To summarize, based on the findings of the study, the students need more support to be well- equipped to be able to transition well into the working environment of the 21st century. Based on the current study, we do see students value and acknowledge the importance of 21st century skills and knowledge. We see this through the importance they place on communication and collaboration, problem solving/critical thinking and life skills/job skills/leadership. Although many of these students are aware of the requirements, they also need the necessary skills and support to ensure that they have the skills set to get their jobs done well. Since the areas that they have identified as being important are crucial for not only their self-development, but also to enable them to function well in their future work environment, it is imperative that proper guidance and attention be given to these students to help them obtain the required skills. For example, students have identified collaboration as a vital ingredient for their successful work skill, thus this has to be recognised and more sessions that are collaboration based have to be done to help the students master this skill.
The suggestions for future research would include getting input from students across different levels from pre-university right up to postgraduate to see if there is a change in their perception of the most important skill and least important skill as they proceed in their chosen tertiary study. Moreover, some students may be able to suggest other skills that they did not foresee at the current level, due to being inexperienced and lack the understanding of the nature of the course they are pursuing.
Another suggestion would be to identify the students’ responses based on gender, as male and female respondents would have a different set of skills that they would value to be important. It would be interesting to see if male and female rate skills like digital literacy and communication the same since they may have other preferences that they think would be more important to succeed in their future work environment.
REFERENCES
Ahonen, A. K., & Kinnunen, P. (2015). How do students value the importance of twenty-first century skills?. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 59(4), 395-412.
Bell, S. (2010). Project-based learning for the 21st century: Skills for the future. The Clearing House, 83(2), 39-43.
243 Betts, G., Kapushion, B., & Carey, R. J. (2016). The autonomous learner model. In
Giftedness and Talent in the 21st Century (pp. 201-220). SensePublishers, Rotterdam.
Binkley, M., Erstad, O., Herman, J., Raizen, S., Ripley, M., Miller-Ricci, M., & Rumble, M.
(2012). Defining twenty-first century skills. In Assessment and teaching of 21st century skills (pp. 17-66). Springer, Dordrecht.
Gentilucci, J. (2004). Improving School Learning: The Student Perspective. The Educational Forum, 68(2), pp.133-143.
Kalelioğlu, F., & Gülbahar, Y. (2014). The Effects of Teaching Programming via Scratch on Problem Solving Skills: A Discussion from Learners' Perspective. Informatics in Education, 13(1).
Kereluik, K., Mishra, P., Fahnoe, C., & Terry, L. (2013). What knowledge is of most worth:
Teacher knowledge for 21st century learning. Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 29(4), 127-140.
Mishra, P., & Mehta, R. (2017). What We Educators Get Wrong About 21st-Century Learning: Results of a Survey. Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 33(1), 6-19.
Wright, K. B. (2005). Researching Internet-Based Populations: Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Survey Research, Online Questionnaire Authoring Software Packages, and Web Survey Services. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol 10, No. 3, article 11.
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The Effect of Multimedia Glosses on ESL Students’ Vocabulary Learning
Wan Zulkifli Wan Kassim
Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Malaysia wanzul@umt.edu.my
KEYWORDS:Vocabulary, Glosses, CALL, Multimedia
ABSTRACT
This study investigates the effects of two types of multimedia glosses on ESL students’ vocabulary learning. Two groups of low-intermediate adult ESL learners took the target word pre-test two weeks before the experiment. During the experiment, both groups read the same electronic text but the target words were glossed differently, with the Malay translations and static images for one group, and the Malay translations and animated images for the other. Immediately after the experiment, both groups retook the same test. One week later, the groups took the delayed vocabulary post-test. Two mixed-factorial 2x2 ANOVAs were run, one using the scores of the immediate post-test, the other using the scores of the delayed post-test, to determine if the scores of both groups were statistically significant. The results showed that the group with access to animated images retained more target words. Further pedagogical implications will be discussed.
1.0 INTRODUCTION
In language education, one of the components given greater emphasis is vocabulary as it is considered to be “…the core or heart of language” (Lewis, 1993). We need to have sufficient vocabulary to use language to express our ideas or to understand others. Wilkins states that
“…while without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed” (Wilkins, 1972, pp111-112). As such, it is not surprising to see that vocabulary has become the subject of many studies by second language researchers. Different methods of vocabulary instructions have been examined to find ones that promote vocabulary learning more effectively.
One of the methods that has been researched extensively is incidental vocabulary learning through reading. It has been shown that this method works to some degree (Ellis, 1995; Krashen, 1989; Saragi, Nation & Meister, 1978, cited in Horst, Cobb & Meara, 1998). However, a drawback rendering this method less effective is many written texts typically lack contextual clues for most words, making it difficult for readers to guess their meanings (Haynes, 1993). To reduce incorrect guessing of word meanings, authors have included glosses in the reading texts. Glosses are short definitions of synonyms, either in L1 or L2 (Nation, 1983) and are often supplied for unfamiliar words to facilitate reading comprehension. They are typically located in the side or in the bottom margins of the reading texts (Lomicka, 1998). They provide accurate meanings of difficult words that may be impossible or difficult to guess using contexts (Nation, 2001) and also help to limit dictionary consultation that may interrupt the L2 reading process (Bowles, 2004). Several studies have compared the effectiveness of glosses, contextual guessing, and dictionary consultation in
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improving incidental vocabulary learning through reading, and most found glosses as the most effective (Hulstijn, Hollander & Greidanus, 1996; Watanabe, 1997; Jacobs, Dufon & Hong Cheng, 1994; Rashkovsky, 1999). Rashkovsky found that students who had access to marginal glosses showed greater incidental vocabulary learning than those who read an unglossed text. Similarly, Hulstijn, Hollander and Greidanus (1996) found that students with access to marginal glosses scored higher than those with access to dictionaries.
In a computer-assisted language learning environment, reading texts can incorporate electronic glosses (Yanguas, 2009). Electronic glosses can be made accessible through hyperlinks that are embedded to target words in the reading texts. Benefits of electronic glosses have been suggested by experts. Dais and Lyman-Hager (1997) posit that electronic glosses are appealing, unlike traditional marginal glosses in the printed form. Davis (1989) favours the unintrusive nature of electronic glosses. He notes that, due to hypertext technology, electronic glosses can be made invisible until they are accessed by the readers. In addition, electronic glosses can be shown in more formats than just text, including images, sound, or videos (Chun & Plass, 1996b). Commenting on the usefulness of electronic glosses, or more aptly named multimedia glosses, Evans (1993) notes that “the integration of text, sound and visual data clearly is of great benefit to the learners as this will reinforce comprehension, pronunciation and contextual use in a way that traditional materials are not able to do” (p.214). Different aspects of multimedia glosses have been studied. Nagata (1999) and Gettys, Imhof, and Kautz (2001) have compared the effect of singl-meaning glosses and multiple-choice glosses on vocabulary learning. De Ridder (2000, 2002) has investigated the typographical effect of glossed words on vocabulary learning. Koren (1999) has compared the effect of glosses and clue-sentences on the retention of words. Hegelheimer (1998) has explored the effects of textual and sentence-level audio glosses on vocabulary learning. Yoshii and Flaitz (2002), Al Seghayer (2001), Chun and Plass (1996), and Velazquez (2001) have examined the effect of single-format glosses and multi-format glosses on vocabulary learning.
Studies by Chun and Plass (1996a) and Al Seghayer (2001) may provide a scope for further research. Chun and Plass (1996a) conducted a study involving English-speaking subjects learning second-semester German. They read an electronic German reading passage containing eighty-two words glosses with pronunciation and L1 translations with some words also glossed with still pictures and video clips. The subjects took immediate and delayed post-tests. The results showed that words remembered with 24.1 percent to 26.5 percent accuracy. The researchers concluded that providing glosses in different modalities resulted in looking up for more words more than once, thus reinforcing learning. Al Seghayer (2001) conducted a study involving thirty ESL college students in the United States. They read an electronic English reading passage with words glossed with sound, L1 translation, pictures, and videos. Al Seghayer found the subjects performed the best in the sound, L1 and video condition.
One consistent finding from these studies is that words glossed in dual modes of translations and images, were better retained than words glossed only with translations or images. This finding has lent further support for the Dual Coding Theory which proposes that information is much easier to retain and retrieve when it is dual coded in verbal and visual form (Paivio, 1991). This theory is one of the memory models that emerged from various studies related to Cognitive Information Processing during the late 1960s. In general, Dual Coding Theory deals with how visual information is processed and stored in memory. The theory posits that memory and cognition are served by two separate systems, each having different functions, storage processing characteristics, and memory units. The verbal system processes and stores linguistic information such as words and sentences. In contrast, the visual system processes and stores images or picture-like representations.
The relationship of the two systems has shown to have positive effects on recall. When verbal and visual codes are activated simultaneously, memory is enhanced due to the additive effect. Thus, it has been claimed that the ‘dual-coded” information is easier to retain and retrieve.
With dual coded glosses (verbal and visual) found to be more effective than single glosses, this line of research can be extended by investigating the effect of different formats of visual information, more specifically the effect of still or static visuals and dynamic visuals, on the
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readers’ vocabulary learning. Dynamic visuals are different than static visuals in that the formers’
most obvious perceptual characteristic is the motion attribute (Rieber, 1994). Dynamic visuals provide the illusion of movement. Examples of dynamic visuals include videos and animated images. To date there has been little or no related studies. The comparison between the effects of static visuals and dynamic visuals on vocabulary learning is valid within the context of Schmidt’s (1990) Noticing Hypothesis. The hypothesis states that learners must “notice” a form in the input and show signs of awareness before the input can be processed further. In other words, linguistic input must be noticed for acquisition to happen. Learners are most likely to notice linguistic form during interaction and the most useful interactions are those which help learners comprehend the semantic and syntax of input. In the context of reading texts that supply glosses, interaction occurs when readers read the text and consult glosses to know the meaning of unknown words. It can be argued further that dynamic visuals enhance the interaction thereby creating more noticing.
The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of two formats of multimedia glosses on ESL students’ vocabulary learning. The formats of the multimedia glosses were textual plus static visuals and textual plus dynamic visuals respectively. Vocabulary learning was measured using vocabulary scores from immediate post-test and delayed post-test. The research questions were as follows:
1. Is there a significant difference between the immediate vocabulary post-test scores of the group with access to translation and animated-image glosses and the group with access to translation and static-image glosses?
2. Is there a significant difference between the delayed vocabulary post-test scores of the group with access to translation and animated-image glosses and the group with access to translation and static-image glosses?