm.my abstract the internet has been an important part of our life in many aspects. the transformation of education via the internet has made huge changes in teaching and learning. according to nguyen(2015), the internet has made online learning possible, and many researchers and educators are interested in online learning to enhance and improve student learning.this paper is conducted to uncover the effectiveness of using online learning in tertiary education at a malaysian university. a total of 20 undergraduates from various faculties had participated in an online questionnaire in june 2020. some advantages and issues of online learning were addressed in the study. a total of 75% of the students agreed that online tools help them perform better in their studies. the results show that the undergraduates were satisfied with the implementation of online learning while pursuing their degrees despite having to cope with some issues. based on the research findings, the researchers propose that educators implementing online learning consider the relevance of content and resolutions, student support, and interaction between students and teachers for effective learning. keywords: online platform, online learning, effectiveness biodata chan hai lin has just graduated with the bachelor of arts degree majoring in english language from universiti sains malaysia. her areas of interests include academic writing, foreign languages and psychology of language. ng yim san, a senior english language teacher at universiti sains malaysia(usm), has taught the language in malaysiaat primary,secondary and university levels for 31years. she holds a b.a in english language and literature studies and an m.a. in linguistics and english language. her areas of interests are learner autonomy and blended learning. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 104 increasing student engagement through creative and tech-based methods of learning leticia c. pagkalinawan university of hawaii at manoa, usa email: leticiap@hawaii.edu abstract this presentation focuses on using two technological tools, voice thread and kahoot, in teaching filipino as a second language at the university of hawaii at manoa. voicethread (vt) is a web-based interactive collaboration tool with video, audio, and text commenting. in comparison, kahoot is an online tool used for administering multiple-choice game questions, discussions, or surveys. students utilize vt in their oral presentations and participate in class discussions using kahoot. this study presents how the use of these technological tools enhances language proficiency and oral presentation skills of second language learners of filipino. it also explores other valuable benefits of using vt and kahoot in student engagement, motivation, and quality of learning experience in the second language classrooms. data of this study consist of surveys, interviews, and teacher assessments using oral performance evaluation rubrics. findings present valuable insights on the use of technology in promoting collaborative, engaging, dynamic, and stimulating language learning and teaching. keywords: filipino language and culture, voice thread, kahoot, language assessments, technology-based learning and teaching biodata: leticia cantal pagkalinawan is an assistant professor in the department of indo-pacific languages and literature at the university of hawaii at manoa. she is a textbook and creative writer, researcher, editor, translator, interpreter, and columnist. her research interests are heritage language maintenance, linguistic landscapes, teaching pedagogy, and language assessment. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 105 the use of drama role-playing in teaching english literature for english majored students: an action research at van lang university nguyen hoa mai phuong van lang university email:phuong.nhm@vlu.edu.vn abstract role playing has been applied to teach literature in many countries, however, research on this subject is still minimal. the aim of this study is to describe literary class activities, which is considered as the first step of action research to solve the difficulties in teaching english literature in the vietnamese context. the participants include 100 senior english majored students who were involved in the pre, while and post activities in the english literature class. post-session interviews were conducted to learn more about learners' attitudes. these activities initially aroused students' interest in understanding literary works and enhanced their ability in appreciating the selected stories in the curriculum at van lang university. keywords: drama role-playing, english literature, drama-based teaching activities, motivation, language skills development. biodata nguyen hoa mai phuong is a senior lecturer in english literature at van lang university, ho chi minh city. she has over 18 years of experience teaching english to all ages and levels of students. her current research interests are literary analysis, translation study and tesol. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 106 developing bottom-up listening skills and learner autonomy in a google classroom-based efl course nguyen thi hong nhat hanoi pedagogical university 2 email: nguyenthihongnhat@hpu2.edu.vn abstract the teaching practice of efl listening has not well addressed bottom-up listening skills (seigel & seigel, 2015). moreover, autonomous listening is not very well focused in current pedagogy (field, 2008). this study was conducted to investigate the influence of a mini efl listening module of bottom-up activities on learners’ listening ability and learner autonomy. the students were 100 first-year efl students at a public university in vietnam. the module was developed on google classroom platform which incorporates listening activities on different bottom-up skills such as listening to accents, intonation, and assimilation. the students completed the assigned bottom-up listening activities on the platform every week over a period of 10 weeks. the data were collected from an online survey (n=100) and a dictation pre-test and a dictation post-test (n=100). the results showed that the module improved students’ bottom-up listening skills and positively affect their autonomy. the study suggests that efl teachers should be more aware of the importance of bottom-up activities and allocate adequate time for them in listening courses, especially for low-level learners. furthermore, the study indicates that google classroom as a sample tool of technologies can be employed with sound pedagogy to benefit students. keywords: efl listening, bottom-up listening, the use of technology, learner autonomy,google classroom, vietnam. biodata nguyen thi hong nhat is a lecturer of english and a teacher educator at hanoi pedagogical university 2, vietnam. she holds a doctor degree from the university of queensland. she has been conducting a number of workshops for language teachers on teaching english with technologies. her research interest is in the teaching of listening as a foreign language skill, curriculum and program development, efl materials development, teacher education in computer-assisted language learning, educational change. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 107 an empirical study of factors influencing the language proficiency of vietnamese students lan thi ngoc nguyen1 ,* , nga thi thanh tran2 , huyen thi nguyen3 , minh quang le4 1 department of accounting and finance, van lang university 2 thi tran junior high school, kien giang, vietnam 3 faculty of business administration, foreign trade university 4 faculty of psychology, van lang university *corresponding author. email: lan.ntn@vlu.edu.vn abstract this study aims to investigate the language proficiency and its determinants of vietnamese students. based on holistic literature, the authors examine and test the impact of five intrinsic factors related to the students’ characteristics (which are learning purpose, learning ability, learning method, hard-working, and self-awareness) and three extrinsic factors that are related to demographic factors, parental indicators, and schooling-environment on the language proficiency. data was collected from online questionnaires sent to more than 2500 students from eight famous universities in vietnam and converted into an excel version before translated into spss and eview. research results show that intrinsic factors, especially learning methods, play a vital role in shaping vietnamese students’ capability to learn a second language. from educators’ perspectives, the higher level of english exposure the students are equipped at school, the higher their language proficiency. finally, we compare the difference in learning language ability among genders and ages. the findings suggest that girls and minorities are less proficient in language than others. keywords: language proficiency, student demographics, vietnamese students acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 108 content and pedagogical dimension of call: how computer assisted language learning in the 21st century should be? hana azmi zakiyyah mustaqimah1* ,wakhid nashruddin2 , hendi hidayat3 1 sejati research center of elt departement of iain syekh nurjati cirebon 2,3 iain syekh nurjati cirebon *coresponding author email:hanaazmizakiyyah@gmail.com abstract the use of digital technology in education is not an extraneous thing and the use of technology has developed rapidly. the present condition of covid19 pandemic has forced education institutions in non-developed countries in the worldwide, and in asia specifically, to reshape their systems from face to face to online education which becomes the only option for the institutions to support learning, including language learning (with the use of call and mall). as such, a framework is required to guide better practice of call in different aspects. to develop the framework, a critical literature review was used together with boolean operators and thematic analysis to set up the framework. the framework includes content and pedagogical dimensions of call. the content dimension comprises what should be present in the material content in the context of language learning through call whereas the pedagogical dimension comprises how the learning process should be in call in which arises how the teacher should teach and how the content is presented or delivered to students. further, together with lian & pertiwi’s framework (2017), the proposed framework can be used as the basis for call research-based in the 21st century. keywords: 21st century, call, framework for call biodata hana is a junior researcher at sejati research center of elt department of iain syekh nurjati cirebon, indonesia and is interested in call. wakhid nashruddin and hendi hidayat are lecturers in elt department of iain syekh nurjati cirebon, indonesia, with interest in diverse area of elt, including call acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 109 critical perspectives on digital tools: the pic-rat framework rudi cohen national geographic learning vietnam corresponding email: thoaidien.nguyen@cengage.com abstract with so many digital tools being launched and tested in classrooms every day, teachers have more diverse access to electronic options for enhancing their teaching than ever. in this session, the presenter will share a framework for understanding the role of digital tools in relationship to student interaction and their effect on pedagogy. attendees will leave with a new perspective on how to critique apps and websites, and practical ideas for how to integrate them into the online, blended, or in-class learning experiences. keywords: digital tools, framework, student interaction, effect on pedagogy biodata rudi is the senior teacher trainer and academic consultant for national geographic learning vietnam. he has been teaching efl students of all ages since 2012, and has been living and working in ho chi minh city since 2014. experienced in teaching vietnamese students in a variety of contexts, his professional interests focus on integrating critical thinking into the learner experience and providing professional development for teachers of all skill levels. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 110 fuzzy logic based query focused learning materials summarization krishnaveni p1 ,* balasundaram s r2 1 department of computer applications, national institute of technology, tiruchirappalli, tamilnadu, india 2 department of computer applications, national institute of technology, tiruchirappalli, tamilnadu, india *corresponding author. email: 405913006@nitt.edu abstract recent years query or topic specific summarization has become an important research area. query focused summarization (qfs) preserves the important information contained in the documents as much as possible and at the same time the information should be biased to the given query. all the query relevant sentences are not salient. similarly, all the salient sentences are not query relevance. the presence of saliency and query relevance in qfs has raised the issue of fuzziness. this work aims to provide a query summary for one or more text based learning materials on a common topic using fuzzy logic. it tries to answer briefly the learners query regarding the given learning materials. the fuzzy logic handles the tradeoff between the query focus and saliency of the sentences in the input text for producing the query summary. in rouge evaluation, it compares the fuzzy summarizer with the query score only summarizer (qo) and the query score with feature score (qf) summarizer, which are implemented in this work. the evaluation results of these three query focused summarizers show that the fuzzy summarizer provides better results than the other two summarizers compared. keywords: query focused summarization, fuzziness, saliency, query relevance, fuzzy summarizer, query score only summarizer, query score with feature score summarizer. biodata krishnaveni p received the m.e. degree in computer science and engineering from anna university, tamil nadu. she is currently pursuing the ph.d. degree in the department of computer applications, national institute of technology, tamil nadu. her research interests include information retrieval, natural language processing, and automatic text summarization. s. r. balasundaram has been working since 1987 at national institute of technology, tiruchirappalli (nitt). he obtained m.c.a. degree from p.s.g. college of technology, coimbatore and m.e. in computer science and engineering from regional engineering college, tiruchirappalli. he earned his doctorate in “e-learning and assessment” from nitt. currently, he is working as professor in the department of computer applications, nitt. he has more than 40 papers in reputed journals and proceedings of international conferences. his areas of interest are: web and mobile technologies, cognitive science and e-learning technologies. he has authored a book, co-author for 3 book chapters, and edited a book. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 111 the benefits of using technological tools for project-based learning activities in literature at lý thường kiệt high school nguyen tran truong thinh1 , le trinh minh khoi2 , tran thi ngoc linh3* 1,2lý thường kiệt high school, tay ninh province 3van lang university *corresponding author’s email: linh.ttn@vlu.edu.vn abstract literature classes seem to be very boring for high school students due to out-of date teaching methods in which vietnamese teachers just focus on theories and it lacks of practices, that have been existed for ages while more and more technological tools (namely smart phones, laptop or desktop computers, and ipads ), are known as effective learning and teaching ways for their practices, specifically it is for literature. this research paper aims at findings the benefits of using such devices for high school students’ project-based learning activities. for quantitative design, the questionnaire with the 5-likert scale items, named as strong agree(sa), agree (a), neutral (n), disagree (da), and strong disagree (sd), was used as the research data collection instrument whereas in-depth interviews were conducted consisting of 5 questions for the qualitative design to get deeper understandings of learners on how beneficial technological devices were used for projectbased activities in literature. the population in this research was 44 students of grade 11 at lý thường kiệt high school in tây ninh province, việt nam. the findings revealed that accomplishing class or project work with the support of such devices helps students improve both their learning strategies and their confidence significantly such as presentation skills, teamwork skills, critical thinking skills, and problem-solving skills. however, during the process of completing the project work, some limited factors were claimed as spending time hours playing games, surfing the internet, or chatting with friends. for future research recommendation, getting feedback from learners and the guidance from teachers need to be concerned carefully. keywords: technological tools, project-based learning activities, devices acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 112 developing english speaking skills in remote settings: identifying challenges and offering solutions nguyen chau bich tuyen1 , andrew lian2 , nguyen thuy nga3 1,2,3hcmc open university 2suranaree university of technology, thailand corresponding author’s email: tuyen.ncb@ou.edu.vn abstract plenty of adult learners participate in english courses in remote settings (online learning) for reasons of lifelong learning, worldwide communication, social integration, problem solving, professional and personal development. however, most of remote learners seem to be challenged in their learning process when they cannot speak english at an acceptable standard of the non – native speakers in vietnam context. they normally miss completing the requirements of the speaking course, and even give up learning this speaking skill. this evokes my curiosity to explore what actual challenges that remote learners encounter and why they have such performances, and what possible solutions should be concerned. to carry out this, a mixed research method is applied. for the quantitative approach, a questionnaire survey was sent to 50 freshmen of online english speaking course at ho chi minh city open university (hcmcou), and a semistructure interview was used to collect the qualitative data of 5 experienced remote learners of english. the findings show that learners’ challenges are varied in three aspects of characteristics of speaking skill, remoteness, and learners’ learning conditions, and the suggestions for overcoming these challenges are not excluded the concerns of both project – based learning and self – organizing learning environment. keywords: remote setting, english speaking skill, challenges and solutions acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 113 optimizing auditory language input for foreign language learners through a verbotonal approach with call systems andrew lian1 ,2 ,3 , xirui cai1 ,4* , yin mo5 , yaoping shi5 1suranaree university of technology, thailand 2ho chi minh city open university, vietnam 3university of canberra, australia 4kunming medical university, china 5the first affiliated hospital of kunming medical university, china *corresponding email: tsai_hsijui@hotmail.com abstract the notion of call (computer-assisted language learning) has long focused on the creation of enhanced communicative contexts, tutorial activities and access to resources. the research reported here builds on those areas by seeking to determine the optimal physical auditory input for facilitating the process of language learning. this is an area that has rarely been investigated. the research reported here emanates from suranaree university of technology, thailand, and kunming medical university, china. the study situates itself in the contexts of verbotonalism (guberina, 1972; lian, 1980), precision language education (lian & sangarun, 2017), rhizomatic and self-managed learning systems (lian, 2004, 2011; wen, lian and sangarun 2020) and cerebral lateralization while listening dichotically to variously-manipulated auditory signals (cai & lian, 2018; lian & cai, 2019; lian, cai et al., 2020). once the brain’s responses to the various auditory signals have been examined, optimal auditory input signals can be identified and can then be managed entirely by computer-based expert systems using machine learning systems such as tensorflow. this presentation will describe and review the results of a case study involving such an investigation using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri) technology to add to previously gathered evidence by the researchers from eventrelated potential (erp) studies. both fmri and erp studies suggest that there exists one language signal within the verbotonal-based dichotic approach used in the experiment that is best suited for neural processing. theoretical and practical conclusions will be drawn and call systems under development will be described. the impact on the notion of call of this and similar research will also be discussed. keywords: call, auditory language input, a verbotonal approach acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 114 classroom innovation: addressing english classroom needs through design thinking reynald alfred sy feu cavite and st. paul university manila, philippines email: reynaldalfredsy472@gmail.com abstract in response to the challenges faced by the department of education, this study was aimed to provide innovative solutions in addressing english classroom needs. to arrive at similar results by those who have used the design thinking approach, the study specifically utilized design thinking to address english language classroom needs in the secondary level vis-a-vis open possibilities of using the said approach in addressing problems. the researcher made use of the qualitative research method as a research design. specifically, this research used a single case study that aimed at developing at explaining an existing problem. the study, likewise, had six students and four teacher discussants from the junior high school equally representing the private and public schools’ sector. the results of the focus group discussion (fgd) presented that students identified specific problems that they encountered in an english language classroom at the secondary level. such problems were identified as needs and became the starting point of the teacher discussants in their design thinking orientation and workshop. in the process, design thinking provides promising innovative solutions in addressing problems in the classroom and may be utilized as a process in improving academic learning. keyword: design thinking, english language teaching, classroom innovation acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal special issue vol. 12; no. 1; 2021 115 integrating information literacy training in an english-speaking course in the chinese context kezhen liu 1 ,* andrew lian2 , butsakorn yodkamlue3 1,2,3 suranaree university of technology, thailand 1 * kezhen liu. e-mail: jen.l.k@foxmail.com abstract this study investigated the effects of a teaching approach combining information literacy training and an ongoing role play game for improving chinese university students’ english-speaking skills and strengthening their sense of learner autonomy. the study employed a quasi-experimental design. two intact classes, altogether 85 college students, participated in the study. one class was randomly assigned as the experimental group and the other as the control group. both groups participated in an english-speaking course (esc), which was a compulsory course taught by teachers who were native speakers of english. the approach was administered to the experimental group for 11 weeks. the control group participated in a traditional esc, also for 11 weeks. both groups were taught by the same teacher. the findings revealed that after 11 weeks’ intervention, the experimental group improved their english-speaking skills and strengthened their sense of learner autonomy significantly, while the control group made no significant improvement in the two variables. the approach was considered innovative, challenging, and effective by the students in the experimental group. moreover, the students indicated that they became more confident and motivated to learn to speak english. meanwhile, the training lesson made them realize the benefits that technology devices can bring to their learning. keywords: information literacy training, english-speaking course, learner autonomy. thank you notes dear the authors, the presenters, and the participants of asiacall2021 & vltesol, thank you very much for your contributions to the 17th asiacall international conference and vltesol at van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam. this conference cannot be carried out without your time and efforts. this year, the asiacall2021 & vtesol received 110 abstracts of 200 authors from many delegates from australia, thailand, japan, poland, taiwan, india, indonesia, malaysia, china, usa, pakistan, the philippines, ethiopia, and sri lanka. regarding the local delegates, we received papers from many different cities and provinces of vietnam, including ha noi, da nang, lang son, dien bien, ho chi minh city, kien giang, tien giang, tra vinh, and da lat. though the reviewers rejected some abstracts, we felt sorry for that and wished to receive your contributions to the subsequent conferences. the committee organizers and reviewers have been working hard for the double-blind reviewing processes to have qualified papers for the conference-proceedings published in either asiacall online journal or atlantis press. thank you very much to the presidential board of van lang university and the local organizers who have spent most of their time catering services to prepare for the best event. on behalf of the asiacall organization, we wish you stay healthy and happy in life. we hope to see you at our next international conference. sincerely yours, assoc. prof. pham vu phi ho, ph.d. vice president for administrative affairs of asiacall final kỷ yếu thầy hổ thank you notes friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 (asiacall2o21-2)(asiacall2o21-2)(asiacall2o21-2) international conferenceinternational conferenceinternational conference asia association ofofof computer assisted language learninglanguage learninglanguage learning hoa sen universityhoa sen universityhoa sen universityatatat friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 (asiacall2o21-2) international conference asia association of computer assisted language learning hoa sen universityat acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 2 of 168 1. associate professor pham vu phi ho van lang university 2. professor andrew p. lian, suranaree university of technology, thailand 3. dr. ania b. lian charles darwin university, australia 4. associate professor nguyen ngoc vu hoa sen university 5. professor dr. hayo reinders king mongkut’s university of technology thonburi, thailand 6. dr. tran ngoc tien hoa sen university 7. dr. nguyen quang tien hoa sen university 8. dr. nguyen chi duy khuong hoa sen university 9. dr. tran van duong hoa sen university 10. dr. huynh van tai hoa sen university 11. lu van tuan hoa sen university 12. tran quang hai hoa sen university 13. tran le hoai vu van lang university 14. cao thi xuan tu van lang university 15. associate professor to minh thanh hoa sen university 16. phan thi kim thao van lang university 17. dr. vy t. m. luu hcmc university of economics & finance 18. dr. bui thi kim loan van lang university 19. dr. kurt candilas, lourdes college cagayan de oro city, philippines 20. dr. nguyen hai long van lang university reviewer board members acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 3 of 168 1. pro. dr. nguyen ngoc vu hoa sen university 2. dr. le thi ngoc tu hoa sen university 3. ms. nguyen ngoc ha hoa sen university 4. ms. tran thi minh huong hoa sen university 5. mr. truong hoang nhut hoa sen university 6. mr. nguyen manh cuong hoa sen university 7. dr. le dinh phong hoa sen university 8. dr. nguyen bao thanh nghi hoa sen university 9. ms. ngo kim thanh thuy hoa sen university 10. mr. nguyen quoc si hoa sen university 11. ms. doan thi minh hue hoa sen university 12. mr. tran dai dong hiep hoa sen university 13. ms. tran bao ngoc hoa sen university 14. ms. ly thi mai hoa sen university 15. ms. huynh anh lan hoa sen university editorial board members acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 4 of 168 from the asiacall president welcome to asiacall2021-2, the 18th international conference of the asia association of computer-assisted languagelearning (asiacall). as i am fond of reminding friends and colleagues, asiacall is a research and professional association dedicated to bringing people together in research and professional ventures. we also do our best to enable access for everyone to new knowledge and to encourage collaboration in new technology-based ventures, including new theoretical constructs at all levels, relating to language education. in order to achieve this, we have done our best to find ways to bring together researchers and practitioners from all over the world, and asia in particular, with no regard to status, income or experience so as to attain the highest levels of intellectual and cultural diversity as a way of enriching the field of (technology-enhanced) language learning and promoting equal opportunity. one might have expected that an increase in the number of conferences would lead to a decrease in the number of submitted abstracts for the second conference. far from it. asiacall2021-2 actually attracted 50% more papers than the first of the 2021 conference. this is eloquent testimony to the vitality of the field and of the positive relationship between the language teaching profession and the asiacall organization. thank you very much for your strong continuing support. we are delighted that we can be of ongoing service to you and contribute to the infrastructure necessary for the development of the field, especially at a time when there is a proliferation of online conferences and webinars. i should like to take this opportunity to express my thanks on behalf of the asiacall organisation to hoa sen university for its magnificent support of the conference. in particular, i would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the president of asiacall2021-2, vice-rector associate professor dr. nguyen ngoc vu and his team, for their wonderful efforts on behalf of the organisation and for ensuring the success of the conference. i also wish to express my heartfelt thanks to associate professor dr. pham vu phi ho, associate dean of foreign languages at van lang university, vietnam and vicepresident for administrative affairs of asiacall for his tireless efforts on behalf of the organization. he has provided the key energy for many of the association’s recent initiatives. we owe him much. my deepest gratitude also goes to our wonderful keynote, plenary and featured speakers: professor dr. hayo reinders, from anaheim university, usa and king mongkut university of technology thonburi, thailand, associate professor dr. nguyen ngoc vu, vice-rector of hoa sen university, vietnam, associate professor dr. long v. nguyen, vice-president of the university of foreign languages, da nang university, vietnam, dr. ania lian, senior lecturer in education, college of indigenous futures, education and the arts, charles darwin university, australia, vice-president of asiacall for research and innovation, dr. le dinh phong, dean of the faculty of information technology, hoa sen university, vietnam. these gifted, innovative speakers set the tone for the conference. their contributions fuel the participants’ ever-present enthusiasm and i look forward to the research and publications generated by this gathering of minds. finally, a word of warm thanks to all the conference participants. as always, they are the most important people, the reason for the organization’s existence and its lifeblood. thank you for joining and extending asiacall’s intellectual and social family. professor dr. andrew p. lian president of asiacall welcome to asiacall acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 5 of 168 table of content hidden impacts and stereotypes of technology in language learning andrew lian ......................................................................................................................................... 14 language learning spaces beyond the classroom: the role of technology in supporting lifelong and lifewide learning hayo reinders ..................................................................................................................................... 15 building artificial intelligence advantage for vietnam tesol in the post covid-19 world nguyen ngoc vu .................................................................................................................................. 16 hidden impacts and stereotypes of technology in language learning ania lian ............................................................................................................................................. 17 applications of robotics in education: a case study on teaching foreign language le đinh phong ..................................................................................................................................... 18 adaptability to the covid-19 crisis: what are the roles of the stakeholders? long v. nguyen .................................................................................................................................... 19 an investigation into the phenomenon of morphological conversion in current textbooks of english and vietnamese literature for high schools pham thanh hoai(1), nguyen xuan minh hai(2) ..................................................................................... 20 english paraphrasing truong van anh ................................................................................................................................... 21 the impact of globalization and international integration to become a global citizenship in ho chi minh city, vietnam dr. nguyen thanh giang(1) , dr. nguyen minh tri(2) ................................................................................ 22 readiness, preparation, and effectiveness of online teaching and learning in vietnam tertiary education tran tin nghi(1), nguyen tat thang(2), tran huu phuc(3), nguyen mau vu(4) ............................................ 23 the importance of translanguaging in improving fluency in speaking ability of non english major sophomores phan thi ngoc thach; tran thi thu ha ma; tran hoang anh – ma ..................................................... 24 teaching the narrative essay: embedding elements of fiction (plot and setting) pham thi hong an ............................................................................................................................... 25 the disadvantages in learning listening via moodle at van lang university quynh ngo(1), phuong tran(2) ............................................................................................................... 26 technology in preschool english programs: what, when, where, how, how much? tien bui ............................................................................................................................................... 27 students’ collective learning network in an english-medium instruction context tho vo ................................................................................................................................................. 28 mobile or hostile? cellphone use in the efl classroom: a case study phan thi anh nga ................................................................................................................................ 29 a study on efl students’ perceptions of learner autonomy at people’s security university nguyen thi thanh tra .......................................................................................................................... 30 bringing lbc into classroom: an evaluation on self-video recorded speaking task through vietnamese learner perceptions phan thi cat tuong .............................................................................................................................. 31 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 6 of 168 influence of video dubbing tasks on students’ participation in a speaking classroom: an action research project author ................................................................................................................................................. 32 estimating university students’ acceptance of technological tools for studying english through the utaut model phe q. chu(1), trang h. nguyen(2) ........................................................................................................ 33 some challenges of online learning faced by efl freshmen at hanoi metropolitan university during the pandemic of covid-19 vuong thi hai yen ............................................................................................................................... 34 acceptance and use of video conferencing for teaching in covid-19 pandemic: an empirical study in vietnam khuong nguyen(1), tham nguyen(2) ...................................................................................................... 35 exploring language learning of disabled children: a context in bangladesh author ................................................................................................................................................. 36 the application of google form to evaluate and assess student’s performance at hanoi metropolitan university nguyen thi hoa ................................................................................................................................... 37 exploring challenges of major english students towards learning english speaking skills online during covid 19 pandemic and some suggested solutions nguyen chau bich tuyen ..................................................................................................................... 38 learning and teaching english at the people’s police university: a cross-cultural perspective nguyen thi van anh(1), nguyen thuy ngoc(2) ........................................................................................ 39 enhancing efl student intercultural competence through “challenging stereotypes” assignment tran thi xoan ...................................................................................................................................... 40 improve writing skills for efl learners via blended online learning activities nguyen ngoc vu(1), vo thi minh due(2), nguyen the luong(3), nguyen thi hong lien(4) .......................... 41 teachers’ language assessment literacy: a case study at a high school in halong ha bui .................................................................................................................................................. 42 determinants in student satisfaction with online learning: a case of second-year students at private universities in hcmc nguyen, thanh minh(1), tran, quang hai(2) ............................................................................................ 43 information technology in online english classes: an opportunity or a challenge vo tu phuong ...................................................................................................................................... 44 structure and application of 50 ways to conjugate a finite verb in english thai an truong(1); phuoc sang nguyen(2) .............................................................................................. 45 comparison french borrowed words in english and those in vietnamese vo tu phuong ...................................................................................................................................... 46 on the shift of parts of speech in prepositional meaning in english-vietnamese translation phat dinh dac ...................................................................................................................................... 47 the perceptions of vietnamese efl students at van lang university on jigsaw learning tran le hoai vu ................................................................................................................................... 48 considerations for a contextualized learning and instruction in an english language classroom jessie l. labiste jr. ............................................................................................................................. 49 discourse analysis of speech acts of apology by filipino call center agents mary joy v. sienes(1); jasper eric c. catan(2) ........................................................................................ 50 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 7 of 168 measuring the student motivation and learning perception of using augmented reality (ar) in the efl classroom victor marrahí-gómez(1); jose belda-medina(2) .................................................................................... 51 the importance of activity tracking in class-based call activities thomas robb ...................................................................................................................................... 52 grammar teaching techniques used by native english teachers for 5th graders at vietnam-australia school, hanoi minh n. nguyen ................................................................................................................................... 53 achievement emotions and barriers to online learning of university students during the covid-19 time vo thi bich phuong; lam thuy trang (co-author) ................................................................................ 54 online learning for master’s degree programs: a look at the learner’s perceptions tran thi ngoc yen ................................................................................................................................ 55 a comparative analysis of learner engagement between online and offline learning: a case study of undergraduate students at hoa sen university tran ngoc tien(1); lu van tuan(2); nguyen thi ton nu phuong linh(3) .................................................... 56 coronateaching in a palestinian university: changes, challenges, and new conceptions hidayat abu elhawa ............................................................................................................................. 57 teaching moral competence through moral complexity in videogames: proposing a didactic framework based on lind’s kddm benjamin hanussek ............................................................................................................................. 58 efl preservice teachers’ development of 21st century skills through field experiences during covid-19 eunjeong park...................................................................................................................................... 59 challenges and opportunities of implementing e learning in teaching english at tertiary level from teachers’ perspective pham thi ngoan(1); nguyen minh duc(2) ............................................................................................... 60 task-based approaches and learners’ l2 motivational self system: the joy and despair of an emergency online efl class in the covid-19 pandemic quang nhat nguyen(1); linh nhat pham(2); hien nguyen thi thu(3) ........................................................ 61 stratergies for translating english passive sentences into vietnamese eunjeong park...................................................................................................................................... 62 students’ perception of “american english file multipack 3” – a study at people’s security university le thi thu phuong(1); tran hoang anh(2) .............................................................................................. 63 automated evaluation of semantics in fact-based writing with semantic similarity tools qiao wang ........................................................................................................................................... 64 the role of classroom-situated game-based language learning in promoting students’ communicative competence qiao wang ........................................................................................................................................... 65 using lecture videos in flipped classroom model bui thi kim loan .................................................................................................................................. 66 students’ and lecturers’ perceptions of idiom teaching and learning in speaking skill for freshmen at foe, thuongmai university tran thi my linh .................................................................................................................................. 67 effectiveness of online learning through using collaborative learning in flipped classroom ngo van thien ..................................................................................................................................... 68 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 8 of 168 global citizenship education in the english language classroom: theory and practice elizabeth norman ................................................................................................................................ 69 integrating call into teacher preparation curricula: success and failure mili saha ............................................................................................................................................. 70 vietnamese students’ perspectives on online micro-teaching as a technique in english teacher education in the 4.0 era pham ngoc kim tuyen ......................................................................................................................... 71 the impacts of mobile-assisted language learning (mall) on freshmen’s vocabulary acquisition and their perspectives nguyen van thang(1); nguyen thi thanh ha(2) ...................................................................................... 72 the semantic change of ra – vào in vietnamese and their equivalents in english: a corpus-based study van duong tran ................................................................................................................................... 73 utilizing digital resources to foster young learners’ engagements in online learning classrooms ho thi my linh(1); nguyen thi bao khuyen(2) ........................................................................................ 74 non-english major students’ perceptions towards toeic online learning and testing thi doan hoang(1); thuy linh phan(2); hong phuong le(3) ...................................................................... 75 using songs are highly motivated young learners in learning english pham thi thuy tien ............................................................................................................................. 76 teaching speaking online using digital mind mapping software (dmms) and screen recording tool (srt): a practical method ismail anas .......................................................................................................................................... 77 students’ responses to the implementation of audio-visual recording in english pronunciation classrooms hong t.t.vo(1); thi anh tuyet ly(2) ......................................................................................................... 78 a neuroscientific approach to understanding listening comprehension in efl contexts vy luu thi mai ..................................................................................................................................... 79 translating culture-specific items in vietnam’s cultural festival texts into english nguyen thi nhu ngoc(1); le thi ngoc anh(2); tran cao boi ngoc(3); nguyen anh quan(4); van thi nha truc(5) ............................................................................................. 80 a case study of the effects of storytelling as a memorizing technique for english vocabulary on young learners nguyen thi huong lan(1); nguyen thi hoang lan(2) .............................................................................. 81 perspective of teachers on e-learning at language schools during covid-19 pandemic in vietnam pham ho hai yen ................................................................................................................................. 82 the impact of pronunciation practicing strategies on pronunciation competence of vietnamese efl learners ngo thanh(1); tran ngoc tien(2); bien mai(3); phan ngoc uyen(4) ........................................................... 83 effectiveness of blended learning: a classroom action research zarin tasnim ........................................................................................................................................ 84 improving efl students’ intonation in text using shadowing technique with the implementation of spoken texts via google translate tool nhi le p.(1); linh vu h.m.(2); nhat tran m.(3) .......................................................................................... 85 criteria to choose online assessment tools for english language teaching tran thi minh phuong .......................................................................................................................... 86 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 9 of 168 teachers’ difficulties in applying digital game-based learning in a virtual classroom thi doan hoang(1); thuy linh phan(2); thuy linh phan(2) ....................................................................... 87 developing vietnamese listening speaking skills for chinese pupils in the first grade in district 5, ho chi minh city during the covid 19 pandemic period tran thi kim tuyen .............................................................................................................................. 88 changes in students’ experience and perceptions towards e-learning at hoa sen university during covid-19 pandemic tran quang hai(1); hoang to thu dung(2) .............................................................................................. 89 analysis of efl students’ mistakes towards negation structures in english nguyen thuy nuong(1); tran quang hai(2) ............................................................................................. 90 the challenges of learning efl writing via microsoft teams bui thi kim loan .................................................................................................................................. 91 a phenomenological exploration of eap international students’ speaking and listening experience with pechakucha presentations van thi hong le .................................................................................................................................. 92 online education at saigon university during the covid-19 pandemic: a survey on non-english major students’ attitudes tran the phi(1); nguyen trinh to anh(2) ................................................................................................. 93 a case study of metalinguistic negation operators in vietnamese nguyen thuy nuong ............................................................................................................................ 94 an analysis on the willingness of students to participate in online learning at hue university nguyen ha quynh nhu(1); pham do van trung(2); nguyen ha quynh giao(3) ........................................... 95 more than just ads: prompts for oral proficiency workshop of pre-service teachers esperval cezhar h. cadiao(1); glysa marie regidor(2); nhessa mar cataloctocan(3); ronith dianne coo(4); ivy sabandal(5) .................................................................................................... 96 factors affecting attitude and motivation of saudi arabic students in learning english as a second language tawhida akhter .................................................................................................................................... 97 activities to increase student talk time in the online english classroom nguyen tan loi .................................................................................................................................... 98 an investigation into non-english major students’ problems in taking aptis listening and reading tran quang hai .................................................................................................................................... 99 improving the competency of geography education students through using internet data-based cognitive tasks pham do van trung(1); nguyen ha quynh giao(2); nguyen ha quynh nhu(3) .............................................. 100 resilience, motivation, and demotivation in online learning during turbulent time: a case study among efl university students in vietnam trang pham ....................................................................................................................................... 101 deploying textbook images in english language teaching nguyen thi thuong ............................................................................................................................ 102 teachers’ feedback on using discord as an online learning platform uong tran gia tri(1); nguyen duy khoi(2); nguyen huu nhon(3) ............................................................. 103 the impact of grading anxiety on efl students’ self and peer assessment: the case of vietnam trang phan ........................................................................................................................................ 104 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 10 of 168 constructing teacher assessment identity through narratives of university efl teachers in vietnam thi bich nguyen dao .......................................................................................................................... 105 learning continuum in a blended mode: a case of a skill-based course prajna pani(1); anubha ray(2) .............................................................................................................. 106 learning lexical collocations with concordancing and teacher’s scaffolding le thanh ha ...................................................................................................................................... 107 english language education in the digital age: the roles of efl teachers from students’ perspectives: a case study from indonesia,thailand, and vietnam phan thi kim thao(1); mai van ket(2); mulyaty(3); patlada wongyotha(4); payupol suthathothon(5) ................................................................................. 108 prior-study on using on linemicro-game based language learning material senhanced vocational college students’esp english learning performances cheng-yu tsai ................................................................................................................................... 109 helping language learners self-review learning points and gain learning expectation le thi trung dinh .............................................................................................................................. 110 using activity theory to understand students’ opportunities and challenges in a curriculum vitae writing process le thanh ha(1); vu phuong hong ngoc(2) ............................................................................................ 111 efl students’ attitudes towards the ease of use mobile technology to learn english at a university in vietnam nguyen ngoc vu(1); vo thuy linh(2) .................................................................................................... 112 impact of mobile technology in efl students’ pronunciation learning at a university in vietnam: from perception to practice vo van loc(1); vo thuy linh(2) ............................................................................................................. 113 promoting students’ autonomy in online classes: a study on first-year non-english major students in thuongmai university pham thi tuan .................................................................................................................................. 114 cross-disciplinary language teaching nguyen hoang phuong ..................................................................................................................... 115 the evaluation of english textbook “friends plus” from teachers’ perspectives author .............................................................................................................................................. 116 learners’ perspectives towards online peer assessment in academic writing: chance and challenge tri minh nguyen(1); nguyen kim phuong(2) ......................................................................................... 117 exploring relationships between learners’ internet self-efficacy, online self-regulation and interaction during online learning amid covid-19 in vietnam thach pham(1); phuong lai(2); vinh nguyen(3) ..................................................................................... 118 effects of language variations on elt: a survey on english food idioms in tertiary education nguyen hong nhung ......................................................................................................................... 119 tools for effective online learning thi quynh trang dang ....................................................................................................................... 120 the use of technology in teaching writing: evaluation of an online research paper writing course dao nguyen anh duc ........................................................................................................................ 121 american english and vietnamese use in public signs: a pragmatic cultural comparison and translation linh ngoc truong pham .................................................................................................................... 122 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 11 of 168 english majors’ english listening difficulties and use of strategies at mien dong university of technology nguyen dinh nhu ha(1); nguyen quang minh(2); le thi thuy trang(3) ................................................... 123 implementing task-based approach: a solution for teaching english speaking skills nguyen dinh nhu ha(1); nguyen loc(2); tran tuyen(3) .......................................................................... 124 perceptions of efl tertiary students towards the correlation between e-learning and learning engagement during the covid-19 pandemic ngo duc huy ..................................................................................................................................... 125 an analysis on translation errors in online vietnamese-english menus nguyen thi nhu ngoc(1); nguyen le minh phuong(2); le anh khoa(3); pham đang khoa(4); tran thanh thanh lam(5) .................................................................................... 126 the untranslatability in translating from english to vietnamese and vice versa nguyen thi thanh trang(1); nguyen duy(2) .......................................................................................... 127 wix web-based english learning media to support teaching in the pandemic era pham viet ngoc(1); pham thu trang(2) ................................................................................................ 128 factors influencing vietnamese teeangers’ intention to use mobile devices for english language learning hoang quy(1); pham ngoc thach(2); dang dinh quan(3); nguyen xuan thang(4) .................................... 119 an investigation of factors affecting students’ class attendance nguyen thi ton nu phuong linh(1); nguyen thi minh anh(2); nguyen hung duy(3) ............................... 130 enhancing efl students’ oral presentation skills through blended learning in english for occupational purposes classrooms hoang ngoc tue(1); le duc hanh(2) .................................................................................................... 131 remote teaching amid the covid-19 pandemic in vietnam: primary school efl teachers’ practices and perceptions dau thi thanh luy ............................................................................................................................ 132 byod: the opinions and perceptions of parents in japan jeremy white .................................................................................................................................... 133 moving towards a 2020s game jam definition jeremy white .................................................................................................................................... 134 innovation in higher education training aprroaches under covid-19 and the revolution of science and technology 4.0 author .............................................................................................................................................. 135 analysis of translation trends of modal verb “can” and its alternatives in vietnamese based on corpus-based study nguyen huynh c. ............................................................................................................................. 136 teaching and learning english as a major in a business and finance-oriented university: challenges and opportunities nguyen oanh .................................................................................................................................... 137 the application of multi functional english learning platform to esp course feedback s from students and teachers chieh min jason yang ...................................................................................................................... 138 a validation report for a digital english language assessment: correlations with the toeic® listening and reading test bradley eugene opatz jr. .................................................................................................................. 139 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 12 of 168 a reflection of extensive reading program at american center, u.s. consulate general, hcm city ho vuong(1); lu tuan(2) ....................................................................................................................... 140 quizlet as a tool for enhancing autonomous learning of english vocabulary thuy nguyen(1); tri nguyen(2); xuan le(3); hoang mai(4); khanh nguyen(5) ............................................ 141 quality assurance for online english courses amid the covid-19 pandemic: problems and solutions vo huynh thanh ............................................................................................................................... 142 “moderate messiness seems to be good for people.” what do you think?: activities facilitating students’ engagement in an online class vu thi hong van ............................................................................................................................... 143 shadowing technique as a method of pronunciation teaching bui hoai huong ................................................................................................................................. 144 cooperative learning in efl reading classes at lam dong ethnic minority boarding school nguyen thi hoai huong(1); nguyen tat thang(2); tran tin nghi(3); nguyen phan nhat nguyen(4) ........... 145 role of cooperatives and participation of their members in agricultural output marketing: empirical evidence from ethiopia eshetu tefera bekele ......................................................................................................................... 146 teachers and students’ perceptions and challenges of online teaching and learning during covid-19 pandemic: a case study pham dang tram anh ....................................................................................................................... 147 how to draw tree digrams via nine how to draw tree digrams via nine sentence patterns truong van anh(1); vo thuy thanh thao(2) .......................................................................................... 148 the important roles of learning pronunciation in the integration era nguyen truong gia minh ................................................................................................................... 149 some common ways for students to improve pronunciation during covid-19 pandemic nguyen truong gia minh ................................................................................................................... 150 the contrast of the ergativity between english and vietnamese nguyen gia hung lam(1); nguyen manh cuong(2) ............................................................................... 151 stratergies for translating english passive sentences into vietnamese nguyen xuan my ............................................................................................................................... 152 the effectiveness of using rhetorical devices in translation process nguyen huu chanh(1); nguyen tuan kiet(2) ......................................................................................... 153 an analysis of negative verbs and their equivalents: a case study of the call of the wild and one of its vietnamese translations tran luu hoang ngọc van trang ....................................................................................................... 154 using taskbased approach to improve the 9th graders’ speaking skills at viet anh school in ho chi minh city pham nguyen bao ngoc(1); truong van anh(2) .................................................................................... 155 the effectiveness of using facebook to enhance university students’ performance in english do quoc khanh ................................................................................................................................. 156 how to avoid using informal language in academic writing nguyen thi quynh ngan .................................................................................................................... 157 examining the vietnamese ‘sẽ’ and its english equivalents in the vietnamese novel: “nỗi buồn chiến tranh” and its translated text in english: “the sorrow of war” nguyen trung huy ............................................................................................................................ 158 students’ vocabualry memorization is enhanced via fishbone diagram le quy mai huyen, huynh thi van anh .............................................................................................. 159 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 13 of 168 management and development of the university teaching staff in vietnam today according to ho chi minh’s ideology le trung kien .................................................................................................................................... 160 how to train the higher order thinking skills with cbl project during the covid-19 hiroyuki obari(1); steve lambacher(2); hisayo kikuchi(2) ...................................................................... 161 a case study of student views on effective online learning le thi tuyet minh ............................................................................................................................. 162 a narrative inquiry of a vietnamese university efl teacher’s assessment identity dao thi bich nguyen ......................................................................................................................... 163 online learning in the context of the covid-19 pandemic: vietnamese students’ voice nguyen thi hong nhat ...................................................................................................................... 164 the application of multi-functional english learning platform to esp course: feedbacks from students and teachers chieh-min jason yang ...................................................................................................................... 165 an assessment of students’ satisfaction with online testing in higher education – an empirical study with foreign language students at vietnam national university hcmc truc tran(1); du tran(2); phuong nguyen(3); ngan nguyen(4) .................................................................. 166 mediating reading motivation through parental support: the case of grade 7 students of esperanza switch national high school joseph p. casbual jr., maels, aldrianne c. ligan ............................................................................... 167 correlation between internet literacy and vocabulary level: implication towards reading comprehension joseph p. casbual jr., maels, julrem b. nacua .................................................................................. 168 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 14 of 168 abstract this keynote will address relatively unnoticed aspects of technology in (language) education. while these aspects may be hidden, they are nevertheless real and play a significant role in the development of the field. this address will reveal some of these and discuss their impacts on the field of (language) learning. keywords: technology, language education, impacts on language learning. hidden impacts and stereotypes of technology in language learning andrew lian suranaree university of technology, thailand mlapl1@gmail.com biodata statement professor dr. andrew p. lian, professor of foreign language studies, suranaree university of technology, thailand; ho chi minh city open university, vietnam; professor emeritus, university of canberra, australia; president of asiacall, the asia association of computer-assisted languagelearning, a research and professional association focusing on the uses of technology to enhance second/foreign language learning in asian contexts. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 15 of 168 abstract readers of the literature on language teaching might be forgiven the impression that language learning takes place only in language classrooms. studies that focus on the measurement of language learning variables, such as proficiency, motivation and learning strategies, are typically based on research among samples of classroom learners. however, it is likely that as much, if not more, language learning now takes place outside of formal education. although language learning beyond the classroom (lbc) has received less attention than classroom learning, the steadily growing body of research and in particular our experiences from the last 18 months, have shown us many ways in which technology can both provide a wide range of learning spaces as well as be used to help prepare learners for and support them in their learning in those spaces. in this presentation i will begin by briefly describing what i mean by lbc and its different variants and then offer some recommendations for how technology can be harnessed to help develop learners’ skills for both lifelong and lifewide learning. language learning spaces beyond the classroom: the role of technology in supporting lifelong and lifewide learning hayo reinders anaheim university, usa biodata statement dr. hayo reinders (www.innovationinteaching.org) is a tesol professor and director of the doctoral programme at anaheim university in the usa. he is also professor of applied linguistics (adjunct) at king mongkut’s university of technology, thonburi, thailand. professor reinders is editor of the journal innovation in language learning and teaching (published by taylor & francis) and edits a book series on “new language learning and teaching environments”. he founded the institute for teacher leadership. his interests are in teacher empowerment, learner autonomy, and educational technology. orcid id, scopus id, google scholar acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 16 of 168 abstract covid-19’s worldwide emergence has had catastrophic personal and economic implications. much media attention has been focused on shortages of training, as well as facilities, as tesol institutions around vietnam struggled to respond quickly to sudden change in the mode of learning content delivery, especially those facilitated by artificial intelligence. by introducing new ai tools launched during the last 2-3 years, the presenters analyze opportunities and challenges for tesol education in vietnam in the post covid-19 world. major topics discussed include history of ai in language teaching, ai tools for teaching language skills, language aspects and ai for education in the post covid-19 world. with data collected from an experiment using ai powered teaching platform, the presentation also reports impact of ai enabled digital contents on language learning. from the trends recorded until early 2021, the presenter makes suggestions for technology investment and language education in vietnam. keywords: artificial intelligence, educational technology, digital transformation, language education. building artificial intelligence advantage for vietnam tesol in the post covid-19 world nguyen ngoc vu hoa sen university, vietnam vu.nguyenngoc@hoasen.edu.vn biodata statement nguyen ngoc vu is vice president of hoa sen university and chairman of stesol founded by association of vietnam universities and colleges. with training experience from more than 25 countries, his main expertise is building digital transformation competency and providing consultation service to higher education institutions and businesses across vietnam. he won vietnam technology innovation award in 2012 and got recognized as microsoft innovative educator (mie) master trainer in 2014. his research interests include computer assisted language learning, cognitive linguistics, educational technology, and elt methodology. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 17 of 168 abstract as accountability structures evolve globally, every educational institution strives to build capacity of its team to offer learning experiences that comply with the modern requirements for education to build academic, social, and emotional capacities of their graduates. however, change is often slow as it takes time to embrace new concepts and adapt them to one’s contexts. furthermore, not all theoretical concepts immediately translate into education that is based on transformative principles that engender lifelong learning embedded in values, such as humanisation, localisation, regionalisation, and universalisation, which typify all modern curricula. this presentation describes three research projects, which sought to counter the obstacles that typically slow down change and short-change the promises of the new education reforms. two of these projects took place in different universities in indonesia and the third project is currently underway in cambodia. the discussion will illustrate the context of these projects, how technology was used to support team teaching with international partners and how the “new normal” was more a help in this venture, rather than an obstacle. the research findings from the two already completed projects provide strong evidence that the model was not only a success, but also was superior to other approaches against which the two projects were compared and tested. the study findings suggest that collaborations with international partners can benefit from more “hands-on” methods of work. these types of collaboration are likely to both progress innovation faster and enable a better understanding by each group of their contexts, challenges, and possibilities. keywords: education, humanisation, localisation, regionalisation, and universalisation hidden impacts and stereotypes of technology in language learning ania lian charles darwin university, australia ania.lian@cdu.edu.au biodata statement dr. ania lian, senior lecturer (eq. associate professor) in education (teaching and learning), charles darwin university, australia. since 1993, ania has held positions at various universities in australia, with her work focusing on the uses of technology in second language learning and in education in general, including software development. she has also worked at the national policy office of the council on the ageing in canberra and has a history of working on a voluntary basis with the wider community on sustainability projects within the framework of the queanbeyan business council, nsw. ania has been a keynote speaker at a number of academic conferences both in australia and in asia, where she engages in building collaborative networks between cdu and other universities, with the aim of expanding the international focus of all involved. the leading objective of her teaching and research is to explore the concept of inclusive learning environments, with a specific focus on learner-centredness. her recent interest in graduate attributes developed from these concerns which form the framework of her approach. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 18 of 168 abstract along with the great development of science and technology in the past few decades, the robotics has surpassed many limits, such as not only serve people in factories and industrial fields, but also it is applied in all areas of human life such as agriculture, health care, daily life and especially education. the presence of robots in the classroom, firstly attracts the attention and concentration of the student as well as helps them feel more interested in the lessons. one of the most popular applications is using robots to develop the necessary skills in this 4.0 era: programming, innovation and critical thinking, math and problem solving, etc. also with diverse features that robots can be programmed to suit the special needs of each individual such as children with autism. they can be assisted by robots to learn social and communication skills, and interacting with robots also helps them gradually adapt to human contact. with such applications or capabilities mentioned above, robots obviously becomes an effective tool for teaching foreign language and in fact, countries with the high technological expertise such as japan, korea, singapore, or europe are the leading countries in this field. in this talk, we will learn how to use robots in foreign language teaching, how effective it is and whether it can really completely replace teachers in teaching as people fear? keywords: educational technology, ai robotics in education, foreign language, natural language processing. applications of robotics in education: a case study on teaching foreign language le đinh phong hoa sen university, vietnam phong.ledinh@hoasen.edu.vn biodata statement dr. le dinh phong received his ph.d. degree from the division of hci & robotics at the korea institute of science and techonology, korea. he is currently the dean of the faculty of information technology, hoa sen university, vietnam. previously, he was a researcher at the saigon hi-tech park and the nguyen hoang group – the biggest education corporation in vietnam, focusing on uses of technology to education. his research interests mainly include human-computer interaction, applied ai in education and ai robotics-assisted english teaching and learning. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 19 of 168 abstract the worldwide education system has suffered severe failures as a result of the accelerated shift to online instruction caused by the covid-19 pandemic. this study investigated the responses from a foreign language university in vietnam throughout this transition from a holistic approach, moving from the institution’s policies to realizing such goals via the implementation of administrative, supporting, and teaching staff. it also looked at how high-experienced lecturers used technology in their online classes. the study highlighted important themes in administrative and efl teaching elements using semi-structured interviews with two administrative and supporting staff members and five english foreign language (efl) lecturers. in terms of administration, the institution formulated a series of policies, established a response team, and implemented ict in their educational system on a long-term basis. lesson planning, ongoing student assistance, and proactive problem-solving are all part of the teaching process. institutional and individual initiatives are also highlighted. during and after the covid-19 pandemic, this study is expected to give practical and relevant lessons to worldwide practitioners and online education development in efl programs. keywords: efl programs, highly-experienced teachers, initiatives, online teaching, policies adaptability to the covid-19 crisis: what are the roles of the stakeholders? long v. nguyen the university of danang university of foreign language studies, vietnam nvlong@ufl.udn.vn biodata statement associate professor dr. long v. nguyen is a vicepresident of the university of foreign languages, da nang university, vietnam. he earned his ma in tesol studies from the university of queensland in 2005 and a phd. degree in the applied linguistics program at the school of language studies, massey university. he has received a number of outstanding grants for his research in the areas of educational technology, collaborative learning, digital literacies, and language teacher education. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 20 of 168 abstract the study aims at investigating the phenomenon of morphological conversion in current textbooks of english and vietnamese literature for high schools. based on those survey results, the authors analyzed the similarities and differences of this phenomenon between the two disciplines to propose appropriate teaching methods when encountering it in the curriculum. the research used the inductive method to synthesize theories from available data about the phenomenon of conversion and the survey method to analyze statistically the conversion phenomenon density in the english and vietnamese literature books at high school level. finally, the comparative method was used to point out the similarities and differences of the above phenomenon in the textbooks of the two subjects. from the collected data, this study showed that the phenomenon of conversion in the textbooks of english and literature has occurred. through the research paper, the authors would like to give some notes and suggestions on appropriate teaching methods for high school teachers when encountering this phenomenon in the teaching processthis study examines the: ……... keywords: conversion, teaching, english, vietnamese literature an investigation into the phenomenon of morphological conversion in current textbooks of english and vietnamese literature for high schools pham thanh hoai(1), nguyen xuan minh hai(2) (1) sai gon university mindyminpham@gmail.com (2) sai gon university nxmhai217@gmail.com biodata statement as vietnamese juniors at the department of foreign languages at saigon university, pham thanh hoai and nguyen xuan minh hai are students in an english teaching major who have won a championship in a contest “pedagogy expertise”. under the guidance of their lecturer, truong van anh, m.a., they found their interest in the phenomenon of morphological conversion and conducted a paper to investigate the phenomenon in current textbooks of english and vietnamese literature for high schools. it is certain that they will be able to get more achievements when being exposed to a scholar atmosphere like the one created by this conference. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 21 of 168 abstract paraphrasing is changing the structure without changing the meaning or using two different structures but having the same meaning. these 914 sentence patterns cover all the paraphrasing structures in english and guide how to handle other patterns when learners encounter them. it is important that students know the deep sentence patterns which they can convert into surface sentence structures flexibly. our research is a summary of what we already know from books and exams, but they haven’t been fully collected yet. collecting data for research, we compile assignments in the form of essays. this is great for developing students’ writing and speaking skills.. keywords: deep structure, pattern, paraphrasing, surface structure. english paraphrasing truong van anh sai gon university tvanh@sgu.edu.vn biodata statement being a senior lecturer at sai gon university, truong van anh also gives lectures at other universities such as university of social sciences and humanities, vnu-hcmc, bac lieu university, open university – hcmc, hoa sen university, huflit university and hanoi vietnam national university, hcmc branch. supervising students doing their scientific research, he has supported them to win some national prizes granted by ministry of education and training. he has presented many articles at the international and national conferences. his scientific articles have been published on sai gon university journals of science and many articles in proceedings at universities and institutes. especially, he has had over 50 reference books relating to english language studies published by various publishing houses. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 22 of 168 abstract in the context of globalization, international integration, especially the development trend of industrial evolution 4.0 is strongly and deeply influence and impact on different aspects and field in social life. it attracts every country to a “playground” called “integration”. with its vastness and complexity, globalization firmly impacts on every fields of social life, to every country, nation, especially to train global citizenship so they can satisfy the requirements of globalization and international integration nowadays. for ho chi minh city, globalization and international integration has brought chances, opportunities, at the same time, there are also some real challenges and risks in the training of global citizens. therefore, the urgent issue at the moment is the need of further researching, analyzing in order to have an objective and comprehensive in visions and assessments to use full potential of chances and to control risks in globalization and integration international process for the training of global citizens to meet the presently socioeconomic development requirements has urgent practical significance. keywords: opportunities, challenges, education and training, global citizenship, globalization, ho chi minh city. the impact of globalization and international integration to become a global citizenship in ho chi minh city, vietnam dr. nguyen thanh giang(1) , dr. nguyen minh tri(2) (1) ho chi minh city university of economics and finance (uef), vietnam (2) ho chi minh city university of technology (hutech), ho chi minh city, vietnam (*) corresponding author: nguyen minh tri nm.tri@hutech.edu.vn acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 23 of 168 abstract this study aims at examining whether the university students artte ready to transform and adapt to the emergence of online learning, which serves as a response to the covid-19 pandemic and as a measure that would help reduce its spread. the factors that usually influence students’ ability in changing their learning habits and adapting to these changes readily were usually proposed theoretically. a mixed method was conducted around 50 participants who were supposed to complete an online survey. six of the participants were chosen to participate in interviews that were semi-structured. the survey indicated the students’ initial preparedness and motivation factors in the university to the online learning via an online platform. the pedagogical mode was drawn from students’ readiness and effectiveness during their online learning in comparison with their efforts. it was clear that students who were enrolled in social and humanity courses like english language and linguistics were much resistant to online learning compared to those in engineering courses. keywords: covid-19, pandemic, students’ readiness, online learning readiness, preparation, and effectiveness of online teaching and learning in vietnam tertiary education tran tin nghi(1), nguyen tat thang(2), tran huu phuc(3), nguyen mau vu(4) (1) ho chi minh city university of food industry, ho chi minh city, vietnam university of foreign language studies – the university of da nang, vietnam nghitt@hufi.edu.vn (2) faculty of foreign languages, da lat university, vietnam thangnt@dlu.edu.vn (3) university of foreign language studies – the university of da nang, vietnam thphuc@ufl.udn.vn (4) the people’s police university, ho chi minh city, vietnam nguyenmauvu.dhcsnd@gmail.com biodata statement tran tin nghi, m.a. is the lecturer of foreign languages faculty, ho chi minh city university of food industry. he is also a member of the stesol, a part of the association of vietnam universities and colleges. his research interests are teaching english as a foreign language, call, corpus linguistics, and cognitive linguistics. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 24 of 168 abstract this observational study aims to investigate the use of translanguaging to foster speaking fluency development among students at a university in the south of vietnam. a total of individual 70 sophomores were tracked over eight weeks and studied in 4 modules conducted in a translanguaging instructional context. the findings suggest that the students had a positive experience with the lesson that included translanguaging resources and did promote students’ speaking ability. their use of l1 is reported to be a supportive approach in increasing their confidence and fluency in communication when learning english. also, the results indicate that the students’ language in the english lesson contributed to a positive change in behavior, engagement and motivation. the implication of this study suggests that there is a need for more focus to be put on the use of a blending approach when teaching and learning the english language. in addition, teachers need to be formally trained in using translanguaging and supported in their use of translanguaging in alignment with current language policies and programs. keywords: speaking fluency, translanguaging, low level, motivation. the importance of translanguaging in improving fluency in speaking ability of non english major sophomores phan thi ngoc thach; tran thi thu ha ma; tran hoang anh – ma ha.ttt@vlu.edu.vn biodata statement they have been teaching english for over ten years at van lang university, vietnam. during those time, they have been interested in elt, especially developing students’ proficiency in speaking, writing skill as well as communication skills. phan thi ngọc thach tran thi thu ha tran hoang anh acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 25 of 168 abstract the narrative essay belongs to chronological order, a way of organizing ideas in terms of their occurrence in time. as a result, it requires different set of writing skills from other types of essays: it is built out of sequential events of the narrative, not main ideas and supporting details. however, it is realized that the two writing coursebooks reason to write (intermediate) by oxford (2003) and great writing 4 by heinle elt (2014) construct relatively vague guidance for students to build a narrative essay accordingly. this paper is, therefore, to bridge that gap, suggesting a literary approach to teaching that essay: embedding two elements of fiction, plot and setting, in the process. in this paper, the benefits of the approach are discussed, in terms of students’ organizational and critical thinking skills. insights drawn from the students’ real practice of the suggested method are then taken into consideration. the implications of the approach are that there exist the opportunities and possibilities of applying literary theories into english teaching and learning. keywords: literature and language learning, elements of fiction, the narrative essay, teaching writing teaching the narrative essay: embedding elements of fiction (plot and setting) pham thi hong an university of social sciences and humanities, ho chi minh city vietnam national university honganp@hcmussh.edu.vn biodata statement phạm thị hồng ân has a master degree in teaching english to speakers of other languages (tesol), hcm-ussh, vietnam national university. she is currently a ph.d student in the department of literary theory, faculty of literature, hcm-ussh, vietnam national university. her interest lies in british and american literature and culture, and education (tesol included). her domain of study includes tesol, critical approaches to literature, and their implications and applications in teaching and learning english as a foreign language. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 26 of 168 abstract in the technical era which may pave the way for the digital transformation and the emergence of the covid-19 pandemic, language learning worldwide is moving towards the e-learning including the widespread of moodle, a web-based learning flatform at universities. a majority of previous studies in the effects of implementing moodle on university students’ listening skills have only been conducted in a tiny number of areas in vietnam. this indicates an insatiable demand to adhere the various english majors’ perceptions of acquiring english listening skills through moodle. therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the disadvantages of employing moodle to boost englishmajored freshmen’s listening skills from their perceptions at van lang university. for this study, the quantitative approach was applied to investigate the students’ perceptions regarding the cons occurred when applying moodle to the development of their listening skills. to collect data for the study, 50 first-year english majors took part in the online questionnaire. the findings reflected that the majority of the students manifest their own opinions that using moodle flatform still exists a vast range of drawbacks which they have to suffer from during the period of learning listening through moodle. another integral finding was that most of the research participants negatively evaluated the use of moodle for lessening their autonomy in the learning process. also, although there are several benefits when applying moodle in learning listening, some of the responders indicated that the inadequate technical support from school caused the primary difficulties in acquiring listening skills. some of the issues emerging from the findings have crucial implications for implementing moodle flatform more effectively in language teaching and learning in the future. keywords: moodle; disadvantages; listening skill; learning management system; e-learning the disadvantages in learning listening via moodle at van lang university quynh ngo(1), phuong tran(2) (1) van lang university quynh.nnp@vlu.edu.vn (2) van lang university ptran0701@gmail.com (*) corresponding author. phuong.tt@vlu.edu.vn biodata statement ngo nhat phuong quynh is an english lecturer at van lang university. she holds an m.a in tesol and linguistics from benedictine university. she has taught english for 7 years. her areas of interests are blended learning in listening and reading. tran thanh phuong is an english lecturer at van lang university. she holds an m.a in tesol from edith cowan university. she has taught english for 5 years. her areas of interests are blended learning in listening and reading. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 27 of 168 abstract this is not a study with empirical evidence. this is a discussion that i hope to bring to teachers of english for all ages and types of learners, especially very young learners aged 3-6. i intend to present the current literature in applying technology within the early childhood education umbrella, with special attention to the teaching of english as a foreign language. the discussion will include the following: whether to teach english as a foreign or as a second language to preschoolers, what type of technology can be used, the timing of technology immersion, the location for technological tools installed with education in mind, the manner by which technology is controlled to maximize the educational values, and the amount of technological input in an early childhood english program. this discussion should be suitable to those working with young learners aged 6-12, teenagers, and especially preschoolers. an understanding of young children’s mindset and learning mechanism should make for the best values of this discussion. keywords: early childhood education; preschool; very young learners; efl; esl technology; immersion technology in preschool english programs: what, when, where, how, how much? tien bui ho chi minh city university of education tienbd@hcmup.edu.vn biodata statement bui duc tien is a lecturer at hcmc university of education. he has trained pre-service teachers and translators/ interpreters in english for almost 10 years. he also has experience doing translation and simultaneous interpretation for international conferences, workshops and educational courses. he has presented his interests and findings in numerous international conferences in elt. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 28 of 168 abstract in response to globalisation and internationalisation, english-medium instruction (emi) has become a phenomenon in higher education in many multilingual countries including vietnam. more and more vietnamese universities have mandated emi curricula in order to enhance the quality of their teaching and learning, promote an institutional profile as multilingual and international-focused, and attract more domestic and international students. however, the implementation of emi in vietnamese universities has encountered certain challenges associated with the english language proficiency of both teachers and students, the lack of emi materials and professional development for emi teachers, and the institutional policies of promoting emi without adequate content and language curriculum development. this presentation focuses on the experience of undergraduate students in emi economics courses at one university in vietnam. the findings from classroom observations and focus group discussions reveals some concerns of the students regarding the insufficient support from their teachers, their preparedness for and learning progress in both content knowledge and language competence. they therefore developed to be autonomous learners and utilised their digital competence to create a collective learning network in which they interacted and collaborated with people from different social groups to seek help and accommodate challenges in emi courses. this not only reflects special characteristics of students from confucian heritage culture in a digital age but also raises some implications for the learning support scheme and teaching practices which offer students opportunities to access collaborative support and tasks. keywords: emi, collective learning network, higher education, confucian heritage culture students’ collective learning network in an english-medium instruction context tho vo university of economics ho chi minh city (ueh) doantho@ueh.edu.vn biodata statement tho vo is an english lecturer at the university of economics ho chi minh city (ueh). he has gained his ph.d in education at victoria university of wellington (new zealand) where he worked on the teachers’ and students’ use of digital technologies in the english-medium context of vietnamese higher education. his research interest is in the areas of technology in language education and english-medium education. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 29 of 168 abstract amid digitalisation, the mobile phone has overflowed society and become one of the most wide-reaching digital technologies. momentous change and remarkable discoveries open up students and staff the favourable opportunity to fully positively embrace use of cell phones in the university classroom. this paper minutely examined the digital native– digital immigrant dichotomy based on the results of a painstaking compendium of research involving 100 students from three classes at the vietnam aviation academy, ho chi minh city, vietnam. the extensive investigation was carried out through a comprehensive survey and face-to-face interview/ discussion with a focus group of students. the study serves three sole purposes by precisely determining how potential of cellular phones for learning may be scored and negative minimised, given that the literature builds up a detailed picture of both positive and negative impacts of using mobile phones in efl language classrooms and then giving sufficient consideration to both the practical and the more fundamentally philosophical issues encountered in the process. finally, the detailed discussion offers reasonable interpretation of the surprising findings and broad avenues for future research.. keywords: mobile phones, efl classrooms, mlearning, impacts, philosophical issues mobile or hostile? cellphone use in the efl classroom: a case study phan thi anh nga vietnam aviation academy “the future of learning: from elearning to mlearning”. (keegan, 2002) biodata statement acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 30 of 168 abstract learner autonomy has recently been raised as one of the top concepts concerned by researchers as well as educators in the language learning and teaching field when it is one of the principles to develop life-long learning. however, the process of employing the curriculum integrated with fostering learner autonomy still faces many difficulties, especially when the students seem to feel tricky to get involved in the system. for this concern, the current study was carried out to explore wether or not the students are ready for their autonomy through their perceptions of learner autonomy. the data were collected through a mixed methods approach including a questionnaire delivered to 162 students, interviews with 5 students at people’s security university. the study revealed that students are more active in learner autonomy than expected. to be specific, students are willing to take responsibility in many activities of learning english, except for their responsibility in methodological areas. they are also aware of developing their learner autonomy in collaboration with their teacher, friends, or classmates. their wish to take the main control of their learning, however, is not strong enough. accordingly, solutions are recommended to help students develop learner autonomy. firstly, teachers should create a friendly atmosphere in the class for students to be more comfortable to decide their learning process or raise their voice when they need help or desire to debate some points of knowledge. second, teachers can also instruct their students to practice formative assessment inside and outside the class. finally, teachers should introduce some authentic resources or platforms of teaching and learning english to students. keywords: learner autonomy, interdependence, collaboration, responsibility, control a study on efl students’ perceptions of learner autonomy at people’s security university nguyen thi thanh tra university of social sciences and humanities thanhtra812@gmail.com biodata statement nguyễn thị thanh trà is an ma student at university of social sciences and humanities. she has also been working as a teacher of faculty of foreign languages & informatics at people’s security university. she has taught english courses for non-majored english students for over seven years. she is interested in researching learner autonom. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 31 of 168 abstract nowadays, thanks to the internet and other life conveniences, chances for learners to study language beyond classroom have been expanded. it is therefore suggested that teachers should link the world beyond classroom (lbc) to their teaching, and put their students’ perceptions at the core of the teaching process. in this study, the teacher-practitioner assigned an out-of-class task: self recorded speaking task (srst) in which students had to self-video record their speaking outside classroom, and the products were then assessed in class. in previous studies, learner perceptions of the task effectiveness were reported but the role of teacher seemed to be ignored. this maybe because srst in these contexts was seen as supplementary to in-class teaching where teacher role is obvious. however, if considering srst an activity students can conduct on their own, the role of teacher in supporting and making srst a part of their teaching can become significant. by using semi-structured interviews and reflective journals, the research draws evaluative findings about srst through learner perceptions of its effectiveness and successful learning strategies. another important finding is learner perspectives about the role of teacher in srst by providing input and giving feedback. the study also offers implications for both research and practice on srst application within and beyond vietnamese context. keywords: self-video recorded speaking task (srst), language learning and teaching beyond classroom (lbc), learner perceptions, srst effectiveness, learning strategies, teacher role bringing lbc into classroom: an evaluation on self-video recorded speaking task through vietnamese learner perceptions phan thi cat tuong faculty of foreign languages, ha tinh university tuong.phanthicat@htu.edu.vn biodata statement phan thi cat tuong has been an english lecturer at the faculty of foreign languages, ha tinh university for more than 6 years. she earned her m.a. in tesol (high distinction) from victoria university, australia in 2018. her research interests include: technology-assisted language learning, language learning and teaching beyond classroom (lbc), learner and teacher cognition. her e-mail: tuong.phanthicat@htu.edu.vn acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 32 of 168 abstract in recent years, the integration of video as an audio-visual material in foreign language classroom has spread rapidly partly by virtue of the emphasis on communicative teaching approach. various research concerned with the use of video dubbing tasks in speaking class showed the significance alteration to students’ pronunciation. in the present study, an action research was employed to scrutinize the impact of video-revoicing technique on students’ participation in a speaking classroom whose students were observed to be reluctant to engage in the class. thirty 3rd year university students involved in the research. the result interpreted from three sources as questionnaire, video-recording, interview pinpointed: (1). barrier to students’ engagement in speaking class, including speaking anxiety, students’ belief on speaking activities as face-threatening acts, instructional practice, and speaking task design; (2). students’ positive attitudes towards the implementation of video-dubbing tasks in speaking class since it provided students with authentic learning environment, integrated language learning to 21st century skills learning & technology skills enhancement, overcame cultural stereotypes; (3). students’ evaluation on how the dubbing technique changed their level of classroom participation, justified by the regular class attendance, students’ engagement in group discussion, students’ self-report on their confidence to speak in front of the class & on the decrease in the fear of getting negative evaluation from classmates. the study also discussed the criteria of video selection, video treatment before implementation, and technology matter in dubbing. keywords: dubbing, classroom participation, video influence of video dubbing tasks on students’ participation in a speaking classroom: an action research project author faculty of english, hanoi pedagogical university 2 biodata statement the author is a lecturer at faculty of english, hanoi pedagogical university 2 (located in vinh phuc province). her specialized areas are teaching methodologies and linguistics. her recent research selected for presentation at international mekong tesol conference 2018, and international language, literature, culture education 2020. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 33 of 168 abstract this paper is based on a questionnaire survey on two hundred medical students to understand their acceptance of or resistance to information and communication technology (ict) for learning english through venkatesh et. al’s technological acceptance model (utaut). the scale used to predict their behavioral intention of ict use for learning includes four determinants of the utaut, namely, performance expectancy, ef ort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions, and four moderating factors, namely gender, age, experience and voluntariness of use. the quantitative research mostly drawing on efa and cfa will help locate the factors that affect students’ use of ict tools for learning english and numerically estimate how the determinants, together with the mediation of the moderators, impact the behavioral intention and the actual use of ict for learning english. all the relationships among the various constructs of the research model will be hypothesized and explained through anova and sem. the findings not only explain the numeric correlations among the constructs through regression weight paths and provide the grounded implications for making policy on what should be done to effectively increase the students’ use of ict for learning needs at higher education keywords: information and communication technology, expectancy, performance, behavioral intention, actual use estimating university students’ acceptance of technological tools for studying english through the utaut model phe q. chu(1), trang h. nguyen(2) (1) university of finance-marketing (2) university of finance-marketing biodata statement phe q. chu the author earned his ba degree in tesol at quy nhon university in 2003 and then his ma degree in the same field in 2011 at ho chi minh city university of social sciences and humanities. he is currently the lecturer of english at the university of financemarketing’s foreign languages department. his major area of interest involves translation, writing skills, and ict use in instruction and learning. trang h. nguyen the author has her ba degrees in education with quy nhon university in 2011 and in banking with the university of finance-marketing in 2016. also in this year, she earned her ma degree in business management from the university of finance-marketing. she is working in the field of educational inspection at tertiary level; thus, her concern and passion mainly cover education, educational management and technology use in education. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 34 of 168 abstract the study investigates online learning challenges faced by efl students, during the covid-19 pandemic and some solutions to solve them. the author collected research data sources through textbooks and articles in print or online form that are relevant to the research problem. besides, we also conducted a survey questionaire to collect the data. the questionnaire is in vietnamese and is distributed to english majored fresh men via google.docx and zalo in the second term of school year 20202021. the data was analyzed qualitatively with covering data collection, data reduction, data presentation, and conclusions. in addition, some suggestions are given to improve the quality of the implementation of the online learning for efl freshmen at hanoi metropolitan university during the covid-19 pandemic. keywords: covid-19 pandemic, online learning, challenges, suggesstions some challenges of online learning faced by efl freshmen at hanoi metropolitan university during the pandemic of covid-19 vuong thi hai yen falcuty of foreign languages, hanoi metropolitan university, vietnam vthyen@daihocthudo.edu.vn biodata statement my name is yen thi hai vuong, doctor in contrastive linguistics and work as an english lecturer at falcuty of foreign languages, hanoi metropolitan university, vietnam. my interests are teaching english linguistics and educational linguistics; online teaching and learning; teaching language skills; intercultural language teaching and learning english for specific purposes (esp); english teaching methodology and contrastive analysis of linguistics. i have published one book and many articles about english teaching methodology issues and contrastive analysis of linguistics. i can be reached at: vthyen@daihocthudo.edu.vn acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 35 of 168 abstract the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) has drastically changed the form of learning at all levels from university to primary school. in vietnam, learning through video conferencing systems is implemented to ensure continuous learning. video conferencing is a learning tool that has been used between teachers and learners during the pandemic, to create effective communication and interaction. the study uses a unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (utaut) that measures the factors influential in the use of video conferencing for online instruction during the covid-19 pandemic in vietnam. a survey was conducted among 203 teachers using video conferencing for teaching during the covid-19 pandemic and analyzed using a structured equation model (sem). the results showed that key factors in the use of video conferencing for teaching during the covid-19 include: effort expectancy, habit, hedonic motivation, and the behavioral intention to use which explain 57% of the usage video conferencing (r2=0.57) for teaching. keywords: video conferencing, utaut2, teacher video conferencing adoption acceptance and use of video conferencing for teaching in covid-19 pandemic: an empirical study in vietnam khuong nguyen(1), tham nguyen(2) (1) ho chi minh university of law ntkhuong@hcmulaw.edu.vn (2) nguyen thai binh high school biodata statement nguyen thanh khuong is a lecturer ofinformation technology at ho chi minh university of law, vietnam. his academic interest areas are open and distance education, online learning, e-learning, information communication technology in education, information system in business and e-commerce. nguyen thi hong tham is a teacher at nguyen thai binh secondary school and is currently studying for a master of arts in linguistics at hoa sen university, vietnam. she has over 10 years of experience in teaching english for students. her academic interest reas are about education and methodology in learning a foreign language. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 36 of 168 abstract children without autism start learning a language from the very first day of their born. but children with disabilities find it difficult to learn a language. language learning is not impossible for the disabled person. if they get support from their family and get a supportive environment. the study has focused on the language learning of disabled people in bangladesh. the objective of this study is to find out the learners’ interest in language learning, the parent’s & society’s attitude towards learners, the limitation of disabled learner’s education. the scope also covers the context to find out some recommendations for the disabled learner. the researcher has collected data by non participant observation and questionnaire survey. the present rate of disabled language learners is represented by the analysis of data. the result shows that the learners are much conscious about language learning and if they find a better or supportive environment then they would become very potent in language using. the teachers are very much concerned about their learners. besides, they give chance to the learners to show their extracurricular activities. the findings of the study show that language has a dominating power, so it is very much essential for the disabled person to have this power. keywords: language learning; disable person; autism; education exploring language learning of disabled children: a context in bangladesh author acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 37 of 168 abstract due to the pandemic of covid 19 and several social distancing periods in vietnam, many vietnamese universities and institutes have switched from offline learning to online learning. during this process of change, many teachers do not only have problems with technology but also delivering their lessons effectively. especially, evaluating and assessing students’ performance and self-study have encountered various difficulties, which encourages teachers to find out different ways to evaluate their students’ learning in class or outside the classroom. the article investigates the use of google forms and shows how google forms can be applied in testing during and after the lessons. after conducting an action research among 56 non-english majored first-year students in hanoi metropolitan university, who are between the age of 18 and 20, the author found out that it can be an effective optional tool for testing. besides the advantages, the author also gives some disadvantages and recommends some tips/ techniques to overcome the obstacles of using google forms in her teaching english at hanoi metropolitan university.. keywords: the pandemic of covid 19, google forms, evaluating; assessing; students’ performance the application of google form to evaluate and assess student’s performance at hanoi metropolitan university nguyen thi hoa falcuty of foreign languages, hanoi metropolitan university, vietnam nthoa@daihocthudo.edu.vn biodata statement my name is nguyen thi hoa, master in english linguistics and i am currently working as a lecturer at faculty of foreign languages, hanoi metropolitan university, hanoi, vietnam. my interests are teaching english linguistics, online teaching and learning, teaching language skills and english teaching methodology. i have delivered presentations about teaching english in domestic workshops and seminars. i have also presented at viettesol 2020. i can be reached at: nthoa@daihocthudo.edu.vn acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 38 of 168 abstract due to coronavirus outbreaks, almost all universities carried out teaching online by using variety of learning platforms such as web-based learning, lms combining with conducing video conferences through zoom meeting or google meet and the like. although ho chi minh city open university (hcmcou) made great efforts to invest state-of-the-art facilities and welltrained teaching team in online educational process, students were not to be satisfied with this training system. particularly on in english speaking classes, students seemed to be in stuck. thus, this paper aims to explore the challenges encountered of major english learners towards learning english speaking skills online and then suggest some possible solutions for such problems existed. to conduct this study, 35 major english freshmen joining in a speaking class of schools of advanced studies at hcmcou were asked to respond questionnaire survey, and then five hard working students were selected to participate in-depth interviews relevant to barriers of online learning and their expectation during covid 19 period. the findings illustrated that majority of students expressed their neglected attitude towards learning speaking skills online in covid 19 pandemic when they had to cope with various problems of technological advances, wi-fi connection, significant characteristics of speaking skills and sociolinguistic competence. with such challenges exposed, more project – based learning and more video conferences were expected to apply. keywords: online learning, speaking skills, challenges and solutions. exploring challenges of major english students towards learning english speaking skills online during covid 19 pandemic and some suggested solutions nguyen chau bich tuyen ho chi minh city open university (hcmcou) tuyen.ncb@ou.edu.vn biodata statement ms nguyen chau bich tuyen is currently working as a lecturer of faculty of foreign languages at ho chi minh city open university. after obtaining a master’s degree of education in tesol (med in tesol), she has a strong passion for english teaching and doing research related to online training, teaching methods, education psychology. frankly speaking, she is very honor to be an author of international journal on odel – university of the philippines open university, and journal of science ho chi minh city open university. she has ever been a presenter, a moderator, and a reviewer of some national and international conferences such as asia call conferences, aaou conferences, open tesol conferences, and viet tesol conferences within five years (2016 – 2021). she considers herself as an ambitious person, so she never stops looking for more opportunities to get more experiences and improvements in her profession and hope to have more achievements in english teaching and conducting research acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 39 of 168 abstract over the years, a great deal of researches studies about teaching and learning influenced by the culture has been carried out. and the researchers found out certain theoretical points for english teaching and learning. according to these theoretical points, many nations in the world want to reform their systems of education. however, some are not successful because of their own contexts, the combination between the process of learning and teaching and the way to operate them at many different levels. this paper is about efl class at the people’s police university, ho chi minh city, the complex, systemic nature of the process of learning and teaching influenced, and the two different significant and long-history systems of education in the world: western education and traditional east asian education. keywords: cross-cultural perspective, learning and teaching, western education and traditional east asian education, motivation learning and teaching english at the people’s police university: a cross-cultural perspective nguyen thi van anh(1), nguyen thuy ngoc(2) the people’s police university(ppu)-hcmc-vietnam (1) nguyenthivananhdhcsnd@gmail.com (2) nguyenthuyngocvina@gmail.com biodata statement nguyen thi van anh is a senior lecturer at ppu; she has experienced over 20 years in teachinng ge and esp, she earned ma in tesol in 2011 at victoria university, her main interests are tesol, cross-culture and esp nguyen thuy ngoc is a senior lecturer at uneti hanoi; she has experienced over 25 years in teachinng ge and esp, she earned ma in tesol in 2012 at victoria university, her main interests are tesol and esp. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 40 of 168 abstract intercultural competence (ic), as “the importance of seeing from others’ perspectives” (deardorff, 2009), has long been considered a critical capacity among learners of foreign languages. particularly, in the context of covid-19 pandemic, when racial discrimination can be widely witnessed, raising students’ awareness of intercultural communication knowledge is more crucial than ever. however, the instruction on this competence is mostly underresearched in efl classrooms. with an aim to develop students ic, the researcher, also the teacher, designed an assignment named “challenging stereotypes” and this paper will demonstrate how she has conducted it. the informants included seventy-seven (77) students enrolling for the culture of english-speaking countries course in the western language program, chiang rai rajabhat university, thailand. after 5 weeks of instruction, the author collected qualitative data from students’ final products and a structured interview before analyzing the data in accordance with deardorff’s ic model (2006). the finding reveals that most of the students have shown significant improvement in their competence, especially in terms of ethnorelative views toward communication in a multicultural setting. implications for instructors of intercultural communication are also recommended. keywords: intercultural communication, deardorff’s intercultural communication model, the covid-19 pandemic, efl student enhancing efl student intercultural competence through “challenging stereotypes” assignment tran thi xoan chiang rai rajabhat university, thailand tran.thi@crru.ac.th biodata statement tran thi xoan is a foreign lecturer in institute of international language and culture, chiang rai rajabhat university. her interest covers english language proficiency and cross-cultural communication. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 41 of 168 abstract learning management systems are essential platforms for developing autonomy through activities that enhance interaction among learners with the facilitation of teachers. this study is conducted to investigate the effects of moodle-based efl writing activities on students’ perceptions and writing performance. forty english majors are selected and divided into two groups: an experimental group and a control group. both groups have the same curriculum, course-book, facilities, and teaching method in faceto-face class. results show that the experimental group doing their writing activities on moodle performs better than the control group doing those activities on paper. the questionnaire and interview data further confirm that students have positive perceptions of efl writing activities in blended classes. keywords: blended learning; efl writing; moodle; computer assisted language learning improve writing skills for efl learners via blended online learning activities nguyen ngoc vu(1), vo thi minh due(2), nguyen the luong(3), nguyen thi hong lien(4) (1) hoa sen university vu.nguyenngoc@hoasen.edu.vn (2) tien giang university vothiminhdue@tgu.edu.vn (3) hcmc university of physical education & sports luongtn@upes.edu.vn (4) hoa sen university lien.nguyenthihong@hoasen.edu.vn biodata statement nguyen ngoc vu is vice president of hoa sen university and chairman of stesol founded by association of vietnam universities and colleges. with training experience from more than 25 countries, his main expertise is building digital transformation competency and providing consultation service to higher education institutions and businesses across vietnam. he won vietnam technology innovation award in 2012 and got recognized as microsoft innovative educator (mie) master trainer in 2014. his research interests include computer assisted language learning, cognitive linguistics, educational technology, and elt methodology. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 42 of 168 abstract the study seeks to explore high school teachers’ perceptions of language assessment literacy (lal) and their training needs on language assessment. in vietnam, various issues concerning teachers’ assessment practices have been identified, such as exam-oriented teaching, lack of expertise in test design, insufficient academic and professional training in language assessment (hoang, 2017; vu, 2017; nguyen & tran, 2018). this study built on davies’ (2008) definition of lal which includes knowledge, skills and principles, and giraldo’s (2018) eight dimensions of lal. the data was collected via a qualitative approach as five english teachers from a high school in halong were invited to semi-structured interviews. the results revealed that teachers’ knowledge of approaches, theories and concepts relevant to language assessment were insufficient and inaccurate. in terms of skills, major findings indicated an emphasis on traditional testing over alternative methods; overreliance on previous experiences, personal instincts and colleagues’ professional advice in test design; and increased use of technology-based assessment. regarding principles, fairness, transparency and ethics were perceived as indispensable in teachers’ assessments. additionally, teachers reported receiving insufficient and heavily theoretical training on language assessment in preand in-service education. several areas of training were proposed, including giving feedback, preparing classroom tests and interpreting results (classroom-focused language assessment), giving grades and finding out what needs to be taught (purpose of testing), integrated skills and aspects of culture (content and concept of language assessment). further studies should investigate teachers’ actual assessment practices and language assessment training needs in teacher education programs.. keywords: : language assessment literacy; language assessment; assessment training needs teachers’ language assessment literacy: a case study at a high school in halong ha bui izone ielts training academy buithuha2981998@gmail.com acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 43 of 168 abstract due to the development of technology and the outbreak of covid-19, many higher education institutions have employed online learning as a measure to the urgent situation. the sudden shift to complete online learning has a considerable impact on students. therefore, maintaining student satisfaction with their learning experience is a significant issue for the stakeholders. from scientific perspectives, many researchers propose the importance of identifying factors influencing student satisfaction. although many studies are dealing with this issue, few have succeeded in identifying determinants in student satisfaction with online learning in which online learning is a part of the school ecosystem. this research aimed at tackling this problem in the context of private universities in ho chi minh city. notably, 317 sophomores from two private universities were involved in the study. the data were collected via online questionnaires and analyzed by using the pls-sem approach to examine which factors found in the literature were more dominant. the research findings proposed three determinants, including course effectiveness, provided knowledge and skills, and the sense of belonging. this result suggested that to increase student satisfaction with online learning in the current situation, these determinants should be paid more attention by the stakeholders keywords: online learning, student satisfaction, private universities, psl-sem determinants in student satisfaction with online learning: a case of second-year students at private universities in hcmc nguyen, thanh minh(1), tran, quang hai(2) (1) van lang university, ho chi minh, vietnam minh.nt@vlu.edu.vn (2) hoa sen university, vietnam hai.tranquang@hoasen.edu.vn biodata statement nguyen, thanh minh is a lecturer at van lang university, ho chi minh, vietnam. he has attended and presented at some conferences in the field of language learning and teaching. his recent papers were “constructive alignment in teaching english at tertiary level: an insight into an aun-designed course at van lang university” (published in the proceeding of opentesol2020 hold by hcmc open university) and “the implementation of e-learning into language learning: a case of english majors at van lang university” (published in the proceeding of asiacall2021). he has participated in teaching both english and non-english majors. his research interests are curriculum development and language assessment. tran, quang hai is currently an english lecturer at hoa sen university, vietnam. his accumulated experience from working at various educational institutions has equipped him with ample confidence and skills in language teaching. his interests are linguistics, virtual communities, and teaching learning practices acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 44 of 168 abstract internet and information technology have changed the way of teaching and learning in general, from teaching methods to giving lessons and tests. especially during the time of social distancing due to the covid-19 pandemic, most universities in vietnam and around the world choose to teach and learn online. teachers and students do not have to go to school or class, teaching and learning take place at home, in isolated places, etc. or anywhere convenient and safe for health. with the widely-applied online teaching and learning model, it is necessary to have studies to evaluate its strengths and limitations, so that there are reforms, updates and improvements for it. in this study, the author will survey the application of information technology in teaching and learning foreign languages online by students and lecturers of the universities in khanh hoa province through a questionnaire for lecturers and students and face to-face interviews to find out the advantages and disadvantages of this teaching and learning method, thereby promoting the benefits and overcoming the drawbacks of this method. keywords: online teaching and learning; information technology; covid-19, pandemic; khanh hoa university, khanh hoa province information technology in online english classes: an opportunity or a challenge vo tu phuong khanh hoa university votuphuong@ukh.edu.vn biodata statement dr. vo tu phuong is a committed senior lecturer with over 16 years of experience at college and university in khanh hoa teaching students from various social and cultural backgrounds. she possesses good administrative, verbal communication and written skills along with constructive and effective teaching methods that promote a stimulating learning environment. she is able to work as a part of team and has the proven ability to successfully work to tight schedules and deadlines acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 45 of 168 biodata statement thai-an truong and phuoc-sang nguyen are vietnamese sophomores at department of foreign languages at saigon university, majoring in english linguistics. exposure to research courses and contests assists them with various skills, such as: information and time management, research and investigation skills. under the guidance of their lecturer, van-anh truong, m.a., they found their interest in functional grammar and conducted a paper about finite verb in english. abstract the majority of english learners associates english verb conjugation with the 12 tenses, and traditional grammar books only synthesize common ways to conjugate a verb. however, this number is insufficient. based on a functional grammar perspective, this study synthesizes and analyzes the structure and application of 50 ways to conjugate a finite verb in english, categorized into two main functions of the finite verb: expressing tense and modality. by analyzing the examples from reputable grammar books, our study clarifies the relationship between the structure of finite verb groups and their application in real life. this research paper is expected to help english learners understand fully and correctly how to conjugate a finite verb in english. keywords: finite verb, logical structure, modality structure and application of 50 ways to conjugate a finite verb in english thai an truong(1); phuoc sang nguyen(2) (1) saigon university truongthaian7446@gmail.com (2) saigon university nguyenphuocsang.bb@gmail.com acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 46 of 168 abstract borrowed word is the product of a process of language development and cultural exposure. french borrowed words appear quite a lot in english and in vietnamese. in this article, i will briefly study and compare french borrowed words in both english and vietnamese vocabulary. in the first part, the article studies the history of french borrowed words in vietnamese and in english, and the latter sections i will focus on studying borrowed word forms on the basis of dictionary research. then, this article points out the importance of borrowed word learning for efl (english as a foreign language) learners, especially vietnamese ones, and gives some tips for learning borrowed words. keywords: borrowed words, french borrowed words, meaning, efl comparison french borrowed words in english and those in vietnamese vo tu phuong khanh hoa university votuphuong@ukh.edu.vn biodata statement dr. vo tu phuong is a committed senior lecturer with over 16 years of experience at college and university in khanh hoa teaching students from various social and cultural backgrounds. she possesses good administrative, verbal communication and written skills along with constructive and effective teaching methods that promote a stimulating learning environment. she is able to work as a part of team and has the proven ability to successfully work to tight schedules and deadlines acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 47 of 168 abstract exploring the shift in meanings of translating prepositions from english to vietnamese, the study, besides analyzing the cases of the changes in meanings of prepositions, aims to discuss general variety of meanings of english prepositions. the methods of analysis and synthesis of theories from the available data on prepositions as well as the methods of classifying and systematizing prepositions are applied to english-vietnamese translation. from the collected data, this study reveals the cases of the shift in meanings of prepositions and the characteristics of multiple meanings of prepositions. in the course of translation, contextual meanings are used in order to convey the meanings appropriately in the vietnamese style. the research paper can make some contribution to the teaching of translation and make it a reference material for english learners. keywords: prepositions, translation, english, vietnamese, the shift in meanings, multi-meaning on the shift of parts of speech in prepositional meaning in english-vietnamese translation phat dinh dac sai gon university dinhdacphat98@yahoo.com.vn biodata statement as an excellent student at sai gon university, phat dinh dac has won a championship in an annual contest “the winner” and conducted a scientific research at university level. he will be able to get more achievements when he has been exposed to scholar atmosphere like the one created by this conference. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 48 of 168 abstract nowadays english has been becoming more and more important in vietnam. mastering english is a key for vietnamese students to find ideal jobs after graduating or even to study further. therefore, learning english is very necessary for all tertiary students. to help students learn english effectively and efficiently, teachers need to know which teaching method has positive impacts on student learning and supports learners to improve their learning. based on this background, this research study was conducted to explore the perceptions of students on using the jigsaw technique, which is one kind of cooperative learning, in efl classes. the participants are 30 students studying general english courses at van lang university. to find out the results, a questionnaire consisting of 6 questions was distributed to students after they finished their course. the findings revealed that most students have positive attitudes toward this teaching method. students also indicated that this method created an effective, comfortable, and interactive learning environment in which they could improve their english ability as well as learnt some useful skills when working together. however, students pointed out a few difficulties they faced with when implementing this method. in general, despite some difficulties that students had at the beginning of the course when the teacher applied this method, it was an effective teaching method. keywords: vietnamese efl students; cooperative learning; jigsaw method the perceptions of vietnamese efl students at van lang university on jigsaw learning tran le hoai vu van lang university vu.tlh@vlu.edu.vn acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 49 of 168 abstract using an in-depth analysis of teacher beliefs and practices among secondary school teachers, this research looks at how a particular local culture is integrated in the conduct of english language lessons in a coastal community in the philippines. it was found that maritime culture is embedded in the lessons offered in english language courses for the junior high school program with inclusion of three main docks for consideration: the primacy of student needs, the importance of maritime culture immersion, and the repertoire of techniques to incorporate the local culture. as teachers in the philippines are encouraged to use local contexts and situations to approximate real-world language use, as mandated by ra 10533, teachers resort to contextualizing instruction as the key to developing students’ language skills, while incorporating culture for a meaningful language experience both for the teachers and the students. navigating local culture in language classes and understanding the relationships and the complex factors that facilitate learning among students with varied experiences dictated by local culture are presented. considerations for a contextualized learning and instruction in an english language classroom jessie l. labiste jr. university of the philippines visayas acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 50 of 168 biodata statement mary joy vailoces sienes is an esl teacher at vinschool secondary school, times city, hanoi, vietnam. she is currently in a residency program of her ph. d in english with concentration in tesol at silliman university, dumaguete city, philippines. her interest includes qualitative research especially in the line of pragmatics and discourse analysis. jasper eric c. catan currently sits as the director for research and extension services of foundation university, dumaguete city, philippines. his areas of interest are language pedagogy research, education policy research, service-learning research, and physical and mental health research. abstract the philippines is a top business process outsourcing (bpo) destination in the world. because of filipinos’ strength in english proficiency, many foreign investors greatly consider the philippines to establish their call center operations. furthermore, foreign businesses have chosen to outsource their customer support to the philippines (liquigan, 2018). however, the interactive capability of the filipino customer service representative (csr) appeared to be highly problematic at times, especially in situations where the customer was getting angry. this appears to be both cultural and linguistic in nature. whilst filipinos are very service-oriented and out to please the customer, equally, they have difficulty in being able to diffuse anger, irritation, and frustration on the phone (forey & hood, 2006). this study focuses on inbound call center accounts that face various types of call situations ranging from asking information to complicated calls requiring more time to handle including complaint calls. since the goal of any business is customer satisfaction, the researchers would like to explore how filipino call center agents mitigate and decrease the liability and guilt towards the customer. results show that filipino call center agents have successfully been producing ‘perfect apologies’ by providing all five strategies posited by cohen, olshtain and rosenstein (1986) in most of their complaint calls. however, the sequence is distorted by emphasizing more on offering a repair. this leads to a recommendation that call center training on apology be emphasized on building personal connections rather than a mechanical response to situations. keywords: speech act, apology, call center, bpo, communication discourse analysis of speech acts of apology by filipino call center agents mary joy v. sienes(1); jasper eric c. catan(2) (1) silliman university, philippines maryjoysienes08@gmail.com (2) silliman university, philippines jasper.catan@foundationu.com acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 51 of 168 abstract the recent emergence and popularity of digital authoring tools of sdks related to augmented reality (ar), such as zooburst, roar or aumentaty, among others, has facilitated the integration of this breakthrough technology in education. thanks to the worldwide expansion and availability of new technological devices, such as tablets and smartphones, ar applications can be effectively used in the efl classroom. a total of 103 of secondary education students participated in this experiment, which was aimed at analysing and measuring the motivation and the learning perception of using ar-based lessons in the language classroom. for this purpose, students were randomly assigned in a control group (cg) and an experimental group (eg), and they had to complete similar class activities using traditional paper-based materials (cg) or arbased materials (eg). all participants completed a placement test, an on-line pre-test and a post-test, partly based on a validated scale (kucuk, 2014). the research findings revealed that the learning progress and motivation were significantly higher among students in the ef as compared to the cg. the research findings showed a positive attitude among the eg participants as regards the adoption of ar. however, some problems emerged such as poor access to technological resources in some settings and lack of in-service teachers’ preparation.. keywords: augmented reality; motivation; efl; perception; linguistics measuring the student motivation and learning perception of using augmented reality (ar) in the efl classroom victor marrahí-gómez(1); jose belda-medina(2) (1) university of alicante vmg35@alu.ua.es (2) university of alicante jr.belda@ua.es biodata statement jose belda medina is a senior lecturer (profesor titular) at the university of alicante (spain). he has been teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses of efl (english as a foreign language), historical and applied linguistics for 20 years in several universities in spain (alicante, valencia, málaga, barcelona) and abroad (germany, uk, ireland, czeh republic, usa). his main research interests are applied linguistics, technologyenhanced language learning and communication. he has participated in 73 international conferences (baal, tesol, actfl, mla, aedean, aesla, etc) and 32 research projects and published several articles in scientific journals (target, meta, translation and terminology, babel, etc acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 52 of 168 abstract while virtually all elt instructors agree on the value of call activities, which allow students to practice english skills on an “anytime, anywhere” basis, many professionals still do not realize that many, if not most, of their students will not access these activities unless there is tracking or follow-up by the teacher. we will not look at the case of the self-motivated, self-directed learner, who has the entire internet available as a learning tool, but rather will focus on what is possible or unreasonable to expect from students for assigned activities. this will depend on whether some form of activity tracking is available and the ability of the instructor to monitor the students’ activity. activities that are tied to a learning management system, for example, might allow the instructor to see what has been accessed, but perhaps not how well the student performed or the duration of the access. we will also survey the status of standalone applications as well as chat applications such as whatsapp and wechat. finally, we will consider a set of pedagogically sound guidelines for selecting activities that have workable tracking options. keywords: online activities, tracking, homework the importance of activity tracking in class-based call activities thomas robb kyoto sangyo university (emeritus) tom@tomrobb.com biodata statement thomas robb, ph.d., university of hawaii, is professor emeritus, kyoto sangyo university, where he was chair of the department of english, faculty of foreign languages until he retired in march of 2017. he is a long-time user of call and the internet, and has created a number of websites and applications for extensive reading, student projects, interactive learning and professional exchange. one site for extensive reading, mreader. org now has over 100,000 student users in 40+ countries. he has been president of jalt (the japan association for language teaching), has been on the board of directors of international tesol, and a past president pacific call. he is chair of extensive reading foundation, the editor of tesl-ej, the first online journal for elt. recently he has been delivering workshops to teachers and ministry officials concerning extensive reading in various countries around the world. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 53 of 168 abstract in recent years, with the development of communicative language teaching (clt), the importance of teaching grammar to efl students, especially young learners, is somehow downgrading. nevertheless, it remains an essential aspect in english teaching and learning and needs further research. with an investigation into the techniques that native english – speaking teachers use to teach grammar to grade 5th students at vietnam-australia school, hanoi, the research aims at: (1) identifying grammar teaching techniques these teachers employ; (2) exploring teachers’ beliefs and (3) students’ opinions towards the used techniques in grammar lessons. to achieve the given targets, the research adopts case study research design with various data collection instruments, including classroom observation, questionnaires and semistructured interviews. the result reveals that various grammar teaching techniques are employed in three stages of a grammar lesson: presentation (using stories), practice (drilling, grammar exercises, games, pair speaking, and sentence constructing) and production (role play, oral presentation and free writing). while teachers and students share the same views about some techniques, there are still some exceptions, from which pedagogical implications can be drawn to help teachers better prepare for grammar lessons of young learners. keywords: grammar teaching, young learners, learning through stories grammar teaching techniques used by native english teachers for 5th graders at vietnam-australia school, hanoi minh n. nguyen national university, hanoi nguyetminh@vnu.edu.vn biodata statement minh n. nguyen is currently an english lecturer at vietnam national university, hanoi, faculty of english language teacher education. she graduated from korea university with a master’s degree in english education. her interests include teaching efl to young learners, technology application in efl teaching, and english applied linguistics. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 54 of 168 biodata statement vo thi bich phuong is currently a lecturer of english at hoa sen university. she earned her ma in tesol at hcmc university of social sciences and humanities in 2016. her academic areas of interest predominantly include learner autonomy, tesol methodology, computer-assisted language learning, and blended learning. trang lam is an english lecturer and also a program manager of faculty of foreign languages and international culture at hoa sen university, vietnam. she finished a master’s degree in tesol. she has been teaching english at the university level for over 10 years. her many interests include professional development, curriculum development, language teaching and language assessment. lâm thùy trang _ co-author abstract achievement emotions are defined as emotions which directly linked to achievement activities or achievement outcomes. achievement emotions are very important in the learning process of university students because they can affect learning performances, especially in the context of online learning during the covid-19 time where students may encounter many barriers to learning in the virtual environment. in this study, eight achievement emotions including enjoyment, hope, pride, anger, anxiety, shame, hopelessness and boredom are examined using an adapted version of the achievement emotions questionnaire by pekrun (2002). students’ emotional experiences are studied in online learning-related situations. students’ emotions are also examined in relation to four groups of barriers to learning in the virtual environment. the study involved the participation of 112 students who were currently joining online courses through m-learning system at the time the survey was conducted. the results reveal that students experience barriers to online learning using the m-learning system at a low level in comparison with a high level of positive emotions and a medium level of negative emotions. from the results, some educational implications are drawn to minimize learners’ negative emotions and help them overcome the barriers they encounter when studying online. keywords: achievement emotions, barriers, m-learning achievement emotions and barriers to online learning of university students during the covid-19 time vo thi bich phuong; lam thuy trang (co-author) acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 55 of 168 abstract online learning, one of the most life-changing innovations, has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years. with the lockdowns and social distancing in this covid-19 era, online teaching is booming in an unforeseeable way. the swift change from face-toface to screen-to-screen lessons has brought about significant impacts on both teachers and learners. this study examines learners’ perceptions of online learning using a survey questionnaire delivered online. the participants were 80 students following a master’s program at a university in vietnam. the results show that neophobia and technophobia are the most dominant psychological challenges while internet connectivity and lack of backgroundnoisefree space are among the most prominent factors affecting their learning. fortunately, the study has yielded several promising findings about the effectiveness of online learning. this indicates that online learning can be an alternative teaching mode if careful considerations about instructional techniques and lesson planning can be made. keywords: online learning, learners’ perceptions, neophobia, technophobia online learning for master’s degree programs: a look at the learner’s perceptions tran thi ngoc yen vinh university yentt.vinhuni@gmail biodata statement trần thị ngọc yến is an associate professor of education, foreign language department, vinh university. she received her ph.d from victoria university of wellington, new zealand. her research interests are language education, teacher professional development, and multiple intelligences theory in higher education. she is a member of the university cdio expert group, which has been actively engaged in the curriculum development and teacher training activities in the central region of vietnam. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 56 of 168 abstract online teaching has been believed to play a vital role in maintaining teaching activities and generate various benefits to teaching innovation, especially during the covid-19 pandemic time. however, there have been a great number of arguments debating whether online or offline teaching approaches would be more effective in lesson deliveries. this study compares the extent of learner engagement while participating in online and offline teaching environments in four dimensions namely skills, interaction, emotion, and performance through a mixed methods research of 554 participants majoring in english language studies at hoa sen university. questionnaires were distributed in week 15 (july 2020) of the 2019-2020 academic year, in which learners experienced the first seven weeks of online learning and the rest with face-to-face teaching methods. in-depth interviews, informal dialogues, and observation were still going on until july 2021. data was analyzed employing principal component analysis and t-tests. the findings showed that the research participants found it more efficient when learning offline in all four constructs. while the effect was moderate for skill dimension, interaction, emotion, and performance were found to have a large influence. the study can be beneficial to teachers, educators, and school management boards to have a comprehensive insight into the impact of online and offline teaching environments on learners’ engagement. keywords: learner engagement, online and offline teaching, online and offline learning, comparative analysis, hoa sen university. a comparative analysis of learner engagement between online and offline learning: a case study of undergraduate students at hoa sen university tran ngoc tien(1); lu van tuan(2); nguyen thi ton nu phuong linh(3) (1) hoa sen university tien.tranngoc@hoasen.edu.vn (2) hoa sen university tuan.luvan@hoasen.edu.vn (2) hoa sen university linh.ngthtonnuphuong@hoasen.edu.vn biodata statement tran ngoc tien, ph. d., is a university instructor at the department of english/american language and culture, hoa sen university, vietnam. he graduated from ritsumeikan asia pacific university (japan), edith cowan university (australia); and has more than 15 years of teaching at various levels. he has published a couple of papers in japan, america and england and joined numerous conferences worldwide. his interests of researching are educational attainment, job satisfaction, learning motivation, english language learning and teaching. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 57 of 168 abstract this longitudinal qualitative case study comprised an investigation of the experiences, perceptions, and beliefs of five elt teachers at a palestinian university where government-mandated covid-19 emergency closure forced an institution-wide implementation of emergency remote teaching. it is the only research coverage to date that encompasses the entire first year of work in pandemic emergency conditions as viewed from the perspective of instructors working in a higher education elt program. the research was framed within an interpretative, constructivist paradigm, with data collected by means of semistructured interviews and interrogated via thematic analysis. topics of interest included the challenges, benefits, drawbacks, and general processes associated with elearningas experienced by teachers involved in a rapid deployment of online education at an institution with no history of offering such courses. the results indicate that teachers faced significant pedagogy shock along with an immediate need to reconsider and reconfigure their roles within the teaching space and teacher-student relationship. findings highlight the need for dedicated institutional e-learning support infrastructures both hard and soft, comprehensive technical training and general digital literacy development for teachers and students, specialized teacher education in digitally-mediated pedagogies, and effective awareness-raising campaigns directed at students’ families and other community stakeholders. keywords: coronateaching, emergency remote teaching, e-learning, online learning, palestine coronateaching in a palestinian university: changes, challenges, and new conceptions hidayat abu elhawa al-istiqlal university in jericho, palestine hidayaabul@hotmail.com biodata statement hidayat abu elhawa is an academic english instructor at al-istiqlal university in jericho, palestine, and a phd tesol candidate in the department of languages and literature at university of nicosia. she teaches 100level courses in the 4 basic skill areas. her research focus is e-learning pedagogies for english language teaching. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 58 of 168 abstract videogames have come a long way since their emergence in the 20th century. they remain, however, ostracised from educational discourses. a reason is the absence of reliable didactic methodologies that ensure effective learning through games. there have been attempts to teach historical or other content centred topics to students. i argue, however, that games are much more effective in strengthening cognitive decision-making processes. this assumption is based on empirical studies that prove that playing strategy games improves strategic thinking. a comparable cognitive ability is moral competence. according to georg lind, moral competence is the ability to translate one’s moral principles (nonviolently and without deceit) into action. a skill that can be taught and has proven to foster democratic and moral behaviour. in my talk, i intend to discuss the possibilities of strengthening moral competence through videogames with an adaptation of lind’s kddm (konstanz dilemma discussion method) and the game papers, please. the goal is to craft a didactic framework in which a learning curve in moral competence can be ensured by selecting games that provide a suitable degree of moral complexity. through clearly defined goals, well-moderated discussions and streamlined reflections, games hold the potential to complement contemporary reading materials in schools and universities. keywords: moral competence; moral complexity; game-based learning; game studies; papers please teaching moral competence through moral complexity in videogames: proposing a didactic framework based on lind’s kddm benjamin hanussek klagenfurt critical game lab, alpen-adria university, austria benjamin.hanussek@gmail.com biodata statement representative of the klagenfurt critical game lab at the university of klagenfurt, austria. currently leading a funded research project on the topic of moral complexity in videogames. while the project is working towards optimising game development approaches, i am also using the insights for a didactic framework enabling moral competence and ethics to be taught through games. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 59 of 168 abstract considering the emergency of covid-19, teachers indeed played a major role in involving and managing the curriculum and instruction to make the educational system workable and feasible for achieving the purpose of teaching and learning. bearing this in mind, this qualitative study explored how efl preservice teachers developed 21st century skills by implementing english lessons and interacting with in-service teachers and students through field experiences during the covid-19 pandemic. 22 korean preservice teachers participated in this study. data included interviews and artifacts (e.g., practicum reflection notes and lesson plans). qualitative thematic analysis was used to identify recurring themes from the collection of the dataset. the findings revealed that the preservice teachers capitalized on 21st century skills (i.e., communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and technology literacy) during their field experiences. the preservice teachers in this study noticed the importance of communication and collaboration. they also thought about their lessons and classroom management critically and painstakingly. relatively the evidence of creativity was rare, but the preservice teachers were aware of being creative and innovative in light of designing lesson plans and implementing their own classes during the practicum. the implications for research and pedagogy are also discussed in this study. keywords: efl preservice teachers, teacher education, 21st century skills, covid-19, qualitative research efl preservice teachers’ development of 21st century skills through field experiences during covid-19 eunjeong park sunchon national university parkej@scnu.ac.kr biodata statement eunjeong park is an assistant professor in the department of english language education at sunchon national university. her research interests include teacher education, preservice teachers, field experiences, mentorship, and mixed methods research in higher education. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 60 of 168 abstract due to covid-19 pandemic, vietnamese tremendous lecturers are assumed to have conducted virtual teaching in response to keep track of learning progress. this type of teaching seemingly brings several benefits to students and teachers. however, not all of english instructors show their proficiency in applying e-learning platforms. the present study will be conducted with an aim to investigate the obstacles and chances given to both english lecturers when teaching online. a sample of roughly 100 english lecturers from diverse universities in ho chi minh city will be selected with convenience and random sampling. the research instruments will include online questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. after administering questionnaires to gain responses and screening data, six lecturers will be interviewed to have further ideas exploration. having analysed the piloted data, the preliminary findings have revealed that the virtual platforms are beneficial to teachers in terms of interaction, flexibility, and lesson delivery. they also indicated some problems such as application interruptions, and students’ lack of enthusiasm. the study will help english lecturers and practitioners raise awareness of conducting e-learning and offer them some solutions to maximize this type of teaching. keywords: e-learning; teachers’ perspective challenges and opportunities of implementing e learning in teaching english at tertiary level from teachers’ perspective pham thi ngoan(1); nguyen minh duc(2) (1)(2) nguyen tat thanh university phamngoan1990@gmail.com biodata statement m.a. pham thi ngoan is currently an english lecturer at nguyen tat thanh university. she completed post-graduate course and obtained ma degree in tesol for professional development last year. besides, she has had five-year experience in teaching english at various institutions. her research interests include teaching methodology, language skills, call, and testing and assessment. with more than 7 years’ experience in teaching english to students of various ages from young learners to undergraduate students, nguyễn minh đức (m.a.) is currently a lecturer at the faculty of foreign languages, nguyen tat thanh university. his research interests include motivation, learner autonomy, speaking competence and technologically related aspects. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 61 of 168 biodata statement quang nhat nguyen is currently the director of hqt education ltd., which is based in ho chi minh city. he was head of academics of the ielts workshop ho chi minh city and also a lecturer at ho chi minh city university of education. despite being a young researcher, right after graduation, he was invited to be a curriculum developer and author of several coursebooks for english and ielts training at the university of technology, ho chi minh city. his scope of research interests includes teacher education, call, sociolinguistics, english language teaching methodology, dogme elt, and liberal education. linh nhat pham is an english teacher of ielts at hqt education ltd., hcmc. she is also a postgraduate student of the m.a. tesol program at the university of social sciences and humanities vietnam national university ho chi minh city. her current research interests cover english language teaching methodology and call. hien nguyen thi thu is a lecturer of english at hanoi university, hanoi. she is currently a postgraduate student of the master of tesol and flt program at university of canberra, australia and hanoi university. her current research interests are english language teaching methodology and call. abstract in the event of the covid-19 epidemic, many efl emergency classrooms have been established in vietnam since 2020. however, online education in vietnam is still in its early stages, and there is little research on learner psychology in this new environment. the impacts of two contemporary pedagogical approaches utilizing tasks on efl learners’ l2 motivational self system in an online emergency scenario are investigated in this qualitative study. nvivo11’s sentiment and content analysis of 12 interviews with intermediate english learners of an english training center in ho chi minh city prove that both task-based and task-supported language instruction improve the learner’s l2 motivational self system. besides, six factors contributing to high motivation are collaborative tasks, instructor scaffolding techniques, learner comfort zone, and interactive hybrid learning capabilities. limited schemata, technical issues, pre-task underpreparation, physical and cyber-spatial distractions, and uneven teacher attention distribution, on the other hand, have been found to have negative effects on the learner’s l2 motivational self system. the authors suggest using a hybrid style of teaching with computer-assisted online tasks and providing technical scaffolding to motivate efl learners in online task-based emergency classes. the findings of the study are intended to aid teachers, policymakers, and educational researchers in developing future emergency teaching solutions to prepare for disease outbreaks or natural disasters. task-based approaches and learners’ l2 motivational self system: the joy and despair of an emergency online efl class in the covid-19 pandemic quang nhat nguyen(1); linh nhat pham(2); hien nguyen thi thu(3) (1) hqt education ltd., ho chi minh city, vietnam nhatquang.ed@gmail.com (2) hqt educational ltd., ho chi minh city, vietnam nhatlinhpham2017@gmail.com (3) hanoi university, hanoi, vietnam hiennnguyen1211@gmail.com acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 62 of 168 stratergies for translating english passive sentences into vietnamese nguyen xuan my hoa sen university, vietnam xuanmy.hp87@gmail.com abstract this study examines some most common strategies for the vietnamese translation of english passive voice such as “the use of markers ‘được’/‘bị’”, “change to active”, “paraphrasing” in order to find out the frequency and the rules for the use of those strategies by collecting and analyzing the data from the english and vietnamese versions of a novel named “harry potter and the sorcerer’s stone” and a book named “a brief history of time”. and the findings of this study disapproves the view that vietnamese active sentences are the most common choice for translating english passive voice since its results indicate that english itclefts or english agentless passive sentences where the agent of the action is unclear or indicates a group of people have a high tendency of being translated into active structures in vietnamese, while using maker ‘được’ or ‘bị’ and subject-less active sentence are the most common ways for translating other kinds of english agentless passive sentences into vietnamese. besides, the results of this research also indicate that the use of markers ‘được’/‘bị’ is frequently applied to translate agent-included passive sentences but the position of the agent in vietnamese sentences varies according to its features. keywords: english passive sentences, translation strategies, ‘được’/‘bị’, vietnamese translation, vietnamese active structures biodata statement nguyen xuan my is a postgraduate studying towards a master’s degree in english studies at hoa sen university in viet nam. he also holds a master’s degree in teaching chinese to speakers of other languages and has been working as a chinese teacher for 10 years. his main research interests are contrastive linguistics, education and translation. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 63 of 168 abstract coursebooks are of vital importance to language classes, and it is of great value to select a good textbook. amongst them, the coursebook american english file multipack 3 (aef3) was chosen and has been used at people’s security university (psu) for five years now. this study was designed to have a more critical view on aef3 that could be helpful in identifying features of the book under psu students’ perspective. due to the scope of the study, only five aspects namely layout and design, activities, skills, language type and subject and content were chosen to be investigated. in this study, quantitative method was opted to conduct and the data were accumulated through evaluation forms. the findings of the study revealed that under students’ perspective, although there existed certain drawbacks in aef3, it was still evaluated positively. and thus, it is obvious that aef3 is an appropriate coursebook for the context of psu. keywords: american english file multipack 3, coursebook, perception, students students’ perception of “american english file multipack 3” – a study at people’s security university le thi thu phuong(1); tran hoang anh(2) (1)(2) people’s security university biodata statement lê thị thu phương, m.a. in english language, has been working as a teacher of faculty of foreign languages and informatics at people’s security university since 2012. her areas of interests are material evaluation, testing and english teaching methodology. trần hoàng anh, a post-graduate student at people’s security university, has been a teacher of the faculty of basic vocational tasks at people’s security university. his main interests are theory of protecting national security, teaching methodology, and research methodology. he is the main author of two science research projects at university level and 15 articles released on specialized journals and international conferences acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 64 of 168 abstract in writing evaluation, natural language processing tools are increasingly used to both reduce the burden of human raters and improve rating efficiency, but few tools can effectively evaluate the semantics of writing samples. this study looks at open-source semantic similarity tools in automated evaluation of facts-based writing tasks by esl learners. under one writing assignment, fifty japanese university student writing samples were collected and compared with a gold standard written by a native expert. five tools that had been carefully selected, including infersent, spacy, dkpro, adw and semilar, generated the semantic similarity scores between student writing samples and the expert sample. with the expert sample as reference, five teachers also graded the 50 student samples, the average of which was used as the final human grading after an inter-rater reliability test was conducted. a pearson correlation analysis was then conducted to see whether the semantic similarity scores were able to indicate the semantic quality of student samples as suggested by human grading. results show that the correlation from four of the five tools was above 0.5, with the highest one, infersent, being 0.8258. this study concludes that nlp tools can be integrated into the evaluation of semantics and also suggested possible ways to turn the semantic similarity scores into actual grades. keywords: semantic similarity, automated writing evaluation, fact-based writing, infersent, spacy, dkpro, adw, semilar automated evaluation of semantics in fact-based writing with semantic similarity tools qiao wang japanwaseda university judy.wang@aoni.waseda biodata statement wang qiao holds an m.a. in translation and interpreting studies, an m.a. in second language education and a ph.d. in computer-assisted language learning. she is working as a assistant professor at waseda university, japan. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 65 of 168 abstract under game-based language learning (gbll), an increasing number of studies are exploring how games can be integrated into language classrooms to better serve curriculum goals. in these studies, a common theme is the acquisition of receptive knowledge such as vocabulary, but few looked at the role games can play in promoting productive knowledge such as writing or speaking. the study is the second in a series of mixed-methods studies on the integration of the sims 4, a life-simulation game, into language classrooms. in this study, the researcher explores the effect of gbll on students’ english communicative competence from three aspects, interaction, fluency and content, in a japanese university. in class, students received instruction from the teacher on game language and gameplay skills, played the game on their own and presented gameplay stories. the presentations were recorded for evaluation. surveys were also administered for students’ perceptions on the gbll classroom. results showed that no clear improvement in communicative competence was suggested by quantitative evaluation. qualitatively data, however, indicated that the game afforded students interesting events and proper expressions in presentations and that the teacher played a vital role in ensuring ample interactional opportunities and linguistic support. suggestions for future research in classroom-situated gbll were also proposed. keywords: game-based language learning; english communication class; communicative competence; the sims 4; actfl opi; flosem; interaction; fluency; content the role of classroom-situated game-based language learning in promoting students’ communicative competence qiao wang japanwaseda university judy.wang@aoni.waseda biodata statement wang qiao holds an m.a. in translation and interpreting studies, an m.a. in second language education and a ph.d. in computer-assisted language learning. she is working as a assistant professor at waseda university, japan. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 66 of 168 abstract due to the covid-19 pandemic, traditional teachercentered teaching has been replaced with learnercentered teaching models. the flipped classroom model has been considered effective by the researchers in the circumstance in which both teachers and students are not able to be present in physical classrooms because of strict covid-19 prevention regulations; instead, they both teach and study online from clipped classroom approach. this paper aims to review the usage of lecture videos in flipped classroom model in order to clarify what teachers and learners need to do to utilize instructional videos effectively in online classrooms. there has been an argument that the teachers should deploy youtube videos or they should produce their own lecture videos for clipped classrooms. the paper also reviews previous studies that are related to the utility of lecture videos in flipped classroom approach to shed light on lecture videos in clipped classrooms. from the literature review on using lecture videos in flipped classroom model, the paper gives some implications for using instructional videos and suggestions for future research on lecture videos in clipped classrooms. keywords: learner-centered teaching models, flipped classroom, lecture videos, implications, and online classroom using lecture videos in flipped classroom model bui thi kim loan van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam biodata statement bui thi kim loan has been a lecturer of english at van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam. she has taught english skills, esp, translation, academic writing, sociolinguistics and so forth. her research interests are discourse analysis, genre analysis, efl teaching, call, clil, and sfl. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 67 of 168 abstract this study investigated the situation of teaching and learning idioms in developing speaking skill for freshmen and explored the difficulties encountered by the lecturers and students while teaching and learning idioms, and the strategies employed while processing the idioms at faculty of english, thuongmai university in vietnam – a foreign language context. it also examined the evaluation of the idiom teaching process in six language classes for freshmen and provided some suggested solutions to the teaching of idioms to increase students’ motivation and involvement in learning english idioms particularly in developing their speaking skill. the data were collected though survey questionnaires and in-depth interviews. the analysis revealed that lecturers and students at the university achieved effectiveness in idioms teaching and learning in speaking skill in some ways. both of them believed that students are motivated, confident, and actively participated in idioms learning activities in this foreign language context. the findings also revealed that students demonstrated the process in idiom comprehension as well as in idiom production through the evidences in the omprehension of idiomatic phrases through their textbook and conversations. the results indicated significant effects of the context in idiom learning and implied that idiom learning should be received more attention in efl learning contexts. keywords: perception, idioms’ teaching and learning, speaking skill students’ and lecturers’ perceptions of idiom teaching and learning in speaking skill for freshmen at foe, thuongmai university tran thi my linh thuongmai university in vietnam tranmylinh.tmu@gmail.com biodata statement tran thi my linh is a lecturer at english practice department, faculty of english, thuongmai university in vietnam. she received a bachelor’s degree in english language teaching from hanoi national university of education and a master’s degree from university of language and international studies. she has been teaching four skills for six years. she is interested in english language and english teaching methodology. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 68 of 168 abstract the covid 19 pandemic has forced schools, universities to teaching in online learning environments. finding an effective online learning model is crucial for online teachers to design, develop, and deliver an online course. this research has been conducted to analyze the online learning activities through using collaborative learning in flipped classroom for the students at the college level. data have been collected through an online questionnaire and it was sent to 150 first year students in the department of electronic and electrical engineering attending physics course at cao thang technical college, after the online course finished. nine variables have been used to measure the effectiveness of collaborative online learning with flipped classroom, including learning objective, learning task, assessment strategy, course structure, resource materials, collaborative online learning tools, types of interaction, social and cognitive presence, and teaching presence. cronbach’s alpha is used to evaluate the reliability and internal consistency of the associated factors. the exploratory factor analysis is used to extract the variables and measure the factor loading in this study. the one sample t-test has been used to test the hypotheses. the finding revealed that implementing online collaborative learning in flipped classroom impact on the effectiveness of teaching in online learning environments. keywords: collaborative online learning, flipped classroom, teaching presence, social and cognitive presence. effectiveness of online learning through using collaborative learning in flipped classroom ngo van thien cao thang technical college biodata statement ngô văn thiện is a physics teacher in department of general education at cao thang technical college, ho chi minh city. he received his ph.d.in science education from the university of lyon 2 in france. actually, he also work in cooperation with ho chi minh city univercity of education, where he leads courses and workshop on teaching stem integration. his research focuses on didactic and pedagogy. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 69 of 168 abstract in 2015, un members met to discuss the future of education. one of the products of that meeting was an implementation of global citizenship education (gce) into global education policy (gaudelli, 2015). gce was integrated into education policy and curriculum as a response to the need for students of today to be aware of their place in our increasingly interconnected global landscape (chung and pak, 2016). english is the modern world’s lingua franca, therefore english language classrooms are an ideal starting point for gce integration. gce in the esl/efl classroom seeks to expand the view of the english language from purely west-centric to a more global mindset (lourenço & simões, 2021). in this session, attendees will look at how gce integrates into an ell classroom and how it can benefit students both academically and socially. helping students to center themselves in the global landscape can aid in the creation of self and mitigate some of the identity issues that may arise among ell students (lopez & musanti, 2019). attendees will benefit from an understanding of gce objectives, resources to aid the integration of gce themes into current classroom practices, and a discussion on current practices related to gce in schools worldwide. keywords: global citizenship education, teacher education, global education pedagogy global citizenship education in the english language classroom: theory and practice elizabeth norman south korea gyeonggi-do institute for language education elizabeth.gifle@gmail.com biodata statement elizabeth is an instructor and researcher at the gyeonggi-do institute for language education in south korea. originally from minnesota she left her career as a language arts high school teacher in 2014 when she moved to become an efl teacher in south korea. now, she provides professional development programs and special lectures for english language teachers at public schools. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 70 of 168 abstract although correctly used computers can support transformative learning of the disadvantaged communities, many language teachers still cannot efficiently use technology. the barriers include inadequate teacher training, which calls for rethinking teacher development programs and policy planning (mou, 2016). teachers need to learn first-hand to perceive the benefits, which raises skills and positive attitudes (mumtaz, 2000). although university training programs integrate call theories into the courses, no research has investigated if it is done effectively. studies focus on implementing call (afrin, 2014) or technology (sultana & haque, 2018) in the efl classrooms without addressing the practice issues in teacher preparation. this research scrutinizes the efficacy of teaching call to bangladeshi language teacher candidates. it explores the pre-and in-service teacher perceptions about the gaps between call learning objectives and outcomes. data were obtained from surveying 100 teachers and teacher candidates online. ten of them were interviewed online using a semi-structured form. results show learning call often means knowing the terms and theories without applications. lack of hands-on activities, practical testing, experts, and technology use are the worst barriers. the research calls for widely integrating technology into call teacher education since the respondents’ online teaching-learning experiences have developed dynamic call insights and expertise. keywords: call materials, teacher education, integrating technology, success, failure integrating call into teacher preparation curricula: success and failure mili saha jagannath university, bangladesh milisahadoll@gmail.com biodata statement an associate professor of english in bangladesh, mili saha, has studied second language education in dhaka and toronto. she has been conducting and publishing research in various contexts, including bangladesh, bahrain, canada, and the uk. her research interests include critical applied linguistics, language minority issues, and marginalized teacher preparation. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 71 of 168 abstract since its emergence in the 1960s, micro-teaching has been widely adopted as an effective technique in teacher training and development across various disciplines, especially in english language teaching. a huge body of research focuses on different aspects of micro-teaching such as its effectiveness, and pre-service and in-service teachers’ perceptions on this practice. however, scant literature can be found on online micro-teaching, particularly in vietnam. therefore, this action research is aimed to explore vietnamese students’ perspectives on online microteaching centering on (1) what they learned from online micro-teaching, (2) what challenges they faced during the practice, and (3) their suggestions on how online micro-teaching can be effectively conducted. to address those questions, data is collected from an online questionnaire and in-depth interviews. the participants of the study are approximately 142 students at the faculty of english linguistics and literature, the ussh, vnuhcm. the participants have attended english teaching methodology and/or teaching practice courses, and delivered one online micro-teaching session at the end of the courses. the study is expected to be a stepping stone to further research on the implementation of online microteaching as an effectual method of professional training and development in english language teaching, especially in the fourth industrial revolution. keywords: micro-teaching, online micro-teaching, teacher education vietnamese students’ perspectives on online micro-teaching as a technique in english teacher education in the 4.0 era pham ngoc kim tuyen university of social sciences and humanities, vietnam pnkimtuyen@hcmussh.edu.vn biodata statement tuyen pham holds a master of applied linguistics from la trobe university, australia, and that of tesol from the ussh, vnuhcm. throughout her 15 years of experience, she has taught english skills, public speaking, translation and interpreting, intercultural communication, and english teachingrelated subjects. her research interests include teacher education, technology-assisted (language) teaching and learning, leadership in education, and research methodology. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 72 of 168 biodata statement ma. nguyen van thang workplace: thanh dong university (tdu) mobile: 0983116001 email: nguyenvanthang305@gmail.com thangnv@thanhdong.edu.vn nguyen van thang has been teaching higher education for nearly ten years. he is interested in technology-based teaching, learners’ motivation, learners’ positive psychology, extensive reading, cognitive reading strategies, language learning strategies. ma. nguyen thi thanh ha, workplace: faculty of foreign languages, university of economics – technology for industries (uneti). mobile: 0921628666 email: nttha.khoann@uneti.edu.vn nguyen thi thanh ha has been teaching higher education at uneti for ten years. her main research interests are collaborative learning with technology, mobile-assisted language learning (mall), digital game-based learning and language learning strategies abstract this action research aims to explore the impacts of mobile–assisted language learning (mall) on freshmen’s vocabulary acquisition as well as their perspectives towards this learning approach. twentysix students at thanh dong university participated in the eight-week intervention in semester 2, academic year 2020 – 2021. the researchers employed pretest, post-test as well as delayed post-test, attitudinal questionnaire and semi-structured interview to triangulate the collected data. t-test and cronbach’s alpha coefficient were calculated via spss 25 to determine the validity and internal consistency reliability of the research. the findings indicated that the mall-integrated classrooms not only provided a significantly enriched vocabulary achievement among participants but also promoted their motivation towards the use of mall to enhance their lexical knowledge. some pedagogical implications have been additionally recommended for educators in teaching vocabulary and in future research on the development of mall-enhanced framework for vocabulary acquisition. keywords: mobile–assisted language learning, mall, vocabulary acquisition, perspectives, motivation the impacts of mobile-assisted language learning (mall) on freshmen’s vocabulary acquisition and their perspectives nguyen van thang(1); nguyen thi thanh ha(2) (1) thanh dong university nguyenvanthang305@gmail.com (2) university of economics-technology for industries nttha.khoann@uneti.edu.vn acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 73 of 168 abstract this study investigates the semantic change of the two words denoting spatial orientation ra – vào in vietnamese, in contrast to their translation equivalents in english. originally expressing spatial meanings, these words have gradually been used to represent abstract concepts. this fact results from the semantic change involving orientational metaphors and container metaphors. the bilingual data used in this study includes 275 contexts of ra, 355 contexts of vào and their translation equivalents in english, which were collected from 50 short stories by 45 vietnamese writers and the english translation version in the collection “love after war: contemporary fiction from viet nam” edited by wayne karlin. in addition, this study also used data extracted from vietlex corpus and the corpus of contemporary american english (coca). the findings show that non-spatial meanings of ra – vào are systematically derived from spatial experiences in the physical world of vietnamese native speakers, and that the major clusters of nonspatial meanings include (1) getting into and out of a situation; (2) appearing and disappearing; (3) understanding; (4) supporting and excluding. these extended conceptualizations are clearly reflected in both vietnamese and english languages. however, the process of encoding non-spatial concepts varies across linguistic communities. keywords: ra, vào, conceptualization, orientational metaphor, container metaphor the semantic change of ra – vào in vietnamese and their equivalents in english: a corpus-based study van duong tran hoa sen university, vietnam duong.tranvan@hoasen.edu.vn biodata statement tran van duong is a lecturer in translation studies at hoa sen university, viet nam. he holds a phd in contrastive linguistics from hcmc national university, and has more than 20 years in teaching translation studies. he is the founder of vietcorpus, a web-based platform offering bilingual corpora and tools for researchers in contrastive studies and professional translators. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 74 of 168 abstract young learners’ engagement is a key factor to determine successful teaching and learning. teachers have to differentiate their teaching approach in order to maximize students’ motivation. especially, many educators try harder to gain more students’ engagement in online learning after the school closure affected by the covid-19 pandemic. in order to stimulate students’ motivation, teachers are required to deploy various digital resources on the internet. however, teachers have been facing challenges in utilizing relevant and sufficient online materials to facilitate and engage learners in learning process, which results in increasing learning productivity. thus, this article aims to propose some practical teaching techniques using digital resources to foster engagement of young learners in online learning classrooms. keywords: digital resources, students’ engagements, online learning classroom utilizing digital resources to foster young learners’ engagements in online learning classrooms ho thi my linh(1); nguyen thi bao khuyen(2) (1)(2) vus biodata statement ho thi my linh is a doctoral candidate in educational management at horizon university. she has obtained her m.a degree in tesol. currently, she is associate dean of the faculty of international languages and cultures at hoa sen university. previously, she held the position of training director at language corps asia and training quality manager at vus the english center. she is particularly interested in esl, efl teaching methodologies, learning approaches or strategies to help teachers bring the most engaging and creative learning environment to their students. nguyen thi bao khuyen, who is working as a training quality manager at vus, is taking a doctor of education program and received her m.a. degree in tesol. with 12-year experience in elt teaching and 4-year expertise in academic management, she is responsible for improving campus teaching quality through mentoring teachers, holding training workshops and contributing to program development. she is keen on doing research on education trends and digital applications, efl teaching strategies that enhance student engagement and maximize academic performance. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 75 of 168 abstract education is no exception to how technological innovations have altered every part of life in recent years. indeed, prior to the covid-19, educators and teachers all over the world used technology to enhance teaching and learning. for the time being, schools in vietnam are closed due to the pandemic, resulting in a considerable shift from face-to-face to e-learning with significant educational adjustments. correspondingly, both learning and testing must be modified to fit the current covid-19 outbreak, emerging the need to address students’ perceptions on the usage of aforementioned issues. this study was carried out to evaluate how students perceived online learning and testing in toeic preparation courses at a university in hcmc, as this issue has grown increasingly impossible to ignore. the data for this study, which involved 64 students, was collected using mixed methods with the employment of quizzes, tests and surveys. the findings revealed that while online learning aided students during the covid-19 epidemic, it was nonetheless ineffective due to distractions and technological challenges. furthermore, some students were dissatisfied with their scores, believing that they would have scored higher on a paperbased test. they claimed that they were unfamiliar with online testing, which contributed to their poor performance. this paper is intended to serve as a resource for teachers who are in charge of toeic online courses as well as a vehicle for further studies. keywords: toeic preparation courses, online learning, online testing non-english major students’ perceptions towards toeic online learning and testing thi doan hoang(1); thuy linh phan(2); hong phuong le(3) (1)(2)(3) ho chi minh university of social sciences and humanities biodata statement we are master’s students in tesol at ho chi minh university of social sciences and humanities. for several years, we have been involved in teaching english skills and areas to students of various ages and levels, gaining valuable teaching expertise. teaching techniques, language assessment, language skills and areas, and e-learning are among our study interests. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 76 of 168 abstract nowadays, english has been taught as one of the main subject at school. teaching young learners (yl) is not the same as teaching adults because children have their own learning styles. since children enjoy playing, having fun and having experience on their own, the learning and teaching process should be adapted to their personality characteristics. song is one kind of enjoyable activity for children. the author of this research intends to demonstrate that using songs are highly motivated young learners in learning english. the purpose of this study is to show how the songs could be used successfully to teach children english as a foreign or second language (efl/esl). first, the rationale for using songs in an efl/esl classroom will be discussed. second, the writer shows that using songs are highly motivated young learners in learning english. finally, there are some effective techniques that can be offered to teach english to yl through the songs and a conclusion will be drawn. keywords: efl, esl, yl, songs, motivation using songs are highly motivated young learners in learning english pham thi thuy tien hoa sen university, vietnam tien.ptt9477@sinhvien.hoasen.edu.vn acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 77 of 168 abstract teaching english online during the pandemic calls for innovative technological and pedagogical approaches to shape a meaning-making practice of learning. based on task-based language teaching with technology, this “how-to” article offers a practical method for integrating digital mind mapping software (dmms) with screen recording tools (srts) to enhance students’ online speaking practice. it provides a stepby-step guide for incorporating call technology and pedagogy to provide students with meaningful online speaking practice. first, it gives a brief overview of dmms and srts and how they may help efl teachers offer online speaking courses. second, a pedagogical framework for integrating dmms with srts is presented. third, it includes guidance for developing a tblt-based instruction for remotely teaching speaking utilizing the dmms-srts integrated strategy. still, it covers three consecutive stages: pre-task, duringtask, and post-task activities. in the end, we include a practical approach (an assessment rubric) to evaluating the students-created tasks (e.g., audio and video recordings). this article will contribute to the plethora of call pedagogies, telt approaches, and digital language teacher professional development. keywords: dmms, srts, task-based language teaching (tblt), teaching speaking, online learning. teaching speaking online using digital mind mapping software (dmms) and screen recording tool (srt): a practical method ismail anas politeknik negeri ujung pandang ismailanas@pnup.ac.id biodata statement i am ismail anas of state polytechnic of ujung pandang, indonesia. i am now the team leader of the center for business english and call research. i mainly teach esp courses and do research in the area of call, ict, digital literacy, mall, elt methodology, and project-based language learning. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 78 of 168 abstract this case study aims at answering the two main research questions: (a) what are students’ experiences with and attitudes towards the implementation of audio-visual recording in english pronunciation classrooms? and (b) how does this technique impact their english pronunciation? in order to address these two research questions, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected after the implementation of the technique from 80 freshmen of a state university in the south of vietnam. descriptive analysis along with thematic content analysis of the collected data were categorized into three critical areas consisting of students’ experiences with the technique, their attitudes towards the technique, and impacts of the technique. the findings showed that students had very positive attitudes towards this implementation. particularly, this technique has helped the students improve their pronunciation within the parameter of intelligibility. based on the research results, possible implications have been discussed for instructing phonetics and phonology as well as for further studies on the important topic of how to enhance students’ pronunciation in the efl context. keywords: audio-visual recording, pronunciation, intelligibility, implementation students’ responses to the implementation of audio-visual recording in english pronunciation classrooms hong t.t.vo(1); thi anh tuyet ly(2) (1) can tho university vtthong@ctu.edu.vn (2) can tho university ltatuyet@ctu.edu.vn biodata statement ms. hong thi tuyet vo has been teaching english as a foreign language at can tho university, vietnam since 2012. she has been attending and presenting at different conferences such as second language research forum (slrf), american association for applied linguistics (aaal), midtesol, vus, and camtesol. her main research interests are sociolinguistics, advanced pronunciation, second language writing, corpus linguistics, sla, language teaching and technology, eap and esp. ms. tuyet thi anh ly is a lecturer of cantho university in vietnam with 7-year english teaching experience. she has been participating in many conferences such as camtesol, vus. currently, she is working on the fields related to phonetics and phonology, world englishes, sla, writing, esp and eap. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 79 of 168 the potential relevance of neuroscience to education is gaining attention from scholars and educators in recent years. as stated by tokuhama-espinosa (2021), the professionalization of great teachers involves not only the content and pedagogical knowledge but also the ability to leverage technology based on the understanding of brain efficiency. in this sense, the current paper attempts to bring some principles emerging from neuroscientific findings into the context of language learning and teaching, particularly the development of listening skills. the paper begins by presenting some nuggets of neuroscientific knowledge related to language learning, which opens a novel perspective of conceptualizing the process of listening comprehension. it will then go on to a proposal of a brain-based listening technique in addition to some pedagogic implications. keywords: listening comprehension; neuroscience; language learning. a neuroscientific approach to understanding listening comprehension in efl contexts vy luu thi mai ho chi minh city university of economics and finance vyzebu@gmail.com abstract acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 80 of 168 abstract in recent years, tours of cultural festivals in vietnam have been on a rise thanks to the increasing demands from foreign visitors, which requires high-quality english versions of cultural festival texts for tour guidance and tourism promotion, contributing to a positive image for vietnam. however, such texts are burdened with a large number of culture-specific items that are not easily translated from vietnamese into to english. this paper aims at exploring culture-specific terms in cultural festivals, identifying their categories, and then applying appropriate techniques to translate them from vietnamese into english. using the sld multiterm software, the researchers collected the data from the texts about 100 most popular festivals organized in the three regions of vietnam all year round. the research results are a list of vietnameseenglish culture-specific terms, interpretation of their meanings and translations; and they all serve as a useful resource for tourism and translation courses at universities. keywords: cultural festival, culture-specific item, translation, tourism, text translating culture-specific items in vietnam’s cultural festival texts into english nguyen thi nhu ngoc(1); le thi ngoc anh(2); tran cao boi ngoc(3); nguyen anh quan(4); van thi nha truc(5) (1) ussh, vnuhcm nhungoc@hcmussh.edu.vn (2) ussh, vnuhcm lethingocanh@hcmussh.edu.vn (3) ussh, vnuhcm boingoc@hcmussh.edu.vn (4) ussh, vnuhcm nguyenanhquan@hcmussh.edu.vn (5) ussh, vnuhcm vanthinhatruc@hcmussh.edu.vn biodata statement nguyễn thị như ngọc, ph.d. is currently vicedean of the faculty of english linguistics and literature (ef) and chair of the department of translation and interpreting, and whose areas of interest are translation studies, comparative linguistics, and intercultural communication; văn thị nhã trúc, ma. is currently a lecturer of the department of american and british culture and literature at the ef, and whose areas of interest are business culture, english literature, and intercultural communication; nguyễn anh quân, ma. is currently a lecturer and holds a position of director of the center for international education, and whose areas of interest are tesol, ict in language teaching, and internationalization at higher education; lê thị ngọc ánh, ma. is currently a lecturer of the department of translation and interpreting at the ef, and whose areas of interest are translation, applied linguistics, language teaching and education; and trần cao bội ngọc, ph.d. is currently a lecturer of the department of australian studies, faculty of oriental studies, and whose areas of interest are anthropology, cultural studies, and english language teaching acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 81 of 168 abstract in order to achieve the highest result in employing the lexical items, efl learners are expected to memorize such vocabulary and exploit them in producing communicative value. however, a considerable amount of efl learners finds the process of memorizing the meanings of numerous english words at a time merely torturous. in order to promote a fresh choice of learning technique to young learners, the present research is not only conducting an experiment but also identifying the attitudes of young learners on the administration of storytelling as a vocabulary memorizing method. with the view to fulfilling the aims of the research, an experiment will be conducted on two groups of young learners (experimental group and controlled group). the posttest administered on both groups showed that the experimental group outperformed the controlled group in term of memorizing words’ meaning. the researcher further investigated experimental group’s attitudes towards the technique and finally concluded that the technique of storytelling when perform by learners themselves not only support their long-term retention of vocabulary but further increased their motivation and independence in learning as well. keywords: storytelling, young learners, vocabulary memorization, meanings, learners’ attitudes a case study of the effects of storytelling as a memorizing technique for english vocabulary on young learners nguyen thi huong lan(1); nguyen thi hoang lan(2) (1)(2) viet nam national university ho chi minh city university of social sciences and humanities biodata statement ms. nguyen thi huong lan is a post-graduate student at the university of social sciences and humanities. she has had more than four years experiencing teaching in various educational environments and she is towards the graduation of her master course in tesol. she is fascinated by psycholinguistics and advanced teaching methodology. taking after her sister, ms. nguuyen thi hoang lan shares the similar educational background and professional traits. however, her deep enthusiasm in english language itself has differentiated herself. now, she is working hard in order to reach the finish line of the m.a. course with butterfly results. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 82 of 168 abstract emergency remote teaching (ert) in response to school closures caused by the covid-19 pandemic has largely been discussed in light of the challenges for learners and teachers in public schools, particularly higher education institutions, while very little has been found on how teachers at language schools adapt to this transition. this qualitative study aims to explore the perspective of english language teachers of language schools on what constitutes an effective e-learning environment during social distancing periods in ho chi minh city, viet nam. in-depth interviews with 15 teachers of different levels of experience were conducted using a holistic e-learning framework consisting of eight dimensions: institutional, management, technological, interface design, pedagogical, ethical, resource support and evaluation. in general, results show that the vast majority were sympathetic with their employers during hard times, yet they experienced significant difficulties in adapting content to the technological platform chosen by the school, diversifying student engagement strategies and conducting assessment. the findings also highlight how language schools chose to manage administrative tasks (such as online attendance checking) and academic-related matters (training and observation) proved to be an important factor that could determine the effectiveness of the lessons as well as reducing stress for teachers in terms of their ert experience. the study proposes insightful implications for stakeholders interested in ert in similar contexts. keywords: e-learning, emergency remote teaching, viet nam, language schools, elt teachers perspective of teachers on e-learning at language schools during covid-19 pandemic in viet nam pham ho hai yen hoa sen university yen.phh10545@sinhvien.hoasen.edu.vn biodata statement pham ho hai yen is an english teacher with 3 years of experience in academic english and general english. she is currently pursuing her master’s degree in english linguistics at hoa sen university while teaching full-time at yola, hcmc. she has also been teaching english online for disadvantaged students for eftin – a non-profit english learning project for 2 years. her research interests include computer-assisted language learning (call), classroom engagement and online teaching. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 83 of 168 abstract pronunciation competence has been considered an important factor contributing to the success of foreign language learning as well as real-life communication. language learners possessing effective pronunciation strategies are believed to be able to boost their pronunciation ability. however, numerous efl learners seem to encounter assorted difficulties in adopting pronunciation learning strategies that best fit them. this study explores the most common pronunciation strategies employed by english language majors at hoa sen university. it also investigates the strategies making statistically significant contribution to the prediction of participants’ pronunciation capability. data was collected from 375 learners at hsu through survey questionnaires, in-depth interviews, and group discussions and was analyzed utilizing multiple regression for quantitative data and grounded theory techniques for qualitative one. the findings showed that exposing themselves to real-life english via the media and technological devices, looking up and practicing pronouncing new words to prepare for a talk, and avoiding using unfamiliar words are methods commonly applied by the participants. additionally, using words in contexts, visualizing words, imitating speakers’ mouth movements, rehearsing the talk, noticing the pronunciation mistakes, and seeking help from native speakers are found to be the variables that significantly contribute to the learners’ pronunciation ability. keywords: pronunciation practicing strategies, pronunciation competence, efl learners. the impact of pronunciation practicing strategies on pronunciation competence of vietnamese efl learners ngo thanh(1); tran ngoc tien(2); bien mai(3); phan ngoc uyen(4) (1) hoa sen university thanh.ngothithanh@hoasen.edu.vn (2) hoa sen university tien.tranngoc@hoasen.edu.vn (3) hoa sen university mai.bienthithanh@hoasen.edu.vn (4) hoa sen university uyen.pn1139@sinhvien.hoasen.edu.vn biodata statement dr. tran ngoc tien is currently the director of the english language program at hoa sen university, vietnam. he has nearly 20 years of teaching and conducting scientific researches in the fields of education, culture and language teaching and learning. dr. tran ngoc tien holds two master’s degrees (ritsumeikan asia pacific university (apu), japan, and edith cowan university, australia) and a phd degree of ritsumeikan asia pacific university (apu). in his professional life, dr. tran ngoc tien has gained numerous achievements including japanese government’s monbukagakusho (mext) scholarship for both master’s and doctoral programs. dr. tran ngoc tien has published a number of articles in japan, uk, us, and participated in a number of conferences worldwide. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 84 of 168 abstract the advancement of technological tools has brought about a significant change in the area of education worldwide. in the past few years, teaching and learning are not limited to only traditional class lectures, textbooks or handbooks, various technological tools are incorporated to complement the learning of the lessons. the strategic combination of conventional learning methods with online technologies, known as blended learning, has become influential in such a way that it introduces educators, teachers and students to the ‘new normal’ situation for better teaching and learning experiences. the study aims to explore teachers’ and students’ perceptions about the strengths and limitations of blended learning in tertiary education. it also investigates the way in which blended learning approach can be evaluated in a classroom context. the research was conducted in the department of english of a public university. data were collected from the students and teachers through a survey questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. about 90 students responded to the survey and 15 teachers were interviewed. the findings demonstrate that the best learning outcomes can be achieved through the successful adoption of blended approach. the study also analyzes some of the complications, provides recommendations and future directions regarding blended learning. keywords: blended learning; new normal; online technologies. effectiveness of blended learning: a classroom action research zarin tasnim shahjalal university of science and technology tasnim-eng@sust.edu acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 85 of 168 abstract intonation, a feature of pronunciation which embarks on how an utterance is produced with respect to the notion of accent, stress and the rising/ falling pitch, has always been considered troublesome to learners of the second language owing to its connection to personal emotion. for other feature of pronunciation such as that of an individual sound or word, drill method which requires students to repeatedly pronounce the words seems effective. nonetheless, it is virtually unreasonable to expect that the ability to properly intonate can be shaped using similar approach, for intonation involves the person’s feeling at the moment the utterance is produced. recently, it has drawn great attention from the academia to the investigation of the potential solution. in contribution to the existing research, this paper is to shed light on the impact of shadowing technique with the aid of spoken text features by google translation tool on removing learner’s flat tone as well as achieving basic english intonation in text, provided that the tool is adopted intensively throughout a pre-designed training course. in the study, a pretest-posttest method is employed in one same sample, with pre-scheduled experimental period being the control group and post-training being the treatment group. after 6 weeks of intensive training program following a detailed syllabus, the posttest results, which are computerized using speech analyzer, indicates that the participants benefit from the training in terms of intonation in text as there is a positive difference in scores achieved by the treatment group, benchmarked against the control group. besides, the implementation of spoken texts in google translation tool and speech analyzer software will be further discussed in this study. keywords: intonation, intonation in text, spoken texts, google translate, shadowing technique. improving efl students’ intonation in text using shadowing technique with the implementation of spoken texts via google translate tool nhi le p.(1); linh vu h.m.(2); nhat tran m.(3) (1)(2)(3) hoa sen univeristy, vietnam nhi.lp14923@sinhvien.hoasen.edu.vn acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 86 of 168 abstract teaching and learning online has become not only popular but also obligatory in the current time of the expansion of the coronavirus pandemic all over the world. this fact requires all educational policymakers and school administrators to apply various kinds of online assessments. it is obvious that teaching and testing must be closely consistent. therefore, both teachers and learners have to get used to that online process, particularly, online assessments. in such a situation, this study carried out two questionnaires for 28 teachers and 230 students in different schools in ho chi minh city – viet nam, to answer two main research questions: (i) what are the difficulties and their solutions in online assessment; and (ii) what are the criteria to choose appropriate online assessment tools. the findings of this study may contribute to the theory of using technology in language teaching and suggest practical criteria to choose suitable tools for classroom management in distance learning or online learning. keywords: online assessment tools, language teaching, online learning. criteria to choose online assessment tools for english language teaching tran thi minh phuong ussh-vnuhcmc, vietnam minhphuongtrn@hcmussh.edu.vn biodata statement tran thi minh phuong is a fulltime lecturer at the faculty of english linguistics and literature, university of social sciences and humanities (ussh), vietnam national university, ho chi minh city (vnu-hcmc). she obtained her master degree and doctoral degree in comparative linguistics from ussh-hcmc-vnu and master degree in tesol from victoria university australia. her recent interests are testing and assessment, second language acquisition, applied linguistics, using technology in language teaching. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 87 of 168 abstract for numerous years, the incorporation of technology into the curriculum has transformed language instruction. when there is a move towards e-learning during the covid-19 epidemic, integrating technical advancements into teaching has become more and more crucial. due to recent school closures, teachers have been providing virtual classrooms to students so that they can continue their education. digital game-based learning is one of the approaches that teachers can employ to reinforce online education and engage learners, particularly younger ones. nonetheless, teachers believe applying digital gamebased learning for young learners in a new learning platform to be a difficult undertaking. the aim of the current research is to look into the challenges that teachers encounter when using digital game-based learning in online classrooms. the data was acquired by distributing questionnaires to 32 teachers who teach online programs at various language centers and institutions in ho chi minh city. five of them then shared in-depth thoughts regarding the study through an interview. the findings showed that the implementation of digital game-based learning into virtual classrooms has been hampered by technical issues and inconsistencies in internet connectivity. furthermore, classroom management skills and experience also influenced the efficacy of the digital game-based learning approach. teachers would be given practical advice on how to address these issues. keywords: digital game-based learning, dgbl, difficulties, e-learning, online teaching, virtual classroom teachers’ difficulties in applying digital game-based learning in a virtual classroom thi doan hoang(1); thuy linh phan(2); thuy linh phan(2) ho chi minh university of social sciences and humanities biodata statement we are master’s students in tesol at ho chi minh university of social sciences and humanities. for several years, we have been teaching english skills and areas to students of various ages and levels, gaining valuable teaching expertise. teaching techniques, language assessment, language skills and areas, and e-learning are among our study interests. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 88 of 168 abstract topic “developing vietnamese listening speaking skills for chinese pupils in the first grade in district 5, ho chi minh city during the covid 19 pandemic period” is an important topic that deserves to be researched for education innovation towards competency development in vietnam today. in this article, we use the method of surveying, listing results of listening speaking skills of chinese pupils in the first grade, who are living in district 5, ho chi minh city. next, we enumerate, describe, analyze and synthesize results, cultural conditions and characteristics expressed in these pupils’ ability in listening speaking vietnamese. since then, we offer appropriate teaching and learning methods for these pupils with specific suitable content to improve their vietnamese competency during the covid 19 pandemic period in vietnam. keywords: vietnamese, listening-speaking skills, chinese pupils in the first grade, chinese in district 5 of ho chi minh city, etc. developing vietnamese listening speaking skills for chinese pupils in the first grade in district 5, ho chi minh city during the covid 19 pandemic period tran thi kim tuyen sai gon university ktuyensgu@gmail.com biodata statement tran thi kim tuyen is a lecturer at sai gon university, vietnam. she earned her master and ph.d in linguistics years ago. her research interests are problems with semantics, language characteristics, and language competency development. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 89 of 168 abstract covid-19 pandemic has been causing severe influences on every field, especially education. almost all schools and universities have been changing traditional learning into e-learning as a solution for continuity of academic year during the epidemic. however, the perceptions, the experience or the adaptation of the learners in e-learning are the issues which teachers and educators concern in order to improve the quality of teaching and learning online. as a result, the research was designed to determine changes in students’ perceptions and experience of e-learning at hoa sen university. the study was conducted in two phases, march 2019 (before the covid pandemic) and july 2020 (after the first covid pandemic). notably, 214 participants were involved in the study. data were collected via online questionnaires and then analyzed by both quantitative and qualitative methods. research results showed that students had more positive attitudes towards learning elearning although there were some minor unsatisfactory issues regarding the experience. also, a few suggestions were made for teachers and educators to improve the effectiveness of online teaching during the mass covid outbreak. keywords: perceptions, experience, efl students, e-learning. changes in students’ experience and perceptions towards e-learning at hoa sen university during covid-19 pandemic tran quang hai(1); hoang to thu dung(2) (1)(2) hoa sen univeristy, vietnam hai.tranquang@hoasen.edu.vn biodata statement tran quang hai is currently a lecturer of english at hoa sen university, vietnam. his accumulated experience from working at various e d u c a t i o n a l institutions has equipped him with ample confidence and skills in language teaching. his interests are virtual communities and teaching learning practices. hoang to thu dung is currently an english lecturer at hoa sen university. she has over 15 years in teaching at universities. she earned her ma in tesol at victoria university in 2011. she also got ba in finance and banking in university of economics ho chi minh city. her academic areas of interest include tesol methodology, business english, e-learning and psychology. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 90 of 168 abstract negation structures are a universal field in the study of languages. there have been many studies on the errors of negation structures in terms of grammar. however, we find that there are few studies analyzing errors on semantic and pragmatic aspects. the purpose of this study was to investigate the errors that efl students often make in understanding the english negation structures as well as find out the causes of these errors. notably, 220 students from four universities in ho chi minh city participated in the survey study. data were collected via online questionnaires and then analyzed by both quantitative and qualitative methods. findings showed that efl students made different mistakes in identifying and using negation structures in semantic and pragmatic situations. besides, several recommendations are made regarding the teaching and learning of these structures in efl classrooms. keywords: negation structures, error analysis, efl students. analysis of efl students’ mistakes towards negation structures in english nguyen thuy nuong(1); tran quang hai(2) (1) university of social sciences & humanities, vietnam national university (2) hoa sen univeristy, vietnam hai.tranquang@hoasen.edu.vn biodata statement nguyen thuy nuong is currently a linguistics lecturer and phd’s student at university of social sciences and humanities, vietnam national university ho chi minh city. she has about 10 years experiences in teaching vietnamese, and linguistics. her interests are theoretical linguistics, syntax, vietnamese syntax, vietnamese morphology; semantics and pragmatics, and applied linguistics. tran quang hai is currently a lectin er of english at hoa sen university, vietnam. his accumulated experience from working at various educational institutions has equipped him with ample confidence and skills in language teaching. his interests are virtual communities and teaching learning practices. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 91 of 168 abstract thanks to covid-19 pandemic, efl learners have changed their ways of learning writing skills from traditional offline classroom to online ones. the learners at van lang university faced some challenges in the process of taking online writing courses via microsoft teams. the study aims to investigate the challenges that efl learners at van lang university faced when they learned how to write some kinds of essays such as expository, argumentative, and compare/contrast essay in english online via microsoft teams. there were 101 second-year students from two classes in the study who took midterm tests and turned in their essay assignments for the course of 10 weeks. the findings revealed that they had some problems with social interaction with their teachers and classmates, and they also had some technical problems related to how to submit their assignments and google forms appropriately. the results of the study suggest some implications for teaching writing skills to efl learners online through microsoft teams. keywords: writing skills, efl learners, microsoft teams, online, and social interaction. the challenges of learning efl writing via microsoft teams bui thi kim loan van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam loan.btk@vlu.edu.vn; buithikimloanot@gmail.com biodata statement bui thi kim loan has been a lecturer of english at van lang university, ho chi minh city, vietnam. she has taught english skills, esp, translation, academic writing, sociolinguistics and so forth. her research interests are discourse analysis, genre analysis, efl teaching, call, clil, and sfl. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 92 of 168 abstract with the importance of oral communication skills and digital literacy skills for 21st century learners, there is an increasing tendency to incorporate technology in language learning and teaching. in this trend, pechakucha presentation, a unique, fastpaced format of giving presentations, has recently been advocated for its benefits in developing learners’ oral communication skill in various contexts (angelina, 2019; coskun, 2017; mabuan, 2017). this paper presents a study that explores seven international students’ speaking and listening experiences with pkp activities while completing the english for academic purposes (eap) program in a us university. the study adopted a phenomenological design with semi-structured interviews, artifacts, and observations, utilizing colaizzi’s (1978) data analysis framework to provide a comprehensive description of the participants’ speaking and listening experiences. major findings from the study revealed that (1) the eap students experienced a connection between emotions and englishspeaking skills; (2) these participants’ speaking and listening experiences with pk presenting includes the participants’ descriptions of their cognitive skill development, preferences, and metacognitive awareness; and (3) participants perceived audience as an important factor in presentation decisions. the paper concludes with five most practical teaching strategies emerged from the findings of this study. future research implications are also discussed. keywords: pechakucha presentation, oral communication, phenomenology, eap, esl, speaking, listening. a phenomenological exploration of eap international students’ speaking and listening experience with pechakucha presentations van thi hong le tay nguyen university lthvan@ttn.edu.vn biodata statement dr. van thi hong le is a seasoned english lecturer of tay nguyen university, vietnam. she has been actively involved in national and international tesol organizations. her research interests involve strength-based teaching, curriculum design, translation and interpretation, oral communication, instructional technology, and second/ foreign language teacher education. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 93 of 168 abstract the outbreak of covid-19 has forced the educational institutions to initiate online teaching to maintain the process of students learning at all levels. this paper focuses on the online education at saigon university, ho chi minh city, vietnam during which the local government has been mandating social distancing in most of the regions. this paper aims to investigate the students’ attitudes on using online learning tools which are comprised of learning management systems (moodle and digital support for core materials) via virtual classrooms (google meet). a survey questionnaire was designed to evaluate attitudes towards using the above online teaching and learning package from 312 participants who are non-english major undergraduates having taken part in general english courses at saigon university in july, 2021. the results indicate that a majority of students show favorable attitudes towards online education; in the meantime, health and social issues also concern their learning process. some recommendations are also offered for improving the process efficiency of online education at saigon university. since the study focused on non-english major college students, it is hoped to have particular relevance to other institutions of higher education. keywords: attitudes, covid-19 pandemic, higher education, non-english major students, online education, saigon university. online education at saigon university during the covid-19 pandemic: a survey on non-english major students’ attitudes tran the phi(1); nguyen trinh to anh(2) saigon university biodata statement 1. mr. tran the phi (ph.d): � dean, foreign languages faculty, saigon university, vietnam � skills taught: english linguistics, teaching methodology, reading and writing skills, research writing skill � research interests: english teaching methodology and cognitive linguistics, especially cognitive semantics � 20 years’ experience in teaching general english and teaching esp to undergraduates and postgraduates. 2. ms. nguyen trinh to anh (m.a.) � english lecturer, foreign languages faculty, saigon university, vietnam � skills taught: general english and english for specific purposes (esp) � research interests: teaching methodology for efl and esp, online teaching and blended learning � 7 years’ experience in teaching general english to undergraduates. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 94 of 168 abstract in vietnamese, negation operators such as “đâu”, “mà” “gì” “nào”, etc. and their combinations can give rise to two opposite meanings in denial, question and negation structures. however, previous studies on these operators in vietnamese mainly focused on two aspects of pragmatics and semantics; almost none of them mentioned the element of metalinguistic function. therefore, this study aimed to differentiate the metalinguistic function of negation operators in their description, truth-condition, truth-function capacity, resolving the ambiguity in neg structures (neg raises), denial structures, semantic/pragmatic notions in vietnamese negative or denial sentences. based on the available theoretical framework along with the related corpus survey, the research results showed that the features of metalinguistic negation (mn) and mn’s speech-act in vietnamese were thoroughly explained. keywords: metalinguistic negation, negation operator, vietnamese negative sentence, vietnamese denial sentence. a case study of metalinguistic negation operators in vietnamese nguyen thuy nuong university of social sciences & humanities, vietnam national university -hcm city biodata statement nguyen thuy nuong is currently a linguistics lecturer and phd’s student at university of social sciences and humanities, vietnam national university ho chi minh city. she has about 10 years experiences in teaching vietnamese, and linguistics. her interests are theoretical linguistics, syntax, vietnamese syntax, vietnamese morphology; semantics and pragmatics, and applied linguistics. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 95 of 168 abstract today, thanks to the rapid development of technology, teaching is more diverse than ever, including online teaching. in the context of the covid-19 epidemic, online teaching has been widely deployed, especially at the higher education level. to contribute to improving the training quality of this form of teaching, we conduct an analysis of student’s willingness to participate in online learning. the sociological investigation method was carried out through an online survey of hue university students. the survey results show that the level of interest in this form of learning is not high (accounting for 16% of the survey samples) and students’ commitment to this activity is very low (1% of the sample) . at the same time, different groups of student in terms of academic ability, majors… have different level of readiness to learn online. form the survey results we can predict that current online teaching activities are unlikely to be highly effective. simultaneously, higher education institutions in general and lecturers, in particular need to pay attention to solutions to improve students’ learning interest and commitment when implementing online teaching. keywords: online learning, learning willingness, learning commitment and interest an analysis on the willingness of students to participate in online learning at hue university nguyen ha quynh nhu(1); pham do van trung(2); nguyen ha quynh giao(3) (1) hue university (2) ho chi minh city university of education (hcmue) (3) sai gon university biodata statement *nguyen ha quynh nhu is a lecturer of english. master of english teaching methodology in 2004 at hue university. she has been teaching at faculty of english for specific purposes, college of foreign language, hue university. her research interest is on elt methodology. ** pham do van trung is a lecturer of geography at the ho chi minh city university of education (hcmue). he received a doctor’s degree in geography from hcmue, viet nam. he is interested in social studies and education. *** nguyen ha quynh giao is a lecturer of geography. she works at faculty of social science pedagogy, sai gon university, viet nam. she am a geography doctor. her major is socio-economic geography and has been teaching for 15 years. she is very interested in social studies, tourism, urbanization and education. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 96 of 168 abstract this research paper aims to determine the effect of advertisements as prompts for oral proficiency workshop of preservice teachers using the pretest-posttest quasiexperimental design. the participants of this study were thirty (30) sophomore preservice teachers of west visayas state university who were match-paired and equally divided into two groups: group a underwent the workshop with tv ads as prompts while group b underwent the same workshop with print ads as prompts, both using validated workshop plans. in conducting the study, the researchers designed a workshop integrating advertisements as prompts and various activities to facilitate language learning and development. the statistical tools used to compare and analyze the participants’ oral proficiency scores were mean, standard deviation, mann-whitney u test for independent samples, and the wilcoxonsigned ranks test. the results found out that the use of advertisements-both tv ads and prints ads-as prompts in the workshop was effective for it significantly improved the two groups’ proficiency scores with the group given the tv ads as prompts having the higher mean score. more than just ads: prompts for oral proficiency workshop of pre-service teachers esperval cezhar h. cadiao(1); glysa marie regidor(2); nhessa mar cataloctocan(3); ronith dianne coo(4); ivy sabandal(5) (1) university of st. la salle bacolod, philippines (2) senior high school, philippines (3)(4) junior high school, philippines biodata statement esperval cezhar h. cadiao is a student taking doctor of philosophy in applied linguistics at the university of st. la salle bacolod, philippines. for the time being, he works as a private english teacher of students and professionals. his research interests are english grammar, language teaching, and applied linguistics. glysa marie regidor is an english teacher at the department of education in the philippines. she teaches language and literature to senior high school students. her research interests are language planning and policy, language, and literature. nhessa mar cataloctocan is an english teacher at the department of education in the philippines. she teaches english to junior high school students. she also writes modules for writing and speaking classes. her research interests are language teaching and language assessment. ronith dianne coo is an english teacher at the department of education in the philippines. she teaches english to junior high school students. she also mentors young campus journalists. she is a trainer for writing and journalism. her research interests are language skills, journalism, and educational technology. ivy sabandal is an english teacher at the department of education in the philippines. she teaches english to grade 7 students. she focuses on reading and writing. her research interests are reading assessment, language skills, and pedagogy on teaching writing. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 97 of 168 abstract english is the language of the world that is used most extensively. by learning and speaking english well, we can understand knowledge and information around the world. the purpose of this study is to determine the students’ anxiety, attitude and their motivation in learning english based on different aspects. environment is considered a complex set of social, cultural, political, geographical and biological, conditions that surrounds an individual and determines his/her performance. the purpose of this paper is to study the influence of the different factors on english learning. these factors can help english learners to study english better and improve their english in every field. samples for this research comprise students from the saudi arabian colleges. the findings of this study showed that the saudi students have a moderate level of anxiety in learning english and are motivated towards learning english in order to compete with the world. they want to know the rules and the techniques that can make them a better learner but there are certain faults that hamper them. so, in order to improve the attitude and motivation among students we should certain measures in teaching english as a second language. keywords: anxiety, attitude, motivation, environment, physical, family, social, society, emotional, mental. factors affecting attitude and motivation of saudi arabic students in learning english as a second language tawhida akhter department of english; college of sciences and language sajjir; shaqra university, kingdom of saudi arabia lthvan@ttn.edu.vn acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 98 of 168 abstract online learning has increasingly become popular in nearly all levels of educational systems in vietnam and other countries during the covid-19 pandemic. previous studies indicated students showed a lack of interest, and confidence to interact with a teacher and peers in an online english classroom. however, few studies have been conducted to investigate how to increase student talk time in the online english classroom. therefore, the present study aims to find out students’ problems in the online classroom and suggest effective activities to maximize student talk time. one hundred twenty first-year english non-major students taking a 12-week online course at the hcmc university of information technology participated in this study. the study collected and will analyze quantitative data from the questionnaires through spss 25.0 software and qualitative data from the interview with ten students through thematic analysis. the results of the study will be discussed after the process of data analysis and recommendations will be listed. keywords: activities, students’ problems, student talk time activities to increase student talk time in the online english classroom nguyen tan loi hcmc open university in vietnam nguyentanloi2802@gmail.com biodata statement nguyen tan loi obtained master of arts degree in tesol at hcmc open university in vietnam and has had teaching experiences in higher education for over 3 years. he is particularly interested in teaching methodology. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 99 of 168 abstract in order to standardize students’ english ability, hoa sen university sets an english-language graduation criterion at the b1 level on the common european framework of reference (cefr) for non-english major students. among the standardized tests, aptis is selected at hoa sen university because the exam is developed by british council experts in language testing and underpinned by the latest research in assessment. however, achieving satisfactory scores on aptis tests before graduation is always a challenge for students. within the limit of the research paper, the article aimed to find out the problems that students often encounter when performing two skills of listening and reading. the participants were 80 non-english major students participating in the aptis preparation courses in the summer semester of 2021. two online questionnaires were conducted, the first was after the pre-test and the second immediately after the post-test. data were analysed to find average value, percentage, and standard deviation. the results indicated although the students had problems with the aptis pre-test at a high level in every area, the figures decreased markedly after the post-test. besides, students also thought that the courses helped them improve vocabulary, grammar and build up confidence. keywords: non-english major students, problems, aptis listening, aptis reading. an investigation into non-english major students’ problems in taking aptis listening and reading tran quang hai hoa sen univeristy, vietnam hai.tranquang@hoasen.edu.vn biodata statement tran quang hai is currently a lectin er of english at hoa sen university, vietnam. his accumulated experience from working at various educational institutions has equipped him with ample confidence and skills in language teaching. his interests are virtual communities and teaching learning practices. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 100 of 168 abstract university of education in general and geography education branch in particular, are facing great challenges. content-oriented education has been gradually replacing by competency-oriented education. therefore, developing the competency of geography education students is the fundamental requirement in the mission of improving the quality of training. in the context of the industrial revolution 4.0, data sources from the internet make the curriculum open, flexible, and up-to-update. so the internet data–bassed tasks are very useful in geography teaching and learning. to proactively stimulate thinking activities, these tasks have a variety of cognitive levels. each task includes a problem situation. we have designed cognitive tasks on topics: economic development resources, migration, hydropower, transportation,... these tasks were experimented with in teaching the socio-economic geography of viet nam part 1, at faculty of geography, ho chi minh city university of pedagogy. the students that took part in the experiment gave their feedback via questionnaire, discussion, and a semi-structured interview. the majority of students highly agreed on the effectiveness of the cognitive tasks and they intend to design and apply these same types of tasks in teaching geography in the future. keywords: competency, cognitive task, geography education student, internet data, problem situation. improving the competency of geography education students through using internet data-based cognitive tasks pham do van trung(1); nguyen ha quynh giao(2); nguyen ha quynh nhu(3) (1) ho chi minh city university of education (hcmue), vietnam (2) sai gon university, vietnam (2) hue university biodata statement * pham do van trung is a lecturer of geography at the ho chi minh city university of education (hcmue). he received a doctor’s degree in geography from hcmue, viet nam. he is interested in social studies and education. ** nguyen ha quynh giao is a lecturer of geography. she works at faculty of social science pedagogy, sai gon university, viet nam. she am a geography doctor. her major is socio-economic geography and has been teaching for 15 years. she is very interested in social studies, tourism, urbanization and education. ***nguyen ha quynh nhu is a lecturer of english. master of english teaching methodology in 2004 at hue university. she has been teaching at faculty of english for specific purposes, college of foreign language, hue university. her research interest is on elt methodology. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 101 of 168 abstract the covid-19 pandemic has disrupted educational dynamics worldwide, with pervasive isolation, online learning, and changed communication patterns. the unexpected shift in teaching and learning mode has rendered students in great challenge of maintaining motivation during this turbulent time, leading to reported increasing dropout rate in many higher education institutions. taking cognizance of this, this study aimed to investigate the constructs of resilience, motivation,and demotivation, and explore their structural relationships among students adopting online distance learning. a total of 345 undergraduates at a vietnam’s university participated in an online questionnaire survey. the collected data were analyzed by means of factor analysis and structural equation modeling analysis (sem). results of the study revealed five independent resilience factors (metacognitive adaptation, perseverance, optimism, communicative efficacy, and life satisfaction), four motivation factors (instrumental motivation, familial support, teacher support, and ideal l2 self), and five demotivation factors (unsupportive teachers, unsupportive parents, perceived stress, unsupportive learning environment, and lack of peer support). as regards the structural relationships, the direct impact of resilience on motivation factors was stronger than demotivation factors, especially for metacognitive adaptation and perseverance. the findings indicated that building resilience is significant in sustaining motivation, yet it may be not enough to prevent demotivation among learners in this turbulent time. keywords: resilience, motivation, demotivation, higher education, covid-19 resilience, motivation, and demotivation in online learning during turbulent time: a case study among efl university students in vietnam trang pham van lang university trang.ptt@vlu.edu.vn acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 102 of 168 abstract this research aims at investigating teachers’ exploitation of textbook images in english language teaching as well as their training experiences of textbook image exploitation. this is a mixed method study that uses three main instruments including survey questionnaire, interview and classroom observation to collect data from 276 english language teachers who are currently teaching english in different public schools in vietnam. it was discovered that even though teachers highly valued textbook images, they did not seem to fully realize the instructive impacts of the resource, which may result from their lack of training in visual literacy instruction. this explains why textbook images seemed to be employed purely to teach vocabulary in the pre-teaching stage of the lesson, and mostly ideational meaning was employed while interpersonal and textual meanings were neglected. keywords: visual literacy, textbook images, english language teaching deploying textbook images in english language teaching nguyen thi thuong vnu university of languages and international studies, vietnam biodata statement nguyen thi thuong (m.a) is currently teaching english language in vnu university of languages and international studies, vietnam. her research interests include syllabus design, teaching material development and teacher training. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 103 of 168 abstract the covid-19 pandemic has called for a shift in the teaching and learning landscape from the conventional classes towards e-learning. this propels the use of a range of online learning and distance learning platforms massively, notably ms teams, zoom us, and google classroom. however, the fact that the aforementioned require monetary subscription to unlock their full potential proves detrimental to the accessibility to education during the pandemic, i.e., not all students and/ or educational institutions have the available means. this paper thus seeks to affirm the capability of discord as an alternative online learning platform that is not only efficient in its own right, but also comes at no expense. to this end, a handful of english teachers who had been teaching online via either of the three platforms above were offered to switch to discord for a fixed amount of time. they received instructions and support from the research team concerning the platform along the way, and were asked to participate in a survey afterwards. with the use of spss for statistical data analysis, the paper pointed out that discord achieved a high compatibility level for both parties in use, namely the teachers and the students. keywords: e-learning, distance learning, online learning, conferencing software, discord. teachers’ feedback on using discord as an online learning platform uong tran gia tri(1); nguyen duy khoi(2); nguyen huu nhon(3) (1) university of social sciences and humanities – vietnam national university hcmc uongtrangiatri@gmail.com (2) university of social sciences and humanities – vietnam national university hcmc (3) hcmc open university biodata statement tri tran gia uong is a m.a. student in the tesol program by hcmussh and the co-founder of c-plus english – an educational project based in hcmc whose target demographic is teenagers wishing to learn academic english. as a technophile himself, he loves exploring meaningful applications of technology into his teaching. khoi duy nguyen is an aspiring m.a. in tesol program student at hcmussh as well as a core teacher at ipp education and language link vietnam, both of which specialize in teaching for the ielts certificate. as a veteran educator, he is famous for his unorthodox approach to english pedagogy. nhon huu nguyen is currently participating in the m.a. program organized by the open university. apart from his professional development, he is concurrently working at weset english center, addressing his learners’ needs in terms of ielts and honing his teaching quality. his main interests are primarily concerned with elt. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 104 of 168 abstract although previous studies have examined the impact of self and peer assessment on second language students’ writing development, there has been little discussion on issues regarding students anxiety with grading in self and peer-assessment activities. by interviewing four english-as-a-foreign-language (efl) writing teachers and surveying eighty-four efl learners of a university in vietnam, the mixed-method study found that students had a low level of anxiety when evaluating their works and their peers. the findings also highlighted that the implementation of self and peer assessment contributed substantial benefits for students’ language learning but it is particularly more effective when used to give and receive feedback, compared to give and receive grades. both teachers and students believe that students are not objective enough when grading themselves and others. on the basis of the findings, the study suggested that providing detailed rubrics and training students to assess writing tasks are necessary to reduce students’ anxiety and improve the accuracy and reliability of self and peer assessment. keywords: self and peer assessment, anxiety, grading the impact of grading anxiety on efl students’ self and peer assessment: the case of vietnam trang phan van lang university, vietnam thuytrangdhv@gmail.com biodata statement phan thi thuy trang, lecturer in tesol, foreign languages faculty, van lang university, has been working at van lang university since 2019 as a lecturer of the faculty of foreign languages. she obtained a bachelor’s degree in english from vinh university and a master’s degree in tesol from university of huddersfield, england. she is interested in testing, evaluation and assessment and they remain as her key research areas. phone: 098 200 2346 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 105 of 168 abstract this research uses narrative inquiry approach to explore the teaching and assessment practice of lecturers working in one university in the northern part of vietnam. to collect data, the research has adapted the tree of life activity (ncube, 2006) as a narrative frame enabling the teachers to reflect on and share their stories about their assessment practice as well as the world in which they live and work. the theoretical framework is grounded on socioconstructivism, dewey’s notion of experience, and clandinin & connelly’s (1990) three-dimensional space of narrative inquiry while the conceptual framework is based on xu & brown’s (2016) framework of teacher assessment literacy in practice and looney et al.’s (2017) reconceptualization of teacher assessment identity. this in-progress report presents the findings and discussion of emerged themes based on the preliminary data analysis conducted on the narratives of one out of five participants. the findings underscore the dynamic nature of language teacher identities including their assessment identities, highlight the role the working context plays in shaping these identities, and illustrate how teacher assessment identities influence their assessment practice. keywords: teacher assessment identity, narrative inquiry, socio-constructivism constructing teacher assessment identity through narratives of university efl teachers in vietnam thi bich nguyen dao hanoi national unviversity of education nguyendb@hnue.edu.vn biodata statement dao thi bich nguyen is a lecturer at the faculty of english, hanoi national university of education, vietnam. she is currently doing her phd at hanoi university. her research interests include language testing and assessment, language teacher identity and teacher assessment identity. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 106 of 168 abstract the shift from ‘content focus to learner focus’ allows the teachers to include meaningful activities in their class which creates better learning solutions. the present study seeks to identify ways to advance a culture of learning continuum in higher education as an innovative teaching strategy with the appropriate use of a blended learning approach helping the teachers to design teaching and learning activities and the students to progress along the continuum. the paper describes a conceptual framework and the implementation of the learning continuum of a skillbased paper in a blended mode. the paper discusses an array of technological solutions, resources and assessment methods, relevant for the course and the student’s specific context. the conceptual framework is tested in a skill-based paper ‘written communication and analysis’ in an mba programme in odisha in the first year of their study involving instruction in both offline and online mode. the paper assesses the student’s experience and perception on the blended learning approach from the results drawn from an online survey. research findings suggest that the implementation of the learning continuum in a blended mode enables the creation of active learning environments and the student’s development in their writing skills. the results from the survey point towards exploring the present status of blended learning in higher education in india. keywords: learning, continuum, blended learning, written communication skill learning continuum in a blended mode: a case of a skill-based course prajna pani(1); anubha ray(2) (1) centurion university of technology and management drprajnapani@gmail.com (2) birla global university anubha.ray@bgu.ac.in biodata statement dr. anubha ray has been disseminating her knowledge to graduate & post-graduate students for the last 25 years, serving under different universities in odisha, india. she is currently engaged as an associate professor & area head of english & business communication at birla global university, bhubaneswar. besides being an active researcher in the discipline of communication, american literature, gender, translation studies and postcolonial studies, she has been an active elt practitioner. she has guided doctoral students in the areas of elt and business communication. she has published research papers in many reputed journals of national and international repute. dr. ray is the author of the book “the women in the novels of f. scott fitzgerald: voice unheard” available on amazon and edited a book with the title “ language, literature & diversity”. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 107 of 168 abstract collocation is ‘an important organizing principle in the vocabulary of any language’ (mccarthy, 1990:12). the study was intended to examine the effect of concordancing and scaffolding provided by teachers in developing learners’ knowledge of lexical collocations. quasi-experimental research design was adopted to assess two comparable groups of english learners’ knowledge of lexical collocations in three aspects: (1) identifying (mis) collocations, (2) recognizing collocational patterns from suggested options, and (3) providing collocational patterns of their own choice. regarding the students’ ability to identify (mis) collocations and to recognize collocational patterns, the study revealed that concordancing significantly improved their score while teacher’s scaffolding without concordancing had no considerable impact. concerning the students’ ability to provide their own collocations, both concordancing and scaffolding were found to have a significant effect on the students’ performance. the study therefore discusses the importance of introducing a concordancer to promote learners’ independence in learning collocations. scaffolding is also argued to be equally important especially when a concordancer is first introduced to students. concordancing should be considered as a long-term task for learners in their development of collocation knowledge while scaffolding is temporary in its nature. both concordancing and scaffolding can therefore be regarded as co-supporters in helping learners eventually take charge of learning collocations by themselves. keywords: collocation, concordancing, scaffolding learning lexical collocations with concordancing and teacher’s scaffolding le thanh ha hanoi national university of education, vietnam halt@hnue.edu.vn biodata statement le thanh ha is a lecturer, a teacher trainer, and educational researcher at hanoi national university of education, vietnam. she obtained her ma degrees in english linguistics and in tefl. her interests include teacher education, call, and second language acquisition. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 108 of 168 abstract there are remarkable breakthroughs in icts which deliver abuntdant opportunities to educational stakeholders, especically those in the english learning and teaching (elt) in order to enhance the profesional development as well as the second lanaguge acquisition. however, the drastic digital emergence requires english teachers to adopt and adapt to intergrate into the real classroom practices. yet, these technological advances also shift the english teachers’ roles in several areas of the world. the current study aims to examine students’ perspectives on the roles of efl teachers in indonesia, thailand, and vietnam in the ict time. there are 1250 respondents from highchools and secondary schools in the study. the quantitative research is employed. this paper completes by discussing the roles of english teachers from students’ viewpoints and providing suggestions for pedagogical implications for the efl instruction in the asean region. keywords: ict, elt, efl, teachers’ roles, asean english language education in the digital age: the roles of efl teachers from students’ perspectives: a case study from indonesia,thailand, and vietnam phan thi kim thao(1); mai van ket(2); mulyaty(3); patlada wongyotha(4); payupol suthathothon(5) acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 109 of 168 abstract this prior-study aimed to using online micro-game based language learning materials enhanced vocational college students’ esp english learning performances. the research methodology applied mix ture approach including quality and quantity. there are four vocational college students that majored in nursing as research participants. the research data would collect and analyse from (1) the pre and post-test of esp english. (2) the semi-structured student online answering feedback sheet of esp english (3) the semistructured interviewing of esp english expert teacher. the research results were as following: first, the results of the posttest which was better than pre-test, it meant students used online micro-game based language learning materials could affect their esp english learning achievement performance becoming better than before. second, the results of the semistructured student online answering feedback sheet, it shown most of students could use the online micro game based language learning materials to increase their motivation and confidence to answer the questions correctly by receiving “game points”. especially, students also could spend less responding time to answer questions effectively under time limiting situation. third, the results of semi-structured expert teachers’ interviewing, it shown most of expert teachers thought these online materials could facilitate students’esp english meta-cognitive learning performances effectively. keywords: micro-gamebased, vocational college students, learning material, game points, esp english prior-study on using on linemicrogame based language learning material senhanced vocational college students’esp english learning performances cheng-yu tsai doctoral student, doctoral program, foresight educational leadership and technology management,department of education and futures design,tamkang university, new taipei city lecturer, department of applied foreign languages, chien hsin university, taoyuan city, taiwan puth1212@gmail.com biodata statement i am tsai cheng-yu from taiwan (r.o.c). my affiliation is the doctoral student in the doctoral program, foresight educational leadership and technology management, in the tamkang universityandi am alsoa college englishlecturer in the chien hsin university. my majorprofessions are 1. esp, 2. calland 3. education technology. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 110 of 168 abstract revision after each lesson plays an essential role in enhancing learners’ english level although it is sometimes neglected by students at tertiary education level. acknowledging learners’ difficulty in reviewing major learning points and their low expectation in classes of writing skill, i decided to apply a technique called “summary cards” to assist students grasp the main points and logically connect their lessons for the whole picture of the subject. the act also aims at helping review for the final exam when students have to deal with a huge amount of knowledge in order to meet the requirements. furthermore, a small act of the “summary card” was utilized to assist students to set their learning goals and gain their expectation and motivation, which was supposed to help improve both their level of writing and their attitudes towards learning writing skill. after a 10-week course using “summary cards”, a class of 36 freshmen at a university showed positive attitudes towards the new measure introduced. it is possible in the future that they apply this new measure in other courses which require them to memorize various learning points. keywords: self-review, learning expectation. helping language learners self-review learning points and gain learning expectation le thi trung dinh van lang university stephanie.22391@gmail.com biodata statement le thi trung dinh, m.a., is currently a lecturer in foreign language department of van lang university in ho chi minh city, vietnam. she has 7-year experience in teaching language skills for students and adults. her main research interests involve teaching language skills, culture and language, linguistics and learners’ motivation. she can be contacted via email dinh.ltt@vlu.edu.vn. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 111 of 168 abstract employability is one of many personal outcomes of university education in vietnam, and so the ability to compose a curriculum vitae (cv) in the english language is a desired outcome for business-majored students. such writing process frequently occurs outside of a formal learning setting, few attempts to study the phenomenon has been made. through the lens of the activity system, the paper analyses the influence of six components in a cv writing process from a social-constructivist approach. a mixedmethod approach was adopted with a 5-likert survey with openended questions and semi-structured interviews. quantitative data from 184 participants reveals that students were mostly influenced by various digital artefacts (e.g. online dictionary, online courses) and situated online communities of learning. qualitative results also indicate the prominent challenges relating syntax and lexical use as one of the conflicting factors and a certain level of autonomy as a facilitating factor while they managed to overcome these complications. the paper also suggests how curriculum of business english could be adapted to support language learners in real-life employment situations. keywords: self-regulated learning, writing, learner autonomy, english for specific purposes using activity theory to understand students’ opportunities and challenges in a curriculum vitae writing process le thanh ha(1); vu phuong hong ngoc(2) (1) foreign trade university, hochiminh campus lethanhha.cs2@ftu.edu.vn (1) foreign trade university, hochiminh campus vuphuonghongngoc.cs2@ftu.edu.vn biodata statement lê thanh hà (m.ed) mobile: 094 889 5666 ha thanh, le has shown great commitment in the field of english language teaching and education with a master in education in university of hull, uk. ha is an english lecturer at foreign trade university, hochiminh campus. her interest includes technology-infused learning, task-based language teaching, and students’ motivation and engagement. vũ phương hồng ngọc (m.ed in tesol) mobile: 093 603 0280 ngoc vu holds a master degree of education majoring in tesol, and she’s currently teaching english at foreign trade university – ho chi minh city campus. her areas of interest include: it application in foreign language teaching, intercultural communication, task-based learning and teaching. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 112 of 168 abstract mobile learning (m-learning) appears as the significant breakthrough of technological revolution 4.0. among the sharp development of modern technology, it has been seen that the exponential expansion of mobile devices accompanied their smart functions to support learners’ learning everywhere and every time. thus, mobile-assisted language learning (mall) has been believed to serve learners’ english knowledge. although learning through mobile devices is expected to apply appropriately to teaching and learning, students’ attitudes towards using mobile devices for learning under wireless networks need to be assessed seriously. this writing is to present efl learners’ behaviors and awareness on the use of mobile devices in english learning at a university in vietnam through a survey on 100 university efl students by a questionnaire including 13 english-vietnamese statements within 20 minutes. the survey lasted two weeks in the first semester of the school year 2019-2020. the quantitative approach was used to collect data which were analyzed by spss version 20. the findings on the one hand showed that students have positive attitudes towards using mobile technology in english learning. on the other hand, mobile learning applications in the future at the current university were able to be accepted firmly. keywords: attitudes, mobile learning, mobile devices, mall, efl students. efl students’ attitudes towards the ease of use mobile technology to learn english at a university in vietnam nguyen ngoc vu(1); vo thuy linh(2) (1) hoasen university, ho chi minh city, vietnam vu.nguyenngoc@hoasen.edu.vn (2) saigon university, ho chi minh city, vietnam vtlinh@sgu.edu.vn biodata statement nguyen ngoc vu is vice president of hoa sen university and chairman of stesol founded by association of vietnam universities and colleges. with training experience from more than 25 countries, his main expertise is building digital transformation competency and providing consultation service to higher education institutions and businesses across vietnam. he won vietnam technology innovation award in 2012 and got recognized as microsoft innovative educator (mie) master trainer in 2014. his research interests include computer assisted language learning, cognitive linguistics, educational technology, and elt methodology. vo thuy linh works as an english teacher in sai gon university, ho chi minh city, vietnam. she is currently a master of tesol and is participating higher education for doctorate program at university of foreign languages, hue university. her research interests are teaching english pronunciation and using technologies in teaching languages, especially, mobile learning which she is investigating for her docteral thesis. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 113 of 168 abstract among the breakthrough of modern technology 4.0, mobile devices have been seen as convenient tools accompanied their smart functions to support learners’ learning wherever and whenever. with support from mobile-assisted language learning (mall), english knowledge has been expected to be acquired well. this paper was to describe the experimental of efl learners’ pronunciation learning to enhance their pronunciation via mobile devices in a wireless environment. one hundred university efl students were chosen as the experimental group and the same numbers of others were grouped as the control one. two groups were experienced pre and post-test that gave the experimental results through the scores compared by spss to find how different the two groups are. later, the quantitative approach was utilized to collect data from the questionnaire with 10 english-vietnamese statements within 15 minutes was completed by the experimental group to obtain the participants’ attitudes and evaluation about mobile learning. research findings revealed that efl students’ pronunciation was significantly improved after experimental on wireless mobile devices. moreover, the learners held constructive assessments as well as positive attitudes towards using mobile technology in their pronunciation learning. mobile learning applications was strongly approval from users’ perceptions to practice. keywords: pronunciation, attitudes, mobile learning, mall, efl students. impact of mobile technology in efl students’ pronunciation learning at a university in vietnam: from perception to practice vo van loc(1); vo thuy linh(2) (1)(2) saigon university, ho chi minh city, vietnam vtlinh@sgu.edu.vn biodata statement vo thuy linh works as an english teacher in sai gon university, ho chi minh city, vietnam. she is currently a master of tesol and is participating higher education for doctorate program at university of foreign languages, hue university. her research interests are teaching english pronunciation and using technologies in teaching languages, especially, mobile learning which she is investigating for her docteral thesis. orcid id: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5837-9696 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 114 of 168 abstract vietnam’s higher education has experienced considerable changes due to the effects of covid-19 pandemic. when schools are closed, online classes become the inevitable mode of teaching and information technology shows its indispensable roles. in response to significant challenges, not only do teachers have to upgrade themselves with new teaching forms and techniques, but students also need to adapt to a new remote learning environment. classes occur outside the classroom and only via a computer screen, which means many difficulties faced by the teachers in giving good lectures and promoting students’ active learning. different tactics have been used to deal with these arising problems, and they have brought both positive and negative results. this study is aimed to investigate strategies that english teachers at thuongmai university have been employing to improve students’ autonomy in their online courses and the results they have achieved. to collect data for the study, five english teachers and fifty first-year non-english major students in thuongmai university are invited as participants while questionnaires and interviews are used as main data collection tools. keywords: online classes, thuongmai university, students’ autonomy, strategies. promoting students’ autonomy in online classes: a study on firstyear non-english major students in thuongmai university pham thi tuan thuongmai university tuan.pt@tmu.edu.vn biodata statement pham thi tuan is currently an english teacher at english faculty, thuongmai university, vietnam. she has been teaching for 7 years, and she has been in charge of courses of general english, english linguistics and english culture. her students include both english majors and nonenglish ones. her research interests are english language teaching and english theories. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 115 of 168 abstract because of the wide specialization demanded by our job markets, crossdisciplinarity is growing more and more important. language teaching, therefore, has to conform to what the society demands from professional occupations: a crossdisciplinary role with a result-oriented focus to keep up with the fact that leading sciences nowadays proceed by solving complex problems cutting across disciplines. moreover, there are permanently language barriers and cognitive differences between languages, cultures and disciplines which have caused difficulties for learners and teachers. thus, we suggest using techniques, principles and models of cognitive linguistics to handle the problems within cross-disciplinary contexts because in cognitive linguistics, a linguistic term does not exist exclusively from its syntagmatic or paradigmatic relations with others, but also culture-based and conventionalized background knowledge. cognitive linguistics has integrated linguistic, psychological, philosophical, neurological, computer science, anthropological and historical advances. therefore, a cognitive approach provides suitable theoretical techniques to the teaching practice. from the research, we have gained four principles for language teaching and applications in teaching vocabulary, teaching prepositions and teaching clauses. this approach combines traditional methods with modern ones as problem solving, case study, etc. which aims at high practicality, maximum time savings but the most effective and practical applications. keywords: cross-disciplinary, integrated, language teaching, cognitive linguistics, cognitive approach. cross-disciplinary language teaching nguyen hoang phuong university of social sciences and humanities, vietnam national university – hochiminh city ling.dr.phuong@gmail.com biodata statement nguyen hoang phuong, phd. is a lecturer at university of social sciences and humanities, vietnam national university – hochiminh city, vietnam. my majors for teaching and research are linguistics, english, vietnamese for foreigners. i’ve been teaching for many universities in vietnam and a visiting lecturer at chungwoon university, korea. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 116 of 168 abstract the purpose of this study is to get feedback from teachers about the “friends plus” – an english textbook compiled under the general education program 2018 of the vietnam ministry of education and training. the “friends plus” is introduced to 6th-grade students from the school year 2021-2022. the participants of the study consisted of 25 english teachers, they have thoroughly researched the curriculum and have undergone 5 professional training sessions from oxford university press and 1 training session on book introduction from viet nam education publishing house limited company. through the survey, the teachers will have feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of the book, from which the material’s developers will continue to modify and improve other english textbooks for students from grade 7 to grade 12. overall, the results of the study indicated that teachers’ evaluations of textbooks were very positive. however, there are still some points that need to be made to improve the quality of the material. keywords: evaluation, “friends plus”, english textbook, general education program 2018 the evaluation of english textbook “friends plus” from teachers’ perspectives author acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 117 of 168 abstract the implementation of peer assessment has spurred a notable interest among scholars in the field of language education and academic writing in particular. peer assessment provides the opportunities for learners to review the products of their mates and reflect to improve the personal language performance. teaching writing has long been considered to require the complexity of cognitive and critical development from learners to tackle a range of barriers for both learners and teachers such as time constraint, the large class size, and the lack of personalisation on learners’ progress. the current context of covid-19 pandemic has fostered the need for online peer assessment in teaching writing to elevate the intensity of acquisition and mitigate the apparent limitation of online learning for such productive skill. this paper attempts to investigate the learners’ perspective towards the chances and challenges of online peer assessment in writing classes of private centers. the study is conducted on 50 intermediate learners at a private center in vietnam via the questionnaire and semistructured interview. the findings of the study reveals that learners showed positive attitudes towards online peer assessment in writing for convenience, personal reflection, peer discussion, autonomy, and critical analysis but they had to deal with certain challenges such as personal inability to conduct the peer review, the subjectivity in assessment, and the lack of appropriate recommendation. keywords: online peer assessment; reflection; autonomy; writing performance. learners’ perspectives towards online peer assessment in academic writing: chance and challenge tri minh nguyen(1); nguyen kim phuong(2) the v language; saigon isb banking university tringuyen.eling@gmail.com biodata statement main author: tri minh nguyen is currently an academic director at the v language and he is also a co-founder of ptg tesol. he studies master of education at edith cowan university, australia. he is also a lecturer of english at saigon isb, banking university of ho chi minh city. his research interests cover translation and interpretation, intercultural communication, and discourse analysis. co-author: phuong kim nguyen is currently a lecturer of english at saigon isb, banking university of ho chi minh city and english department, open university. she earned her master’s degree in tesol at university of huddersfield with distinction. her research interests cover assessment, intercultural communication and teaching methodology. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 118 of 168 abstract internet self-efficacy and self-regulation/autonomy have proven to play important roles in online learning, especially during the compulsory closure of educational institutions due to covid-19 all over the world. this study was conducted in an attempt to explore the inter-relationships among three constructs: internet self-efficacy, online self-regulation and interaction during the emergency online learning amid covid-19 in vietnam. a partial least squares structural equation modeling (pls-sem) analysis was used to mine the data collected from over two thousand undergraduate students at a vietnamese university. research results indicated that internet self-efficacy was a good predictor of learner autonomy while learner-content, learner-instructor and learnerlearner interactions had mediating effects on learner self-regulation. the study findings also revealed that there were significant differences between learners of language and non-language major, between those with prior online learning experience and those without in the relationships among the aforementioned constructs. however, gender did not have any impact on the relationships. the study findings provide new insights and useful implications for teachers and students in promoting learners’ internet self-efficacy, online self-regulation and interaction in the context of oriental cultures where students tend to rely on their teachers in both traditional and online learning. keywords: self-efficacy, self-regulation, online interaction, pls-sem, covid-19, vietnam exploring relationships between learners’ internet self-efficacy, online self-regulation and interaction during online learning amid covid-19 in vietnam thach pham(1); phuong lai(2); vinh nguyen(3) (1)(2)(3) hanoi university thachpn@hanu.edu.vn biodata statement dr. thach pham is the chairman of the board of trustees, hanoi university, vietnam. he has nearly 30 years of teaching english at different levels of study and in different environments: in class, online, on television and radio. thach pham completed his phd at victoria university, melbourne, australia early 2015. his strong interests are in using technologies for english language teaching and learning, university governance, educational knowledge management, educational material development and teacher training. ms. phuong hoai is a lecturer of the faculty of management and tourism, hanoi university, vietnam. ms. phuong hoai holds a master degree in finance and control, and is teaching data analysis, statistics and finance. her research interests and experiences are in corporate finance, behavioral finance and university autonomy. dr. vinh nguyen is a senior lecturer in applied linguistics and tesol in the english department, hanoi university, vietnam. his current research interests focus on ict/call, blended language learning, teaching english as a foreign language, language learner autonomy, curriculum development, language teacher education, and intercultural communication. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 119 of 168 abstract the primary forms of english language used in britain have been complemented by many new englishes such as american english, canadian english, singaporean english, etc. for centuries. in today’s globalized world, which young generations are more eager for learning english than ever, such learners’ desires for mastering language four skills make instructors be in need of gaining in-depth knowledge of language variations so that they are able to provide support for their learners’ language acquisition and development. in this context, scientific research papers on language variations and their impacts are on demand for developing in the quantity. this investigation aims to determine how 17 food idioms, categorized into 10 groups, carry differences between british english and american english and how idiomatic variants influence english language teaching (elt) at a university. according to our findings, although this group of idioms presented the lexical distinctions, their meanings remained unchanged, which resulted in no influences upon teachers’ instruction and students’ learning outcomes. moreover, differentiating these variants relied on the learners’ awareness of the differences between the two englishes and instructing idioms was affected by the other factors encompassing learners’ language proficiency, instructional materials, teachers’ perspectives toward teaching idioms and teaching approaches to idioms. for later research, this study should be considered its applications in efl classrooms and should be duplicated in some larger scales or with different linguistic units. keywords: effects, language variations, idiomatic variants, english language teaching, food idioms. effects of language variations on elt: a survey on english food idioms in tertiary education nguyen hong nhung saigon university biodata statement nguyen hong nhung obtained a b.a degree in elt at saigon university and began teaching english in 2019. she has written undergraduate’ scientific research papers and had a few experiences of participating conferences in elt and linguistics. her keen research interests cover learner autonomy, language learning strategies, and comparative linguistics. recently, she has intended to register a master’s program on elt at hcmc open university. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 120 of 168 abstract online learning has received a great deal of educators and students’ attention recently. it is widely considered a great option for students who cannot have access to traditional classroom for any reason. online education is also one of the best solutions in today’s situation when covid19 epidemic has created a big challenge for teachers and students to find alternative platforms of education. online learning applications has also attracted a lot of interest as tools to promote the effectiveness of online education. this library-based paper presents the results of literature review on the effect of two popular online learning applications, namely socrative (launched in 2010) and kahoot! (launched in 2013) which have been widely used to support students’ revising process and formative assessment. the main results of this research reveal positive effects of the two game-based learning platforms on learning outcomes, classroom environment, interactions between students and teachers and interactions among students. however, there are also studies suggesting little effect of the two learning applications. this paper will be of great benefit for teachers and students who are looking for effective learning applications and how they correspond with learning and teaching principles. keywords: online learning, learning applications, game-based learning, kahoo, socrative tools for effective online learning thi quynh trang dang international school, vietnam national university trangdq@isvnu.vn biodata statement lecturer of english at international school, vietnam national university, hanoi acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 121 of 168 abstract teaching research paper writing has never been an easy job. helping the students understand the research process, conduct the study and finally produce a report requires careful lesson planning, effective delivery of lessons, and critical evaluation of teaching performance so that the course quality can be improved and better learning outcomes achieved. the pandemic has mandated the use of technology in all aspects of teaching and learning. yet, there is a need to examine the efficacy of technological tools in teaching writing in the absence of face-to-face interaction. the researcher has delivered a research paper writing course online to two batches of students. they were both second-year english major students at a university in ho chi minh city. in this study, she evaluated the course implementation including the use of educational technology by examining documents such as course outlines, course information on the school lms, students’ collaborative work via google docs, their submissions of assignments and their personal reflections on taking the course. findings reveal that learners need to be better trained in using the tools for learning, and online collaborative work should be planned in more detail and monitored more closely. findings also show several benefits that the use of technology has brought to both the teacher and learners. keywords: research paper writing; educational technology; teaching writing, online writing course the use of technology in teaching writing: evaluation of an online research paper writing course dao nguyen anh duc banking university of ho chi minh city, vietnam ducdna@buh.edu.vn biodata statement duc dao has been teaching english for more than fifteen years and is currently a lecturer at banking university of ho chi minh city, vietnam. she earned her ph.d. from the university of nottingham, malaysia campus. she also holds an ma in tesol studies from the university of queensland, australia, and an mba from bolton university, uk. her research interests are pronunciation, phonetics, phonology, and teaching methodology. she has presented papers at local and international conferences and published in a journal as well as several conference proceedings. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 122 of 168 abstract english public signs represent development and welcome of vietnam to visitors around the world. however, the vietnamese-english public sign translation currently has many drawbacks, one of which is a lack of cultural and pragmatic factors to be taken into account. in order to improve the practice, a comparison of american english and vietnamese use in public signs has been made, applying the framework of a pragmatic set by sharifian (2017), which supports the idea that the public signs are realizations (practs) of the pragmemes underlying the situational contexts associated with some certain speech acts that can be precisely interpreted based on some pragmatic cultural schemas such as directing, prompting, and compelling. with the help of the street view tool on google maps, a corpus of 800 english public signs (in the us) and 800 vietnamese ones is created for further corpus-based, metadiscourse, and contrastive analyses. the results show that both american english and vietnamese pragmatic cultural schemas activate the same speech acts manifested in public signs. the differences are notified in the pragmemes related to territory indication, restriction, reminding, warning, command, and prohibition; also in the formulation and enactment of the practs. many applications to translation of public signs from vietnamese into english are also suggested. keywords: public signs; cultural schemas; pragmatics; american english; vietnamese; translation american english and vietnamese use in public signs: a pragmatic cultural comparison and translation linh ngoc truong pham hcmc university of social sciences and humanities, vietnam truonglinhpham101@gmail.com biodata statement linh ngoc truong pham is a phd student in the faculty of linguistics at vietnam national university, ho chi minh city university of social sciences and humanities. he majors in tesol. his research interests include cultural linguistics, english language teaching, vietnamese-english contrastive analysis and translation. he has published several papers in english vocabulary teaching, translation, stylistics, and culture. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 123 of 168 abstract through the years, investigations into difficulties in english listening and listening strategies have been the subject of many researchers. most of studies have pointed out the common listening difficulties and the use of listening strategies for listening comprehension. focusing on the same subject with a different perspective, this research aimed at discovering english majors’ difficulties in listening and the use of listening strategies to cope with difficulties at mien dong university of technology. a total of ninety eight freshmen participated in answering the questionnaire and five students responded the semi-structure interview questions. the data gained from the questionnaire were analyzed by spss software in terms of descriptive statistic. the findings show that english majors had to deal with many difficulties in listening such as the difficulties related to the listener, the content of the dialogue, the speaker, the physical setting and the linguistic factors. besides that the frequency of using listening strategies was relatively high. the cognitive listening strategies were used more frequently than metacognitive and socio-affective strategies. based on the findings, some implications were made to contribute to the administrations, teachers and students at mien dong university of technology. keywords: online peer assessment; reflection; autonomy; writing performance. english majors’ english listening difficulties and use of strategies at mien dong university of technology nguyen dinh nhu ha(1); nguyen quang minh(2); le thi thuy trang(3) (1) ho chi minh city university of technology and education handn.ncs@hcmute.edu.vn (2) ho chi minh city immigration office (3) ho chi minh city open university biodata statement nguyen dinh nhu ha is ph.d. candidate at ho chi minh city university of technology and education. he is a lecturer of english at mien dong university of technology, vietnam. his research interests include language teaching method, e-learning, educational technology, business english, english for specific purposes. le thi thuy trang is a sophomore student at ho chi minh city open university. her research interests include business english, english language skills and educational technology. nguyen quang minh is an immigration officer at ho chi minh city immigration office. his research interests include english language skills and english for specific purposes. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 124 of 168 abstract teaching english speaking skills is a challenge for teachers in non-native english speaking countries. in reality, language learners often neglect to join english speaking activities. moreover, they tend to focus on grammar, not meaning. to deal with this problem, english teachers can take advantage of task-based approach (tba) for their speaking classes. in fact, tba is considered a useful approach to help student improve speaking skills effectively. it is also called the learner-centered approach which emphasizes the roles of learners’ roles during the learning process. therefore, this paper aims to introduce theoretical basis of tba, the roles of teachers and learners in tba, and willis’s (1996) tba model. furthermore, the example of implementing a task-based speaking lessons is well-illustrated in this paper. besides that some recommendations for further research of implementing tba are presented in the conclusion. keywords: english speaking skills, task-based approach, teaching english, tba model implementing task-based approach: a solution for teaching english speaking skills nguyen dinh nhu ha(1); nguyen loc(2); tran tuyen(3) (1) ho chi minh city university of technology and education handn.ncs@hcmute.edu.vn (2) ba ria-vung tau university (3) institute of technological education biodata statement nguyen dinh nhu ha is ph.d. candidate at ho chi minh city university of technology and education. he is a lecturer of english at mien dong university of technology, vietnam. his research interests include language teaching method, e-learning, educational technology, business english, english for specific purposes. nguyen loc is a professor in education. he is currently a principal of ba ria-vung tau university. tran tuyen is a doctor in education. he is currently a lecturer at institute of technological education. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 125 of 168 abstract it is true that education is one of the fields affected by the spread of covid-19. to adapt to the circumstance, many countries, including vietnam, has implemented online learning at a national scale to every level of education. in the context of teaching english at university, the implementation’s efficacy remains debatable since it may intensify the challenges which are already problematic in traditional english schooling. among those arduous problems, student engagement is the focus of this qualitative study. specifically, the paper examines how vietnamese non-english major undergraduates perceive the influence of e-learning on their engagement in studying the language. regarding the literature, online learning with its benefits and shortcomings is firstly reviewed, which is followed by the scrutiny of student engagement in general and in english learning. the review is then concluded by inspecting several relevant studies. to collect data, focus group interview is applied, which is also considered a gap of this study since the groups of interviewees only come from one university in ho chi minh city. the findings are expected to provide more insights into the degree of student engagement in english online learning in higher education, thus call for more effort to be exerted in seeking appropriate strategies to promote vietnamese efl graduates’ engagement in their e-learning. keywords: perceptions, efl, tertiary, e-learning, learning engagement, covid-19 pandemic perceptions of efl tertiary students towards the correlation between e-learning and learning engagement during the covid-19 pandemic ngo duc huy ho chi minh city university of food industry, vietnam biodata statement my name is ngo duc huy and i am a lecturer at ho chi minh city university of food industry, vietnam. i teach english as a major and a subject. i received a master’s degree in applied linguistics from curtin university, australia in 2020. i have an interest in investigating student motivation and engagement in english learning. i have recently had my first study regarding the same subject published by the journal of english language teaching and applied linguistics. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 126 of 168 abstract with the development of tourism in vietnam as one of the world’s top destinations in recent years, food providers prefer to use bilingual menus, especially vietnamese-english ones as a useful tool for foreign customers to gain a better understanding of the national cuisine. however, there exist translation errors, which has caused several negative impacts on the customers. therefore, identifying the translation errors and causes is quite helpful in promoting vietnam’s tourism, considering the status quo of the country’s ongoing cultural integration within the context of the coronavirus pandemic. this paper collected the food names from online vietnameseenglish menus from 100 restaurants in ho chi minh city on foody, one of the most original and wellreceived food review apps in vietnam, and analyzed the collected data using both qualitative and quantitative research methods. the results indicated that there were 4 major error categories related terminology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics with 11 different error subtypes based on a hybrid error-analysis model developed from those popular in translation currently used in the world; and revealed possible causes for these errors from different levels including linguistic inaccuracy, amateurism and irresponsibility. the findings may be used as a reference for translation training in vietnam. keywords: food, bilingual menu, translation error, vietnamese-english translation, tourism an analysis on translation errors in online vietnamese-english menus nguyen thi nhu ngọc(1); nguyen le minh phuong(2); le anh khoa(3); pham đang khoa(4); tran thanh thanh lam(5) university of social sciences & humanities, vietnam national university nhungoc@hcmussh.edu.vn biodata statement dr. nguyen thi nhu ngoc is currently vice-dean and chair of the department of translation and interpreting at the faculty of english linguistics & literature, ussh, vnuhcm. her main research interests are translation studies, comparative linguistics, and intercultural communication. her research group includes four senior englishmajor students, nguyen le minh phương, le anh khoa, pham dang khoa, and tran thanh lam, who are highly inquisitive students with more than 3 years of tutoring english to both young and adult students. they all have great love for translation research and desire to contribute to the translation quality in vietnam with a contemporary sensibility and critical mindset. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 127 of 168 abstract in today’s world where the trade of commercials is opened between many countries from all over the world has been on the continuous development from time to time, which leads to the vital play of communication between people and people from other countries causing so many problems in understanding to each other. so, the important roles of translation have been available more and more specifically and initially, and the demands that requested to satisfy the need in a number of translators and interpreters is more increasingly and more well-trained. this demands the high intellectual levels in every translator in order to overcome a various number of language barrier problems as well as to solve as many problems appearing in all types of document as possible. and one of the most difficult challenges according to many translators, in the case of doing the translation between two contrary languages, especially to transfer some unable-to-translate words, which means untranslatable words – so-called untranslatability. and this is the reason for our paper. keywords: untranslatability, cultural untranslatability, linguistic untranslatability the untranslatability in translating from english to vietnamese and vice versa nguyen thi thanh trang(1); nguyen duy(2) (1) nguyen tat thanh university ntthanhtrang@ntt.edu.vn (2) nguyen tat thanh university duynguyen2797@gmail.com biodata statement nguyen duy year of birth: 1997 email: duynguyen2797@gmail.com mobile: +84 902 60 40 61 years of experience: english teacher: more than 6 years translator: more than 3 years major: translation and interpretation education: nguyen tat thanh university – k17 nguyen thi thanh trang year of birth: 1964 email: ntthanhtrang@ntt.edu.vn mobile: +84 902 60 40 61 major: teacher of translation and interpretation faculty of nguyen tat thanh university acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 128 of 168 abstract this study intends to develop and design a web for english learning for students at school of foreign languages, thai nguyen university (sfl-tnu). this design-based research focuses on two problems, namely (1) the concept of a website design which is expected to be suitable for use as a medium for learning english excursion project in the current pandemic era, and (2) the effectiveness of the website that is developed as a digital literacy source that can be used as a medium for further study. the research method used in this research is design-based research (dbr) with research stages that include design process, design development, evaluation, and design revision. data collection techniques were carried out by interview and document study. the results show that the website design developed is relevant to the needs and online-based student learning methods needed during the current covid-19 pandemic. keywords: website, digital literacy, english learning wix web-based english learning media to support teaching in the pandemic era pham viet ngoc(1); pham thu trang(2) school of foreign languages, thai nguyen university biodata statement pham viet ngoc is currently teaching project-based subjects and technology ineducation at school of foreign languages, thai nguyen university. his major research is on applying technology in learning and teaching english. pham thu trang is now teaching information and technology subject at school of foreign languages, thai nguyen university. her major interest in research is the application of technology in learning english. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 129 of 168 abstract teenagers around the world have been considered as ‘digital natives’ who are grown up under the influence of modern technologies including mobile devices, however, their intention to use the devices for language learning is still under a lot of discussions. this study was conducted in an attempt to explore factors that influenced vietnamese teenagers’ intention to learn english through mobile devices and how they (the devices) could enhance learners’ language skills. using the extended technology acceptance model (utaut) as the theoretical framework, the study analyzed data from 617 school and university students residing in the north, central and south of vietnam. the study results revealed that attitudes toward use were (att) the most important factor affecting teenagers’ intention but facilitating condition (fc) and effort expectancy (ee) did not correlate with the intention. learners’ gender and prior online learning experience also had an impact on the intention. besides, mobile devices were more useful for learning listening, reading and speaking than writing. the study findings offer useful implications for teachers and designers of mobile applications to foster mobile english language learning for vietnamese teenaged learners. keywords: teenager, intention, mobile devices, utaut, vietnam factors influencing vietnamese teeangers’ intention to use mobile devices for english language learning hoang quy(1); pham ngoc thach(2); dang dinh quan(3); nguyen xuan thang(4) hanoi university hoangquy@hanu.edu.vn thachpn@hanu.edu.vn quandd.vnip@gmail.com nxthang@hanu.edu.vn biodata statement quy hoang is a lecturer at english department, hanoi university and is currently in charge of the english teaching methodology division. she received her m.a in tesol international at monash university in 2012. with more than 10 years of teaching experience at different levels of study and with learners of all ages, her research interests are mainly in english language teaching methodologies, teacher training and material development. thach pham is the chairman of the board of trustees, hanoi university, vietnam. he has nearly 30 years of teaching english at different levels of study and in different environments: in class, online, on television and radio. thach pham completed his phd at victoria university, melbourne, australia early 2015. his strong interests are in using technologies for english language teaching and learning, university governance, educational knowledge management, educational material development and teacher training. quan dang is a lecturer at the faculty of information technology, hanoi university, vietnam. he has many years of experience in teaching software engineering, software requirements analysis and software quality assurance and works as an independent software developer. quan dang has a master’s degree in computer science. his current research interests include email management, neural network and software engineering. thang nguyen is dean of faculty of information technology, hanoi university, vietnam. he received his ph.d. in information technology from the university of kassel in 2015. thang nguyen has over 15 years of teaching computer sciences and information technology subjects at different levels. his research interests span the fields of software engineering, artificial intelligence and blended learning. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 130 of 168 abstract to enhance teaching and learning quality in the classroom, learners should not only attend the class but also participate in the class actively. however, if the former is not ensured, it is impossible for the latter to happen. class attendance has been considered one of the most important factors deciding students’ academic success. however, the rate of absenteeism remains high in many universities in vietnam. this study was carried out to identify the reasons why students skip class and examine the influences of the university’s policy of absenteeism on students’ attendance. in order to collect data, interviews and questionnaires were conducted on more than 300 hoa sen university students majoring in english language studies. the results indicate that student absenteeism resulted from student-related factors, teacherrelated factors, university-related factors and external factors at different levels. some specific factors such as extreme weather, pandemic, course content, and inconsistency between assessment and learning seem to be prominent causes. the results point to the conclusion that it is very important to have proper guidelines and policy from university about class attendance. keywords: class attendance, absenteeism, academic success an investigation of factors affecting students’ class attendance nguyen thi ton nu phuong linh(1); nguyen thi minh anh(2); nguyen hung duy(3) hoa sen university linh.ngthtonnuphuong@hoasen.edu.vn anh.ntm0720@sinhvien.hoasen.edu.vn duy.nh4954@sinhvien.hoasen.edu.vn acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 131 of 168 abstract oral presentations can be employed as an effective tool to improve students’ communicative competence. once the oral presentation is guided and organized, it will give the students a learning experience and teach them an important skill which will be beneficial in all their education subjects and later in their future careers. however, there have been limitations with efl students’ engagements due to the inadequate probability to present during english lessons. this presentation states the rationale about oral presentation enhancements for efl students in an english for occupational purposes (eop) program at a technical university in vietnam. it then emphasizes occupational blended learning as a particular way to improve eop students’ oral presentation skills which has been implemented in a ten-week english course for engineering students. this study exploited a qualitative research design with data from focus-group interviews of 27 third-year students of the faculty of electrical and electronics engineering. the findings revealed the positive perspectives from the technical students about the benefits of their oral presentation implementation for their english levels and presentation skills as well as the factors they experienced during their oral presentations in terms of preparation, organization, delivery, manners and audience–presenter interactions. with regard to this pedagogical development, it is hoped that this can be helpful for teachers in motivating and enhancing students’ presentation skills in eop classrooms. keywords: oral presentations, eop, students’ perspectives, presentation skills, blended learning enhancing efl students’ oral presentation skills through blended learning in english for occupational purposes classrooms hoang ngoc tue(1); le duc hanh(2) hanoi university of industry leduchanh.haui@gmail.com biodata statement dr. hoang ngoc tue is the dean of the faculty of foreign languages, hanoi university of industry, vietnam. he has been working as an english teacher and an educational administrator for more than 15 years. he has conducted many studies and projects to improve the quality of english language education at tertiary level. he received his doctor of education degree from queensland university of technology, australia in 2015. his research interests include ict in education, blended learning, english for occupational purposes, and teacher professional development. ms. le duc hanh has been working as an english lecturer at faculty of foreign languages, hanoi university of industry, vietnam since 2007. she currently works as a team leader of designing eap blended materials. she also takes responsibilities of designing, teaching eop blended program for technical students. her areas of professional interest include emi and blended learning. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 132 of 168 abstract the massive school closures worldwide due to the covid-19 pandemic have resulted in a surge of remote teaching. this study investigated teachers’ practices and perceptions on teaching english remotely to primary school students in the school lockdowns in vietnam. a mixed methods design was employed to collect data from different primary public schools in ho chi minh city, binh duong and dong nai provinces. ten semi-structured interviews were conducted and a questionnaire was used to collect data from 50 teachers. the selected participants were those who practiced at least one form of remote teaching activities, either asynchronous or synchronous. the findings show that zoom, zalo and youtube were three most popular platforms teachers used. numerous challenges also emerged such as more workload, more stress, technical issues, students’ lack of learning devices, the requirement for parent’s assistance, more interactions and hands-on activities. despite the obstacles, the majority of teachers showed their positive attitudes towards remote teaching. they learned new ict tools and pedagogies and intended to continue using this approach after the pandemic. in order to improve the effectiveness of remote teaching, such suggestions as creativity and flexibility in designing lessons, parents’ support, teacher’s training and upgraded ict infrastructure are recommended. keywords: remote teaching, perceptions, challenges, primary school teachers, pandemic remote teaching amid the covid-19 pandemic in vietnam: primary school efl teachers’ practices and perceptions dau thi thanh luy seameo regional training center in vietnam dttluy@vnseameo.org biodata statement ms. dau thi thanh luy is working as an academic officer at seameo regional training center in vietnam. her responsibilities include designing english training curriculum for young learners, tests and extra learning activities. besides, she has been teaching english for more than ten years. she received an ma degree in applied linguistics from curtin university, australia in 2014. her research interest is engaging young learners with educational games and technology. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 133 of 168 abstract bring your own device (byod) is a concept that is gaining a following worldwide as a cost-effective means for schools, hamstrung by limited funding, to provide modern-day education for students. today, students are surrounded by device usage and likely have access to several different devices within their household. however, when students enter the confines of an educational space, they can often be forced to holt this device use and return to more traditional means of education. the current paper shows the results of a survey into the opinions and perceptions of parents of japanese k1-3 students’ use of technology, specifically the application of byod at this level. this survey was conducted at a private kindergarten in japan and was administered to 100 parents of k1-3 students. results of this survey showed that even at this age, students have access to and use a variety of devices within the home environment under the guidance of parents. in addition, device time usage varied significantly by household, with some children allowed to use devices for over 90 minutes per day. however, when asked if they would accept byod at the k1-3 level, the answers were overwhelmingly negative. the results of this survey show that while byod was considered to be acceptable if not necessary from the higher grades of elementary school, the idea of sending a k1-3 child to kindergarten with their own device is still a step too far for the parents of kindergarten students in japan. keywords: byod, k1-12, japan byod: the opinions and perceptions of parents in japan jeremy white ritsumeikan university whitejeremy@gmail.com acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 134 of 168 abstract game jams are ever rising in popularity with people from a wide variety of economic, social, and cultural backgrounds participating in these events. the number of game jams are also increasing, with the 2019 global game jam alone attracting 47,006 registered participants in 113 countries who made 9,010 games over the 48-hour game-making period. with the influx of people to the game jam environment, the current study redefines what a game jam is to consider the range of fields it now encompasses, such as foreign language learning. using a 37-question survey and a mixedmethod approach to analysis, the researcher investigated how the themes of game creation event, accelerated and constrained, opportunistic, and publicly sharing the end results had shifted from the previous 2015 definition. in addition, unlike the 2015 definition, the latest definition considers the opinions of game jam participants and administrators rather than forming a definition from academic publications. results of this 40-person research study showed that the idea of a game jam has developed to one that is less connected to the commercial gaming world and more associated with learning skills, such as languages, social skills, and leadership through game jams. keywords: game jams, definition, foreign language learning, social skills, leadership moving towards a 2020s game jam definition jeremy white ritsumeikan university whitejeremy@gmail.com acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 135 of 168 abstract the covid-19 pandemic, which occurred from the end of 2019 to the present, has had a global and profound impact on all countries, and still maintained much complicated in vietnam. education and training activities are therefore among the most severely impacted since traditional classrooms have been suddenly switched to online platforms without prior complete preparation. using a qualitative analysis method combined with data and statistics synthesis, the article analyzes the current situation of higher education, the impact of covid-19 on education and training activities, as well as the use of educational platforms based on scientific and technological achievements in the industrial revolution 4.0 in order to see the need for a vital transformation of the educationtraining mode in the current context in vietnam. it is then suggested that e-learning is such an appropriate teaching and learning tool in the context of training high quality labor forces to meet the demand of the society. keywords: covid-19, technology revolution 4.0, higher education, methods, technology platforms. innovation in higher education training aprroaches under covid-19 and the revolution of science and technology 4.0 author acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 136 of 168 abstract as the increasing demands in exchanging information among various countries around the world, the role of translation has therefore become vital in ensuring the effects intended by source language (sl) texts are totally preserved in target language (tl) texts (newmark, 1988; munday, 2016). especially in the literary translation field in vietnam, a product from a foreign language can be translated by various translators who are both professional and amateur, causing different effects among readers. the question is that, how we can grasp the tendencies of translate modal verb “can” and its alternatives in specific situations into vietnamese and vice versa without causing ambiguities or negative effects on target readers. as i observed, “can” and its english alternative modal verbs like “could”, “may” or “might” are usually translated into vietnamese under a general word: “có thể”. however, as thomson and martinet (1986), alexander (1990) and eastwood (1994) suggested, these kinds of words did express not only the subject’s ability or probability of happening of an event but also other meaning such as permission or general characteristics. this is the reason why i decided to conduct the research with the which translation data which is combined from the source of 30 popular english books and their translation versions in vietnamese language, making a set of about 150,000 pairs of sentence in to investigate how modal verb “can” and other modal verbs are translated in vietnamese with some basic statistics analyzed from the given data. keywords: translation trends, english modal verbs, corpus-based study, vietnamese translation, analysis. analysis of translation trends of modal verb “can” and its alternatives in vietnamese based on corpus-based study nguyen huynh c. hoa sen univeristy, ho chi minh city, vietnam huynhcongnguyen95@gmail.com acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 137 of 168 abstract the trend of higher education institutions to become multidisciplinary universities has become popular, ho chi minh city banking university is no exception. although initially oriented as a southern spearhead unit for training in finance and banking, buh quickly recognized the needs and career opportunities for fields and careers not only in the banking sector, banks and financial institutions. therefore, the university has opened new majors taught in universities in the social sciences and humanities. the faculty of foreign languages was established to train human resources who are good at foreign languages for the finance and banking industries and at the same time capable of working in many other industries and fields. the faculty of foreign languages at the school, which is taught with this orientation, has trained thousands of successful students in a variety of employment positions. however, teaching and learning english in a university that is dominant and famous for finance banking presents many challenges. from these difficulties, many opportunities have been opened for both learners and teachers at the faculty and the school. this study aims to analyze the professional and career-oriented difficulties that lecturers and students of the faculty of foreign languages are facing. at the same time, by directly surveying and interviewing teachers and students as well as the school’s management team, the researcher analyzes opportunities for personal and professional development. keywords: english-major, elt, tertiary education, multidisciplinary university teaching and learning english as a major in a business and financeoriented university: challenges and opportunities nguyen oanh banking university of ho chi minh city oanhnh@buh.edu.vn biodata statement phạm thị hồng ân has a master degree in teaching english to speakers of other languages (tesol), hcm-ussh, vietnam national university. she is currently a ph.d student in the department of literary theory, faculty of literature, hcm-ussh, vietnam national university. her interest lies in british and american literature and culture, and education (tesol included). her domain of study includes tesol, critical approaches to literature, and their implications and applications in teaching and learning english as a foreign language. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 138 of 168 abstract this study appli ed m ulti functional english l earning p latform to english as a foreign language esp course the objective was to investigate whether this platform would promote stu dents’ learning motivation and enhance language and content learning based on students’ perception and teachers’ feedback. participants were junior students and english instructors from department of fiber and composite material at a university in taiwan. the instrument of online survey was implement ed to probe students’ perceptions toward the effectiveness of learning via the learning platform. semi structured i nterviews from both students and teachers were collected to disclose the reflections of the current project and overall learning and teaching experience. results from quantitative data analysis revealed that most of the students perceive the learning platform to be helpful to raise their learning motivation. yet the discrepancy appeared in the effectiveness of learning via the platform as only students with intermediate english level showed rather positive attitude on the effectiveness of vocabulary learning and the improvement of speaking ability. qualitative data analysis revealed that students preferred learning under multimodal presentation rather than lecturing and students level of language proficiency could be the factor that inference how students ranked the effectiveness of learning via this learning platform. i nterview s from teachers indicated some potential problems of using this learning platform such as the problematic feedback to students’ spea king based on the in built voice recognition analyzer and the problem of cheating to complete assigned tasks online with advanced technology. based on the research findings, suggestions and pedagogical implications were offered to language teachers and education technology designers to facilitate esp instruction . keywords: english learning platform; esp; online learning; students perception the application of multi functional english learning platform to esp course feedback s from students and teachers chieh min jason yang feng chia university, taiwan biodata statement chieh min jason yang (楊捷閔) is an assistant professor at feng chia university, taiwan. he has been a coordinator of workplace english for years and assists to develop new esp curriculum to meet students’ needs . his research interests are call, esp, corpus linguisti cs and reading research. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 139 of 168 abstract the covid-19 pandemic has disrupted language teaching and testing services, as well as human resource functions, impacting both educational institutions and businesses of all sizes with no clear end in sight. this report describes the validation and correlation of a digital english language assessment (dela) with the toeic® listening and reading test. the dela solves a problem of practice for human resource management practitioners, english language teaching services, and educational institutions: how to efficiently assess english language abilities during the covid-19 pandemic and beyond. the dela began as a solution in the context of vietnam that can be utilized globally. a total of 78 participants completed the dela from april 7-20, 2021; anova two-factor data analysis was performed. results show a strong overall correlation with the toeic® listening and reading test (pearson r=0.76) and strong internal consistency (kr-20=0.96). the report concludes with recommendations for global usage grounded in critical language testing and implications for future research. keywords: quantitative analysis, digital language assessment, english for the workplace, critical language testing a validation report for a digital english language assessment: correlations with the toeic® listening and reading test bradley eugene opatz jr. american college of education, usa bradley.opatz2404@my.ace.edu biodata statement bradley opatz is head of education at ooolab and a doctoral student in second language acquisition at the american college of education. he is an independent consultant specializing in digital language learning. he developed an internationally certified efl/ soft skills curriculum for k-12 vietnamese learners. his research interests include culturally responsive efl pedagogy and digital education and assessment. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 140 of 168 abstract rob waring (camtesol, 2019) presented that if a student reads extensively in english 02 minutes a day (5 days a week), it will take him/her 20.7 years to master the language. if the student, on the other hand, reads in english (extensively) 20 minutes a day (5 days a week), the journey to mastery takes only 2 years. this implies the importance of extensive reading, especially for schools’ and universities’ language programs. this sharing session aims to review er program procedures, reading session organization and reading activities that the presenters conducted at american center (u.s. consulate general, hcmc). these are take-away tips for participants (strongly recommended to language teachers/lecturers, program managers and language learners) as compulsory add-ons to school language programs, language teaching and learning. real reading session captures will inspire english learners and make them feel ‘learning english’ is a ‘can-do’ task. the sharing session also opens to discussion of how to proceed with er online, especially in this pandemic of covid-19. keywords: extensive reading, interactive reading activities, online reading programs a reflection of extensive reading program at american center, u.s. consulate general, hcm city ho vuong(1); lu tuan(2) (1) university of education, hcmc ht.xuanvuong@gmail.com (2) hoa sen university tuan.luvan@hoasen.edu.vn acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 141 of 168 abstract l2 vocabulary learning seems to be one of the biggest challenges for many language major students as lexical knowledge involves productive understanding of its many components including the form, meaning, and application of the terms (nation, 2001). it is therefore necessary to find appropriate language education tactics and instruments for the successful and efficient acquisition of this aspect of the l2. among advancements in the field of educational technology, quizlet was invented with the hope that learners can effectively acquire l2 vocabulary in the absence of the teacher. in this study, the researchers want to figure out if quizlet is helpful in assisting students in learning english vocabulary. they would also like to identify the difficulties which learners may encounter when using the application for their self-study. a quantitative survey was conducted on 100 english major freshmen and sophomores at a university in ho chi minh city, vietnam. results reveal that quizlet plays an active role in facilitating selfstudy of english vocabulary. a remarkable finding is the application seems to provide an entertaining learning environment, which in turn enhances learning motivation. besides, a couple of limitations of the app, namely distracting ads and limited mobile learning functionality, have also been identified. keywords: quizlet, autonomous learning, english vocabulary quizlet as a tool for enhancing autonomous learning of english vocabulary thuy nguyen(1); tri nguyen(2); xuan le(3); hoang mai(4); khanh nguyen(5) banking university of ho chi minh city, vietnam nguyenthanhthuy12001@gmail.com biodata statement thuy nguyen, tri nguyen, xuan le, hoang mai and khanh nguyen are all second-year english major students at banking university. this paper is developed from the outcome of their group project completed as a requirement of the course of writing 4: research paper writing. duc dao has been teaching english for more than fifteen years and is currently a lecturer at banking university of ho chi minh city, vietnam. she earned her ph.d. from the university of nottingham, malaysia campus. she also holds an ma in tesol studies from the university of queensland, australia, and an mba from bolton university, uk. her research interests are pronunciation, phonetics, phonology, and teaching methodology. she was the supervisor of this group of students in their project and then worked with them to improve the paper prepared for the conference. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 142 of 168 abstract with the worldwide spread of the covid-19 pandemic, since last year, most of the education and training programs in vietnam have urgently had to be switched to blended or even online mode. to cope up with this, many schools and universities there have found ways to start their online courses quickly but they soon face many challenges of managing effective online programs including managing technology, managing teachers, managing students, and most importantly evaluating and ensuring quality. this reality has raised a number of quality concerns since teaching and learning in vietnam have relied heavily on traditional face-toface classes for ages and have never experienced such an abrupt change before. nevertheless, there has been little research into this issue, especially into school practices of quality assurance for english courses in vietnam. to further explore the problem, this research investigates current practices of quality assurance for online english classes at various universities in vietnam amid the covid-19 pandemic. in addition, this paper also seeks possible solutions to improve the quality assurance practices for online english courses in vietnam’s context. keywords: quality assurance, english, online, vietnam, covid-19 quality assurance for online english courses amid the covid-19 pandemic: problems and solutions vo huynh thanh university of social sciences & humanities, vietnam national university thanhvohuynh92@gmail.com biodata statement vo huynh thanh is current a lecturer of english at the faculty of english linguistics and literature, university of social sciences and humanities, vnu-hcm. he holds a master’s degree of tesol. he has been teaching english at university since 2015. his research interests include intercultural communication in language teaching, language acquisition, and computer-assisted language learning. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 143 of 168 abstract the outbreak of covid-19 has led our lives to the socalled “new normal” status with numerous changes since the beginning of 2020. schools all across the world have been closed down and education has changed dramatically, with the rise of e-learning, whereby teaching is undertaken remotely and on digital platforms. in vietnam, online teaching and learning have been adopted in all levels of education and this form of education is probably a great solution to help teachers and students to keep up with their study programs which are normally conducted in the traditional classrooms. beside numerous advantages that online education has brought up, it is a challenge for both teachers and students when working online. how to motivate and facilitate students’ engagement in online classroom activities is likely the most asked question in an english as a second or foreign language class. this study aims at finding the answer to the above question. the study was conducted with a group of 35 second year students in their speaking class. groupwork discussions, project-based assignments, interactive feedback from peers and the instructor were some activities that have helped facilitate students’ interactions and involvement in an online class. keywords: quality assurance, english, online, online education, students’ engagement, online activities “moderate messiness seems to be good for people.” what do you think?: activities facilitating students’ engagement in an online class vu thi hong van hcmc university of education vanvth@hcmue.edu.vn biodata statement ms van vu is a lecturer at hcmc university of education. she interests in teaching esp, teacher training and sociolinguistic issues. she has been teaching english for students of international studies and english for tourism and hotel students. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 144 of 168 abstract pronunciation is an aspect of language learning that should be instructed explicitly, for learners having proper pronunciation can be fully understood when having a conversation. however, teaching pronunciation is probably a challenge for many teachers mainly because they can deliver the theory of the pronunciation aspects but easily fail to have students practice them effectively. among the new methods of teaching pronunciation, which are trialed in many classes, shadowing technique is widely used because of its benefits. for this reason, this paper emphasizes on the application of shadowing technique as a way of teaching pronunciation in a specific learning environment and the perceptions of the learners of this teaching method. the research participants are four college students whose language proficiency level is pre-intermediate. they were offered an overall pronunciation instruction section before practicing the shadowing activity. the data of the research were collected via three data collection tools that are observation of the teacher, learners’ journals and semi-structured interview. overall, the participants show their satisfaction with the shadowing technique as an activity to develop their pronunciation, especially their intonation. besides, there are some aspects of pronunciation cannot be fully improved after the shadowing practice, which need taking into consideration. the research’s finding might be of great benefit to the teachers who wants to enhance the student’s pronunciation. keywords: shadowing technique, teaching pronunciation, pronunciation aspects, elt shadowing technique as a method of pronunciation teaching bui hoai huong international school – vietnam national university huongbh@isvnu.vn biodata statement full name: bui hoai huong job position: lecturer institution: international school – vietnam national university country: vietnam skills taught: reading, listening, writing, speaking research interest: elt experience: 4 years teaching students at different ages acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 145 of 168 cooperative learning in efl reading classes at lam dong ethnic minority boarding school nguyen thi hoai huong(1); nguyen tat thang(2); tran tin nghi(3); nguyen phan nhat nguyen(4) (1) lam dong ethnic minority boarding school, dalat, vietnam nguyenthihoaihuong3384@gmail.com (2)(4) dalat university, dalat, vietnam (3) ho chi minh city university of food industry, ho chi minh city, vietnam abstract in teaching reading, teachers might place emphasis on cooperative learning as an effective instructional method in which students of all levels might work together in small groups to achieve a common goal. this study aims at investigating the effects of cooperative learning with respect to vietnamese learners of english in reading comprehension at lam dong ethnic minority boarding school, and investigating students’ attitudes towards cooperative learning. a quasi-experiment was conducted over a period of eight weeks. sixty-one ethnic minority students in grade 11 at lam dong ethnic minority boarding school were invited to participate in the study. there were two groups: one as control group, and the other as experimental group. for the control group, lecture-based teaching was used, while for the experimental group, cooperative learning was employed. after analyzing, another standardized post-test was conducted. later, an independent sample t-test and paired sample t-test were conducted to examine whether there were significant interand intra-group differences in reading comprehension. the results showed that the students in the experimental group achieved a more remarkable improvement than their counterparts with respect to english reading performance. the findings also revealed that the students in the experimental group expressed highly positive attitudes towards the use of cooperative learning in efl reading classes. further research could be carried to analyze the effect of other cooperative learning techniques on teaching english as a foreign language. keywords: cooperative learning, reading performance, attitude, foreign language, ethnic minority biodata statement nguyen thi hoai huong is currently a teacher of english language at lam dong ethnic minority boarding school, vietnam. her interests cover areas english language skills, teacher professional development and instructional design model. nguyen tat thang is a lecturer of english at dalat university, vietnam. he received the title of associate professor in linguistics in 2017. his interests are semantics, sla, and sociolinguistics. tran tin nghi is a lecturer of english at ho chi minh city university of food industry, ho chi minh city, vietnam. his interests cover areas of english language, linguistics, and tesol. nguyen phan nhat nguyen is a lecturer of english at dalat university, vietnam. she completed her master’s degree in 2021. her interests are tesol, sla and clil. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 146 of 168 role of cooperatives and participation of their members in agricultural output marketing: empirical evidence from ethiopia eshetu tefera bekele tongmyong university, department of distribution management, busan, south korea abstract today, in an era where many people feel powerless to change their lives, cooperatives represent strong, vibrant, and viable economic alternatives. cooperatives are formed to meet peoples’ mutual needs. they are based on the powerful idea that together, a group of people can achieve goals that none of them could achieve alone. this research paper aims to analyze the role of cooperatives in agricultural output marketing, promoting linkages, and to examine factors influencing the level of members’ participation. the cooperatives under investigation have played a significant role in output marketing and promoting value-adding linkages with different stakeholders. results of the tobit model revealed that: farm size, years of membership, amount of improved seed used, output produced, and members’ perception in cooperatives price for agricultural outputs were significantly and positively related to the level of participation. lack of equal opportunity of members in passing decisions, inefficient cooperatives’ employees, and incompetent management committee members are found to be the major constraints that hinder cooperatives to properly deliver agricultural output marketing services. to this end, government, ngos, and other stakeholders need to give emphasis to improve the organizational and institutional capacity of cooperatives. keywords: agricultural cooperatives, cooperatives marketing, linkage, management capacity, stakeholders, market participation biodata statement my name is eshetu tefera bekele (ph.d.) and i am an assistant professor at tongmyong university, department of distribution management, busan, south korea. i have been working for the last 15 years in academic institutions (in ethiopia and korea), and served as a lecturer, researcher, and engaged in community development activities. i have published 3 scientific papers and other 2 research-related books. i am eager to participate in your respective conference to share my experience and learn from others. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 147 of 168 teachers and students’ perceptions and challenges of online teaching and learning during covid-19 pandemic: a case study pham dang tram anh danang university of medical technlogy and pharmacy anhpham@dhktyduocdn.edu.vn abstract the covid-19 pandemic has negatively affected the economy, social life, and educational facilities and services around the world (cakin, & kulekci akyavuz, 2021; farooq et al., 2020). like many other countries, educational institutions in vietnam have been forced to shift their courses from a face-to-face approach to online classes to try to stop the spread of the coronavirus. the objectives of this study were to investigate teachers and students’ perceptions of online teaching and learning as well as to identify challenges of online teaching and learning they confronted during the covid-19 pandemic. the study took a quantitative approach, using an online questionnaire on google forms to collect data from 512 teachers and undergraduate students at danang university of medical technology and pharmacy in danang, vietnam. the data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. the results revealed that the participants perceived online teaching and learning as being useful and time-saving. however, the study exposed some challenges the teachers and students encountered, such as unreliable internet connections, slow e-learning platforms and services, a lack of information and communication technology skills, and distractions. based on the findings, some implications on online teaching and learning have been put forward. keywords: covid-19 pandemic, online teaching and learning, teachers and students’ perceptions and challenges biodata statement pham dang tram anh is a phd in tesol. she is currently dean of fundamental sciences faculty and head of foreign languages department at danang university of medical technlogy and pharmacy, danang, vietnam. she has been an efl teacher in higher education for over 20 years. her current research interests cover technology in langauge teaching and learning, teaching language skills, esp curriculum and material development, call. her recent publications include technology application in language teaching and learning, digital literacy. department of foreign languages faculty of fundamental sciences danang university of medical technlogy and pharmacy 99 hung vuong, danang, vietnam mobile: +84 0905111697 acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 148 of 168 how to draw tree digrams via nine how to draw tree digrams via nine sentence patterns truong van anh(1); vo thuy thanh thao(2) sai gon university tvanh@sgu.edu.vn abstract current books on english syntax present tree drawing in details; as a result, students feel confused in order to study it. based on traditional grammar and modern functional grammar, we have systematized all sentences into nine patterns for students to master english syntax. those who can acquire how to draw tree diagrams for these patterns can tree-diagamatize any english sentence. to some extent, our supervised students can feel confident to study english syntax, in general, as well as tree drawing, in particular. keywords: syntax, sentence pattern, sentence element, tree drawing acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 149 of 168 the important roles of learning pronunciation in the integration era nguyen truong gia minh hoa sen university, vietnam giaminhnguyentruong@gmail.com abstract nowadays, english becomes an important part of our life. as we can see, in this integration era, this language has supported people in all sides of our career, for example, working, negotiating with partners, and promoting our products to the international market. however, it is not enough if we have good use of grammar and vocabulary. if we are fluent in grammar, language, listening, reading, and writing but still make pronunciation mistakes, it means we still face off failure in our job. my research findings pointed out that many vietnamese people are stuck in pronunciation when they speak english. it means that they can express their ideas clearly. however, some who do not have a good condition to learn english at a young age or interact with foreigners would easily make mistakes. it happens to not only students but also teachers. the errors may be about the stressing, misspelling, etc. consequently, they may affect the performance of students when they speak. if the students continue to go on this way, the listeners will not understand what they said and from that, there will be a lot of misunderstandings in their interaction. by researching the importance of learning pronunciation skills, in this article, we will learn more about some common mistakes that students can make when they speak english. besides, we also know more about the importance of pronouncing english correctly and finally, there will be some suggestions for both students and teachers to improve their english pronunciation. at the end of this article, the result of the methodology will show the percentage of the common mistakes appearing in the speaking performance of the sophomore from the university of economics and finance and their ability to applying the rule of pronunciation in reality speech. from that, we can find a good solution to improve the students’ pronunciation in order to serve their future career. keywords: pronunciation skill, integration era, sophomore, teachers, stressing rules biodata statement nguyen truong gia minh is a journalist at nguoi lao dong newspaper and is currently studying for a master of english language at hoa sen university, vietnam. she had 1 year of experience in working as a teacher assistant of english only day –an activity for students of university of economics and finance (uef) to improve their english pronunciation. her academic interest areas are about teaching and training english speaking and writing skills for university students. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 150 of 168 some common ways for students to improve pronunciation during covid-19 pandemic nguyen truong gia minh hoa sen university, vietnam giaminhnguyentruong@gmail.com abstract we cannot deny that pronunciation skill plays an essential role in our lives in this integration era. if we have good pronunciation, we can have a chance to get a good job. however, as i researched before, many vietnamese people nowadays are stuck in pronunciation when speaking english. it means that students can still express their ideas about particular issues. still, their worst accents may make the listeners misunderstand essential information because they could not wholly hear what students have said. therefore, this study aims to research learning and to teach english via analyzing some related scientific articles. besides, we also found a way to learn pronunciation online effectively when the covid-19 pandemic still occurs everywhere in ho chi minh city, which can help students still protect their health and gain new knowledge at the same time. on the other hand, we also found some helpful exercises that can help students practice pronunciation by themselves after class. keywords: pronunciation skill, integration era, online learning, teachers, covid-19pandemic biodata statement nguyen truong gia minh is a journalist at nguoi lao dong newspaper and is currently studying for a master of english language at hoa sen university, vietnam. she had 1 year of experience in working as a teacher assistant of english only day –an activity for students of university of economics and finance (uef) to improve their english pronunciation. her academic interest areas are about teaching and training english speaking and writing skills for university students. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 151 of 168 the contrast of the ergativity between english and vietnamese nguyen gia hung lam(1); nguyen manh cuong(2) (1) saigon university giahung1514@gmail.com (2) saigon university cuongnguyen3900@gmail.com abstract ergativity is a recognizable term among language cultures in the world, yet it has remained a slippery notion in vietnamese grammar. the most general concept of ergativity is that the object of a transitive clause or patient (p) could be in the position of the subject of an intransitive clause (s), without including the transitive subject or agent (a). this study aims at contrasting the features of ergativity in english and vietnamese to show the resemblances and dissimilarities between them, based on the primitive model appearing in almost all languages: s, a, and p, which has been employed in many previous works regarding ergativity. one fundamental finding is that vietnamese adopts a fairly similar ergativeabsolutive alignment to that of english. however, there is a noticeable disagreement between the ergativity of vietnamese and english in the changes of verbs. since vietnamese is a non-inflectional language, its verbs do not change their form in any situation. the research provides a deeper insight into the ergativity pattern of vietnamese an austroasiatic language, opening up new potentials for more studies into the teaching as well as the application of ergativity. keywords: ergativity, ergativity in english, ergativity in vietnamese, ergative verbs, inflection biodata statement gia-hung lam-nguyen and manh-cuong nguyen are seniors at the department of foreign languages at saigon university, majoring in english linguistics. they have been doing their research on contrasting the ergativity in english and vietnamese after being inspired by their supervisor, mr van-anh truong. this conference will be the best place for them to study and enhance their research. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 152 of 168 stratergies for translating english passive sentences into vietnamese nguyen xuan my hoa sen university, vietnam xuanmy.hp87@gmail.com abstract this study examines some most common strategies for the vietnamese translation of english passive voice such as “the use of markers ‘được’/‘bị’”, “change to active”, “paraphrasing” in order to find out the frequency and the rules for the use of those strategies by collecting and analyzing the data from the english and vietnamese versions of a novel named “harry potter and the sorcerer’s stone” and a book named “a brief history of time”. and the findings of this study disapproves the view that vietnamese active sentences are the most common choice for translating english passive voice since its results indicate that english itclefts or english agentless passive sentences where the agent of the action is unclear or indicates a group of people have a high tendency of being translated into active structures in vietnamese, while using maker ‘được’ or ‘bị’ and subject-less active sentence are the most common ways for translating other kinds of english agentless passive sentences into vietnamese. besides, the results of this research also indicate that the use of markers ‘được’/‘bị’ is frequently applied to translate agent-included passive sentences but the position of the agent in vietnamese sentences varies according to its features. keywords: english passive sentences, translation strategies, ‘được’/‘bị’, vietnamese translation, vietnamese active structures biodata statement nguyen xuan my is a postgraduate studying towards a master’s degree in english studies at hoa sen university in viet nam. he also holds a master’s degree in teaching chinese to speakers of other languages and has been working as a chinese teacher for 10 years. his main research interests are contrastive linguistics, education and translation. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 153 of 168 biodata statement nguyen huu chanh began his professional career when he earned his bachelor degree in tesol at can tho university. he is about to finish his ma course in english language studies, concentrating on translation studies, from hoa sen university. his research interests are english morphology, translation, vietnamese and foreign literature, contrastive analysis, and teaching methodologies. nguyen tuan kiet is an english teacher who always motivates students in the different age groups to learn english effectively. nguyen has obtained his ba degree in english linguistics and literature in university of social sciences and humanities, vnuhcm. his research interests are contrastive syntax, translation and interpretation, teaching methodologies, english medium instruction, translanguaging and blended learning. the effectiveness of using rhetorical devices in translation process nguyen huu chanh(1); nguyen tuan kiet(2) hoa sen university nguyenhuuchanh06@gmail.com abstract in viet nam, more and more translators have been utilizing the rhetorical devices to express the figurative meanings in the translated texts. this paper scopes with two types of figures of speech, namely simile and metaphor which are creatively used in canh dong bat tan by nguyen ngoc tu and the translated version endless field by duong hung and jason picard . with the aim at making comparisons in the literary devices in vietnamese and english translation equivalents, the study has investigated more than 101 english sentences and 109 vietnamese ones in both texts. from the analysis, the finding showed that (1) the vietnamese and english equivalent text share similar viewpoints to use simile and metaphor in the text. (2) there are a variety of words in simile and repetition while the vietnamese version concerns with the metaphor. (3) the usefulness of alliteration, assonance and consonance to create an attractiveness of a story. it is hoped that these findings make a significant contribution to enhance the translation quality, especially in both translator’s training and further translation education. keywords: rhetorical devices, translation, metaphor, repetition acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 154 of 168 an analysis of negative verbs and their equivalents: a case study of the call of the wild and one of its vietnamese translations tran luu hoang ngọc van trang hoa sen university, vietmam vantrang.tlhn@gmail.com abstract negative verbs in english, including combinations between the copular verb ‘be’, auxiliaries, and modal verbs and the negative ‘not’, are regularly translated into vietnamese as ‘không’. this is entirely true, but not all. in different types of texts and specific contexts, especially in literary one, equivalents of negative verbs are quite diverse and distinctive. this study aims to analyze the vietnamese equivalent diversity of negative verbs detached from the classic literary work – the call of the wild by jack london (1903) and the translation tiếng gọi của hoang dã by lâm hoài and võ quang (2019). based on text analysis method and conducting a process of splitting, filtering, and inspecting source and target texts, ‘không’ and its variants are identified as common equivalent patterns; some brief and thorough descriptions for variants are specified. particularly, uncommon equivalents which are omission, positive transformations and other structural, lexical transformations have been investigated for conceivably affecting factors of equivalent selections by translators. the obtained results are a modest part contributing to the vast work of building an english-vietnamese corpus. the matter plausibly seems to be only concerning translation issues, yet the study has indicated the significance of text analysis for consuming meanings in source language and expressing in target language – both require sufficient understanding of the two languages. keywords: equivalent, negation, negative verbs, englishvietnamese translation. biodata statement tran luu hoang ngoc van trang is a fulltime consultant for visa application service at isee academy for over five years and a student of the m.a. program in english language studies at hoa sen university, viet nam. her major research areas are methods and techniques of englishvietnamese translation and interpreting. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 155 of 168 using taskbased approach to improve the 9th graders’ speaking skills at viet anh school in ho chi minh city pham nguyen bao ngoc(1); truong van anh(2) (1) department of education and training, hcmc (2) sai gon university abstract this research seeks to identify the effectiveness of task-based approach on speaking ability as well as the attitudes of the students towards the implementation. during the study, the researcher carried out action research design at classes of grade nine with the participation of two hundred and ten students and the assistance of five teachers as examiners and observers at viet anh lower secondary school. this research used an integrated mixed-method design in which quantitative data were collected from a speaking test and qualitative data were collected from interview, observation checklist and questionnaire. the results of the study showed a significant impact of task-based approach on students’ speaking skills; additionally, in speaking lessons, students were found to have a higher level of motivation, interest, confidence, creativity and collaborative learning skills. based on the findings, this study recommends that task-based approach be applied to the teaching of english as a foreign language. keywords: action research, qualitative, quantitative, speaking skill, task-based approach biodata statement as a teacher and a specialist at the department of education and training in phu nhuan district, he has taught experimental classes, cooridinated, designed, and managed the educational activities of teaching and learning english in his home district. besides, he has compiled and co-compiled many books in english, published by a variety of publishing houses such as oxford university press, vietnam educational publishing house, etc. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 156 of 168 biodata statement as a teacher and a specialist at the department of education and training in phu nhuan district, he has taught experimental classes, cooridinated, designed, and managed the educational activities of teaching and learning english in his home district. besides, he has compiled and co-compiled many books in english, published by a variety of publishing houses such as oxford university press, vietnam educational publishing house, etc. keywords: academic performance, social medium, facebook, digital transformation, language skills, writing skills literature review � the effectiveness of utilizing facebook in enhancing the interaction as well as academic performance of university students. � the impact of incorporating facebook discussion and peer assessment online on improving the writing skill of students. � students’ attitude and perceptions towards utilizing facebook as a teaching and learning tool in efl classroom. � instructors’ points of view on their social use of facebook in educational context. the effectiveness of using facebook to enhance university students’ performance in english do quoc khanh ho chi minh city industry and trade college, vietnam dqk.btant@gmail.com abstract regarding this investigation’s scope, i have gathered twentyseven related studies which is carried out in taiwan, turkey, south korea, saudi arabia, japan, thailand, the uk, the usa, malaysia, iran, jordan and indonesia. five out of twentyseven studies address the effectiveness of using facebook for enhancing the interaction as well as academic performance of university students. moreover, the impact of incorporating facebook discussion and peer assessment online on improving the writing skill of students are also reflected. additionally, some of the studies i have gathered provide insights into esl and efl students’ attitudes and perceptions towards the incorporation of facebook into the teaching and learning process. besides, a proportion of the studies reveal the belief and viewpoints of instructors on the use of facebook in educational settings. while the majority of the articles recognize the positive impact that facebook has on students’ writing competence, some articles also point out the potential challenges in implementing facebook into various teaching and learning circumstances. this in-depth synthesis of relevant studies aims to provide english language professors with a profound knowledge of practical and creative ways to employ the most popular social networking site in improving students’ interaction in particular and academic performance in general. thanks to this, any given instructor may figure out the resemblance and divergence between the educational setting of the instructors in the studies and that of their own; consequently, they can make necessary refinement and modification constantly in order to create an adequate learning environment for their students since when it comes to facebook-integrated teaching, a one-size fit-all technique does not exist. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 157 of 168 how to avoid using informal language in academic writing nguyen thi quynh ngan sai gon university abstract to improve the academic essay writing skill of students at the department of foreign languages at sai gon university, the application of formal language is inevitable. with all of those who are familiar with the use of nonstandard english, they definitely struggle with maintaining formality in academic contexts. the primary aim of this study was to determine whether the sophomores can differentiate the appropriate use of formal and informal language. a survey was conducted based on academic disciplines in essay writing course, moreover, formal and informal english was collected and used as illustrative examples for a language checklist for academic and casual english which was related to three main aspects – lexical resources; grammatical structures; spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. results indicated that the students who had experienced violating formality in essay coursework were totally able to enhance their skills by the top five effective techniques. the analysis of findings which come from this study will assist students with navigating the proper perception towards upgrading formality in their academic writing skills. keywords: formal english, informal english, writing skill biodata statement having written a university thesis with excellent points, ms. nguyen thi quynh ngan graduated from sai gon univerity with an honorable degree. she has been teaching english in some centers and has won her great prestigue as an efl teacher. her aim is further study at a university or an institute. taking part in this conference may enhance her future study. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 158 of 168 examining the vietnamese ‘sẽ’ and its english equivalents in the vietnamese novel: “nỗi buồn chiến tranh” and its translated text in english: “the sorrow of war” nguyen trung huy hoa sen university, vietnam huy.nt1405@gmail.com abstract as viet nam is gaining international recognition in recent years, the need to introduce the vietnamese language, its culture and literatures also increases, which is particularly relevant to the field of translation studies. this study would like to explore the possible equivalents of the vietnamese ‘sẽ’ when translated into english such as ‘will’, ‘would’ or others types, and attempts to categorize the frequency of each type of equivalents discovered by analyzes the data collected from the vietnamese novel: “nỗi buồn chiến tranh” by bảo ninh and its translated text in english: “the sorrow of war” by phan thanh hảo. this study hopes to offer insights in translating the vietnamese ‘sẽ’ accordingly with given literature context, whether as an intention ‘will’ or as an hypothesis ‘would’ because ‘sẽ’ is mutually referred as an event or action in the future, and future is uncertain. it is hoped that the result of this study would provide examples on how phrases, sentences containing ‘sẽ’ be translated into english accordingly with context, thus contributes to the effort of introduce the vietnamese language and culture. keywords: translation studies, vietnamese-english translation, equivalence, sẽ, modality, modal verbs. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 159 of 168 students’ vocabualry memorization is enhanced via fishbone diagram le quy mai huyen, huynh thi van anh abstract nowadays high school students are facing tremendous difficulties in memorizing vocabulary. the aim of this research is to offer a deeper insight into one of the most immensely popular ways of learning and remembering english vocabulary for high school students, the fishbone diagram method. the study focuses on the effectiveness of this method to vocabulary memorization. high school students have many difficulties in memorizing vocabulary and some highlight obstacles they find demanding are pronunciation, tough spelling and especially word family and collocation. the fishbone diagram method helps students a lot in overcoming the problems. hopefully, this method will be applied much and become a popular choice among students in learning english vocabulary. keywords: memorize, fishbone diagram, method, vocabulary biodata statement ms. le quy mai huyen having a master’s degree in the u.k, and being a co-founder of the viet anh school system, she understands very well the wishes and goals of english learners, besides the difficulties in learning english of students in vietnam. with the experience accumulated during her study and work, she has developed curricula as well as methods to maximize the student’s abilities which help students learn english. such as positivity, initiative, creativity. she is also the editor of many english books that are learned at many schools in ho chi minh city and the other cities. she has been respected and trusted by many teachers, parents, and students. her point of view in teaching and learning english is how to help students confidently communicate in english, using english more effectively. ms. huynh thi van anh as an expert of education, she is in charge of the english training program integrated with the british education program at viet anh school system. she always explores and innovates teaching methods to improve students’ ability to use english. she has achieved a lot of success in training, with many students winning high prizes in current english competitions. she is the author of many integrated books that have been appraised by the ho chi minh city department of education and training and allowed to use at schools in the city. currently, lots of students are studying her integrated math science books at more than 30 schools in the city. her professional point of view is that seeing students use english fluently, confidently is her happiness and encourages her to constantly study and do research on building models and methods of teaching english. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 160 of 168 management and development of the university teaching staff in vietnam today according to ho chi minh’s ideology le trung kien the institute of ho chi minh and party leaders ho chi minh national academy of politics, hanoi, vietnam kienlt1511@gmail.com abstract president ho chi minh is a great educator of vietnam, who oriented the birth of a comprehensive, scientific education with profound contemporary values. ho chi minh has a system of viewpoints on developing the university teaching staff: on quality of management, on methods and ways of managing teaching staff; on professional training; on building education policy; on a healthy, democratic and synchronous environment. immersed in the teachings of ho chi minh, higher education in vietnam has now achieved great achievements in building the university teaching staff with increased number of qualified and professional lecturers, the policy regime for lecturers is concerned, but there are still shortcomings and difficulties. therefore, the application of ho chi minh’s ideology on management and development of the university teaching staff has practical value and is very necessary for management agencies to contribute to improving the quality of management and development of the university teaching staff a decisive factor in the quality of education, training and scientific research in vietnam today. keywords: teaching staff, vietnam, ho chi minh acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 161 of 168 how to train the higher order thinking skills with cbl project during the covid-19 hiroyuki obari(1); steve lambacher(2); hisayo kikuchi(2) (1) aoyama gakuin university obari119@gmail.com (2) aoyama gakuin university steve.lambacher@gmail.com (3) aoyama gakuin university hisayo@t07.itscom.net abstract in this presentation, the study focuses on challenge-based learning (cbl) will be presented. this case study included japanese students from aoyama gakuin university (agu) and waseda university in tokyo (n=196) and was implemented online from may 2020 to january 2021 using zoom, as well as the sns programs facebook and line for added support. pedagogical training focused on helping students find solutions to many issues now faced in the 21st century such as global warming and human rights. throughout the online program, training in higher-order thinking skills was emphasized. finally, the results of a survey that was disseminated twice to participants of both case studies (in july 2020 and january 2021, respectively) will be presented. the survey focused on gauging students’ opinions about their online virtual learning experiences during covid-19. some of the notable survey results included: (1) 70% of students felt the online classes improved their speaking skills; and (2) 65% of students felt peereval was effective. these results would seem to indicate that cbl can be effective in providing ample opportunities for students to use english regularly and improve their higher-order thinking skills even during the covid-19. keywords: cbl project; higher order thinking skills; covid-19; peereval acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 162 of 168 a case study of student views on effective online learning le thi tuyet minh university of economics hcm city snowle@ueh.edu.vn abstract this study investigates the students’ opinions of the elements of effective online learning. the respondents (n=172) completed a twelve-week course in the module 3 english classes at university of economics ho chi minh city (ueh) taught by the author with an eight-week online period. the tool includes a questionnaire with 14 questions regarding the factors that enable them to be engaged in the online lessons and an open-ended question asking for the students’ contribution to the ideas of effective online learning. the questionnaire utilizes the likert scale via google form. the elements cover the three components: cognitive presence, teaching presence and social presence in the foundational model for online learning developed by garrison et al. (2000). seven main elements for effective online english teaching are recognized as: teaching method, course content, learning activities (updated news delivery, games, polls, and student presentations are favorable), myriad interaction (short questions are preferable), learning incentives (bonus marks), supportive learning environment (teacher voice, praise, encouragement, good teacher-student and student-student relationships) and supplementary materials (revision, extra resources, etc.). finally, the writer draws on some suggestions for effective online teaching and learning. keywords: effective online learning, online teaching, student engagement. biodata statement le thi tuyet minh is a lecturer of school of foreign languages at university of economics ho chi minh city, vietnam. she has got an m.a. degree in tesol and has been teaching for more than 15 years. she mainly teaches business english and toeic. her major research interests are student motivation, computer assisted language learning, educational technology, and elt methodology. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 163 of 168 a narrative inquiry of a vietnamese university efl teacher’s assessment identity dao thi bich nguyen hanoi national university nguyendb@hnue.edu.vn abstract this research uses narrative inquiry approach to explore the teaching and assessment practice of a lecturer working in one university in the northern part of vietnam. to collect data, the research has adapted the tree of life activity (ncube, 2006) as a narrative frame enabling the teachers to reflect on and share their stories about their assessment practice as well as the world in which they live and work. the theoretical framework is grounded dewey’s notion of experience, and clandinin & connelly’s (1990) threedimensional space of narrative inquiry while the conceptual framework is based on xu & brown’s (2016) framework of teacher assessment literacy in practice and looney et al.’s (2017) reconceptualization of teacher assessment identity. the findings underscore the dynamic nature of language teacher identities including their assessment identities, highlight the role the working context plays in shaping these identities, and illustrate how teacher assessment identities influence their assessment practice. keywords: narrative inquiry, teacher assessment identity, tree-of-life activity biodata statement dao thi bich nguyen is a lecturer at the faculty of english, hanoi national university of education, vietnam. she is currently doing her phd at hanoi university. her research interests include language testing and assessment, language teacher identity and teacher assessment identity. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 164 of 168 online learning in the context of the covid-19 pandemic: vietnamese students’ voice nguyen thi hong nhat hanoi pedagogical university 2 nguyenthihongnhat@hpu2.edu.vn abstract transitioning from face-to-face to online learning and teaching can be challenging for educational stakeholders, especially in limited technology contexts. in vietnam, many universities had no choice but to move to online learning in the context of the covid-19 pandemic. however, few studies have examined vietnamese university students’ experience of online learning during this period of educational disruption. this study was conducted to understand foreign language students’ perspectives about online learning in a public university in vietnam. the data were collected using an online survey and received 840 responses. the study uncovered a number of issues that limited the effectiveness of the students’ online learning. the issues are related to the organizing of online learning activities, learning technology, support for students’ learning, students’ learning conditions, and lecturers. the study suggests that to increase the effectiveness of online learning, educational institutions, especially in limited technology contexts, should have long-term strategies to address primary challenges of online learning. keywords: covid 19, online learning, vietnam, students’ voiceidentity, tree-of-life activity biodata statement transitioning from face-to-face to online learning and teaching can be challenging for educational stakeholders, especially in limited technology contexts. in vietnam, many universities had no choice but to move to online learning in the context of the covid-19 pandemic. however, few studies have examined vietnamese university students’ experience of online learning during this period of educational disruption. this study was conducted to understand foreign language students’ perspectives about online learning in a public university in vietnam. the data were collected using an online survey and received 840 responses. the study uncovered a number of issues that limited the effectiveness of the students’ online learning. the issues are related to the organizing of online learning activities, learning technology, support for students’ learning, students’ learning conditions, and lecturers. the study suggests that to increase the effectiveness of online learning, educational institutions, especially in limited technology contexts, should have long-term strategies to address primary challenges of online learning. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 165 of 168 the application of multi-functional english learning platform to esp course: feedbacks from students and teachers chieh-min jason yang feng chia university, taiwan jasonyang170@gmail.com abstract this study applied multi-functional english learning platform to english as a foreign language esp course. the objective was to investigate whether this platform would promote students’ learning motivation and enhance language and content learning based on students’ perception and teachers’ feedback. participants were junior students and english instructors from department of fiber and composite material at a university in taiwan. the instrument of online survey was implemented to probe students’ perceptions toward the effectiveness of learning via the learning platform. semi-structured interviews from both students and teachers were collected to disclose the reflections of the current project and overall learning and teaching experience. results from quantitative data analysis revealed that most of the students perceive the learning platform to be helpful to raise their learning motivation. yet the discrepancy appeared in the effectiveness of learning via the platform as only students with intermediate english level showed rather positive attitude on the effectiveness of vocabulary learning and the improvement of speaking ability. qualitative data analysis revealed that students preferred learning under multimodal presentation rather than lecturing and students’ level of language proficiency could be the factor that influence how students’ ranked the effectiveness of learning via this learning platform. interviews from teachers indicated some potential problems of using this learning platform such as the problematic feedback to students’ speaking based on the in-built voice recognition analyzer and the problem of cheating to complete assigned tasks online with advanced technology. based on the research findings, suggestions and pedagogical implications were offered to language teachers and education technology designers to facilitate esp instruction. keywords: covid 19, online learning, vietnam, students’ voiceidentity, tree-of-life activity biodata statement chieh-min jason yang (楊捷閔) is an assistant professor at feng chia university, taiwan. he has been a coordinator of workplace english for years and assists to develop new esp curriculum to meet students’ needs. his research interests are call, esp, corpus linguistics and reading research. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 166 of 168 an assessment of students’ satisfaction with online testing in higher education – an empirical study with foreign language students at vietnam national university-hcmc truc tran(1); du tran(2); phuong nguyen(3); ngan nguyen(4) university of social sciences and humanities vnu-hcm; thu dau mot university abstract as the fourth wave of pandemic hit vietnam in may 2021 resulting in lockdowns, all educational activities have been switched to the e-learning format including online assessment and testing. this paper aims to conduct an empirical study on students’ satisfaction with online assessment and testing at some foreign language faculties at university of social sciences and humanities-vietnam national university-hcmc. data were obtained by giving questionnaire to students at three faculties: faculty of english linguistics, faculty of russian linguistics and faculty of chinese linguistics. the questionnaire received 201 valid responses. quantitative techniques were applied to find out some highlights from the results. (1) students rated their perceived satisfaction from online testing as 4.07 on the 5-point likert scale. (2) t-test showed that in comparison between faculties, students of the faculty of english linguistics and the faculty of russian linguistics had similar views on the application of online assessment. in contrast, the degree to which students of the faculty of chinese linguistics supported online testing significantly differed from those of the other faculties. (3) findings proved that a majority of students approved the continuation of the online assessment and testing after pandemic yet anova results showed a considerable difference according to the faculty where students reside. (4) correlation of contributing factors and students’ willingness of online testing continuation showed that there were strong associations between students’ willingness and the three factors: test organization factors, test content factors and marking factors. obtaining feedback from students is an essential part of identifying what online assessment and testing have worked and where improvements could be made in the future. keywords: online assessment, testing, foreign language teaching, empirical study, pandemic acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 167 of 168 mediating reading motivation through parental support: the case of grade 7 students of esperanza switch national high school joseph p. casbual jr., maels, aldrianne c. ligan western mindanao state university josephcasibual@gmail.com abstract schools in the philippines have been compelled to switch to an alternative delivery modality as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. reading motivation is an important emotional aspect in the field of education since it motivates people to read. parental support has an impact on a student’s desire to read. the majority of information about parental support for children is fixated on the elementary and tertiary levels, whereas current research in reading motivation is mostly focused on students’ reading achievement and engagement in reading hence, resulting to basic education receiving less attention. the goal of this quantitativedescriptive correlational study was to better understand the dynamics of parental support and reading motivation in the alternate delivery method at the secondary level. reading motivation and parental support were shown to be linked in the survey. the data from 81 grade 7 students at esperanza-switch national high school in switch, ramon magsaysay, zamboanga del sur were statistically analyzed using a customized survey questionnaire. the results revealed a strong association between the factors. furthermore, the study indicated that the problem can be solved by increasing parental support towards students’ reading habits in order to improve their reading skills. keywords: reading motivation, parental support, philippines, modular learning biodata statement joseph p. casibual jr., maels is an instructor at western mindanao state universityphilippines teaching language, literature, and research-related courses. he has been an instructor at the university for five years already. his field of specialization is in linguistics and literature. he’s been doing research on gender, folklore, cultural studies, and applied linguistics and have presented in local and international research conferences. he is now currently a candidate of phd in literary studies wherein his dissertation focuses on the queer scholarship and its phenomenology. adrianne ligan., is an undergraduate student major in education with specialization in english. his field of interest as a budding researcher focuses on journalism, pop literature and language education. he is currently on his last year in college and expects to graduate by next year. acojissn 1936-9859 asiacall online journal friday saturday, 26-27 november 2021 page 168 of 168 correlation between internet literacy and vocabulary level: implication towards reading comprehension joseph p. casbual jr., maels, julrem b. nacua western mindanao state university josephcasibual@gmail.com abstract in-depth research on reading comprehension receives less attention in basic education, despite the fact that the problem is just as critical, if not more so, in this pandemic era. this study aims to learn the dynamics of reading comprehension to draw conclusion on the phenomenon. martin-chang and gould (2008) observed a strong connection between vocabulary and reading comprehension. however, meagre studies have correlated two variables – internet literacy (iv) and vocabulary level (dv) – combined implication towards reading comprehension. with the globalization of online learning, urban demography’s visibility was catered with 83 senior high school students as respondents. the data revealed a low correlation. generally, the high mean for online literacy and high mean in the performed evaluation were showing the participants awareness on how to use the digital side of learning and a decent vocabulary level. null hypothesis ii was accepted in this research. surprisingly, this low correlation could be affected by the students’ internal and external strategy which created an impetus for their reading comprehension aside from digital utilization. keywords: reading comprehension, online reading, internet literacy, vocabulary level biodata statement joseph p. casibual jr., maels is an instructor at western mindanao state university-philippines teaching language, literature, and research-related courses. he has been an instructor at the university for five years already. his field of specialization is in linguistics and literature. he’s been doing research on gender, folklore, cultural studies, and applied linguistics and have presented in local and international research conferences. he is now currently a candidate of phd in literary studies wherein his dissertation focuses on the queer scholarship and its phenomenology. julrem nacua., is an undergraduate student major in education with specialization in english. his field of interest as a budding researcher focuses on gender studies, literary adapatation and language education. he is currently on his last year in college and expects to graduate by next year. 