Task 2

Kelson, B. (2009). Teaching EFL to the iGeneration: A Survey of Using Youtube as Supplementary Material with College EFL Students in Taiwan. CALL-EJ Online. Retrieved from 19 August 2010, from http://callej.org/journal/10-2/kelsen.html

A) Introduction

The research article reviewed is “Teaching EFL to the iGeneration: A Survey of Using YouTube as Supplementary Material with College EFL Students in Taiwan” by Brent Kelsen of Yuan Ze University from Taiwan. This article can be found at an online journal called CALL-EJ or Computer Assisted Language Learning – Electric Journal. It is in volume 10, number 3, February 2009 edition in archives section of the website. This article aims to explore the use of YouTube as a supplementary material with EFL students in Taiwan as well as gauge their interest and perceptions towards various factors that will be discussed further in the next section on this review.

B) Summary of the Article

YouTube is currently one of the top ten most visited websites of today. There are more than 100 million videos being watched every day making it an interactive online tool. This is one technological advanced website with a clear growing popularity that may possibly be incorporated as a supplementary tool in an EFL classroom. Kelson (2009) attempted to study the concept of authenticity and student motivation and how it can be further enhanced with the use of YouTube as a supplementary tool.

The purpose of this research is to explore the use of YouTube in an EFL situation by surveying students' attitudes towards using YouTube to study English. It attempts to seek students’ perceptions with five purposes in mind. The purposes are as followed:-

1. Making classes more interesting
2. Being relevant to course material
3. Being beneficial to language learning
4. Motivating students to learn in class
5. Motivating students to use this material to learn English outside of class.

This research was carried out on two classes of 31 and 39 students respectively, at a private university in Taiwan. On the first day of the fall semester, a questionnaire regarding their gender, access to computer and experiences using YouTube were given out. This questionnaire was given out again on the last days of the semester.

The study was carried out throughout the semester using materials from YouTube to supplement the textbook, World Link: Developing English Fluency by Susan Stempleski, James R. Morgan and Nancy Douglas, and associated classroom materials. Students were made aware of all web addresses through the class portal and were encouraged to preview/review the clips at home, before and after the viewing in the classroom. Furthermore, students were invited to suggest video clips to be used in class.

The findings of this study showed that overall students are aware of YouTube and most of them have visited the website. However, their visits initially were mostly for entertainment purposes. After being exposed to the use of YouTube as a supplementary material throughout the semester, an overwhelming percentage of students considered it to be an interesting tool in the classroom. A great majority considered it as being a relevant material to the class. Furthermore, the students found the YouTube material beneficial to them. Yet, more than half of the students, 53.3%, were not motivated to use YouTube to learn English outside the classroom. This can be attributed to the claim that most of the students considered YouTube as a means to find entertainment and not to learn English. The researcher hypothesized that YouTube can be used as an authentic material input and as a motivational tool. Teachers and students can be creative to incorporate YouTube in a variety of classroom activities. It can be interesting, beneficial, relevant as well as somewhat motivating to students. Thus the use of YouTube can be fully utilized with the right materials in mind.

C) Reaction

This researched intrigued me as YouTube has been the website of choice when looking for instant visual information for myself. It is also interesting as there is not a lot of research done on YouTube as a source of authentic material for learning English. However, there are a few setbacks in this research which left me quite perplexed. The participants of this research all came from the same department thus the results cannot be generalised to other student population. Secondly, the questionnaires were in English which might be a bit confusing to foreign language students. The researcher should have made the questionnaire in the students’ first language as well to minimise confusion. Finally, the researcher did not achieve all the goals that he set out to do. The question whether or not YouTube motivates students to learn English was left unclear since less than half of the percentage of students used YouTube outside of the classroom as a means to learn English.

Nevertheless, the researcher provides teachers with a creative way to teach English. YouTube can be considered an authentic source of material and can be manipulated to be used in the classroom. It is a fun for both teachers and learners. Still, the effectiveness of it as a whole is still in question.

The article can be found here