15Innovative Technologies in Teaching Foreign Languages and Learner Assessment in Online Education
Chirchik State Pedagogical Institute of Tashkent region
COMPUTER-AIDED INSTRUCTION IN VOCABULARY TEACHING FOR SECONDARY SCHOOL LEARNERS
Aziza Vokhid qizi Pirmatova
Teacher of Tourism faculty of Tashkent region Chirchik State Pedagogical Institute, Chirchik, Uzbekistan
ABSTRACT
This article studies the effects of computer-assisted vocabulary teaching as a remedial approach for secondary school English students who are underachievers in terms of English ability; moreover, it aims to explore different techniques of vocabulary instruction.
Keywords: CALL, CAI, vocabulary instruction, secondary school learners, underachievers, CAVT, CAVL.
INTRODUCTION
According to Bagheri, Roohani and Ansari (2013), as English is an international language, the number of people learning English has been increasing all around the world, and one of the most important components of every language is learning its vocabulary. Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) is considered one of the most effective ways of vocabulary learning for language instructors and learners. Therefore, it can be considered as crucial to investigate students' attitudes towards CALL.
The popularity of information technology has made web-based instruction (or "e-learning") a useful tool for school teachers. Both teachers and students are interested in online learning because of its novelty and convenience. However, many teachers are facing a new teaching environment that is vastly different from the traditional classroom. To become familiar with the use and application of information technology, teachers often require a certain level of understanding of the theory as well as the practice of online instruction. Thus, teachers could help improve their students' English ability by carefully planning online activities for vocabulary building. Learning vocabulary via computer technology can be effective because it provides learners with extensive practice using target words and immediate feedback on performance (Zapata & Sagarra, 2017). Learners have more opportunities to utilize vocabulary and thus retain what they have learnt. Online learning also helps
Innovative Technologies in Teaching Foreign Languages and Learner Assessment in Online Education
Chirchik State Pedagogical Institute of Tashkent region
learners develop autonomy and motivation for vocabulary learning by giving them freedom in what and how they learn (Ma & Kelly, 2016). Online learning offers great flexibility in presenting materials, for example, by combining audio, video, and graphic elements (Tsou, Wang, & Tzeng, 2016). This is of immense value to learners since these features motivate them and focus their attention on the materials (Herselman, 2013). As a result, students may be more eager to learn than they might be in a traditional classroom.
METHODS
According to Gondova learners can learn new words by repetitive encountering and using them in real life situations. After some period of time the pupils are required to be asked to recall learned words from their memory and utilize them in new contexts. This method ought to be done quite often in order to students will have an opportunity to use the learned vocabulary as frequently as possible. Meanwhile, CAVT/CAVL enables continuous need for repetition of learned material in terms of time along with space (which is challenge to cope with in class time).
In the early 1990s Goodfellow studied the potentials of CAVT/CAVL and concluded that lexical CALL programs needed to:
a) meet learners' individual learning needs;
b) maximize interactivity in the selection, processing and practice of target words;
c) promote a deep learning (based on long-lasting memory);
d) support learning processes which focus on structure in the target-word list;
e) diagnose learning progress;
f) and generate and record data on learning approaches and outcomes.
Pokrivcakova goes further the idea that like face-to-face and human-to-human
vocabulary teaching, software aimed at CAVT/CAVL introduce or exercise foreign vocabulary in three main contexts:
a) visual context,
b) semantic contexts,
c) interlingual context.
DEVELOPING VOCABULARY IN A VISUAL CONTEXT
In order to enrich students' active vocabulary the usage of visual representations like pictures a long with photographs is number-one way forward. It is, therefore, activities based on visual materials are advisable for teachers. They involve:
Innovative Technologies in Teaching Foreign Languages and Learner Assessment in Online Education
Chirchik State Pedagogical Institute of Tashkent region
• Flashcards (action verbs)
• Labeling pictures or objects (learners are asked to label pictures on the display with words in a target language).
• Picture dictionaries
DEVELOPING VOCABULARY IN SEMANTIC CONTEXTS
o Introducing the meaning/fixing the knowledge of new words via synonyms
o Introducing/fixing the knowledge of new words via homonyms along with homophones
DEVELOPING VOCABULARY IN INTERLINGUAL CONTEXTS
■ Bilingual dictionaries (English ^ mother language)
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In the study, the pretest phase (period 1), the treatment phase (period 2), and the posttest phase (period 3) were designed as the three major periods to observe students' language development and vocabulary growth.
There was no significant difference between the experimental group and control group on the pretest; that is, both groups had the same initial level of English proficiency.
In order to explore the effects of the computer-assisted vocabulary teaching implemented with these secondary school students, both groups received the vocabulary contest (including multiple-choice questions and fill-in-the-blank exercises) as a posttest to measure their vocabulary growth.
The experimental group performed better than the control group. The average score of the experimental group (80.65 points) was much higher than that of the control group (67.83 points). The result shows that the experimental group performed better than the control group on the multiple-choice questions.
There was a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group on the posttest. Participants who received computer-assisted vocabulary teaching performed better than those who received traditional vocabulary teaching on the multiple-choice questions.
CONCLUSION
After using the online vocabulary exercises, English underachievers are more motivated toward and interested in vocabulary learning.
As in the cited previous studies, participants felt that the online pronunciation samples, immediate error feedback, ability to create or select suitable definitions, and
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Innovative Technologies in Teaching Foreign Languages and Learner Assessment in Online Education
Chirchik State Pedagogical Institute of Tashkent region
availability of contextual examples encourage students to develop a positive attitude toward learning. Taking these points in order, we see first that with immediate online feedback, students experience a sense of involvement and are able to improve their vocabulary acquisition. Second, each sample sentence has useful meaning cues, which some of the respondents exploited successfully. Students become more interested in vocabulary learning when contextual example sentences are provided. Interestingly, while the students occasionally complained about the spelling errors they spotted in word-bank entries, the authors observed that no one complained about the semantic information available. These findings support the results of an earlier investigation into word-bank entries (Horst, Cobb, & Nicolae, 2005) where quality of example sentences and definitions available in student-produced online study material was found to be high. Third, because of the formative assessment feature, students can learn words first and do vocabulary practice later. The English underachievers feel a sense of achievement like never before. Fourth, students find the online vocabulary software convenient, as it is accessible anywhere at any time. Fifth, students can set difficulty levels suitable for them, compete with others at the same level, and thus improve vocabulary acquisition. In short, the English underachievers are more motivated toward and interested in online vocabulary learning than traditional learning.
REFERENCES:
1. Chang, H.L. (2002). A comparative analysis of the quantity of the new words in senior high school English textbooks.
2. Groot, P. J. M. (2000). Computer assisted second language vocabulary acquisition. Language Learning & Technology, 4, 60-81. Retrieved March 10, 2010, from http: //llt.msu.edu/vol4num 1/groot/default.html.
3. Herselman, M. (1999). South African resource-deprived learners benefit from CALL through the medium of computer games. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 12(3), 197-218.
4. Language Learning & Technology. 9(2), 90-110. Horst, M., Cobb T., & Nicolae. (2005). Expanding academic vocabulary with interactive online database.
5. Sokmen, A. J. (1997). Current trends in teaching second-language vocabulary. In N. Schmitt, N. & McCarthy, M. (Eds.), Vocabulary: Description, acquisition and pedagogy. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
