CHAPTER FOUR FINDINGS
Advantage 7: Benefit English learning
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Thirteen participants (26.5%) reported that it is very convenient to keep in touch or have discussions with friends and classmates through instant Internet communication devices such as instant messengers and weblogs. They said while reading on the Internet, they can not only read the online article by themselves, but also ask about comprehension questions or share the same article with their friends or classmates by merely pasting the website links on the Internet. A group discussion respecting this point is presented below:
P1: Sometimes if I cannot understand any colloquial words on foreign websites, I can ask my friends through MSN. I can just copy and paste a website link to the MSN and they can read, watch, or listen to the information I find. Or sometimes I post it on the blog and then my friends will leave me massages or we will discuss over the information sometimes. (SG#12)
Advantage 6: Make reading documents
To make reading documents is another benefit from reading online that nine participants (18.4%) brought up in the interview. They felt it is easy and free to combine all the target information found from the Internet as their reading documents that can be printed out later for careful reading. Additionally, with the use of computer, online readers can collect, excerpt, edit, and customize all the information they need from the Internet. As a result, they can save time from laboriously jotting down the information found online. A participant responded:
P1: It is easy for me to copy and paste the information I want. Besides, it will be so much better as long as there is a printer because I can print out any information I gather right away. Then, it will not waste my time to write down it. Also, I can change the color and the font of the words, which can suit my needs. (SG#10)
Advantage 7: Benefit English learning
Nine participants regarded the benefit for English learning as another merit of reading online. Generally speaking, they thought their English proficiency can
improve. However, according to them, the improvement seems to be merely confined
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to English reception proficiency, namely English reading and listening proficiency.
Consequently, most of them viewed vocabulary learning is the main improvement from reading online, as a participant said, “Through reading on the Internet, I can learn new vocabulary and thus improve English ability” (FG#9-P2). Overall, this perspective is specified in the interview with three participants below:
P1: Probably we are gradually accumulating and improving our English language ability, especially listening and reading abilities.
P2: Yes, but it is hard for me to get used to some different accents.
P1: Besides, I can learn vocabulary. I like jotting down the unknown words while reading English news online.
R: Why?
P1: Because words on the news websites seem to be more professional. If I read on YouTube, I don’t memorize the words.
P2: But I don’t check or memorize the words unless some certain words keep showing up in the same article. So, if I find an article full of some certain words which arouse my attentions, I will look it up and memorize it.
P3: Me too. I usually skip the unknown words. I only check up the words when I can’t understand the content.
R: So, can these online resources help improve your English ability?
P2: Yes, but it [reading online] only improves reading and listening [proficiency].
P1: That’s right but not speaking [proficiency]. (FG#8) Advantage 8: Multitask
The last advantage of reading online is multitasking, meaning that it is easy to do many things on the Internet such as reading and listening to music at the same time, searching for definitions of newly encountered vocabulary, or reading more than two reading contents through different windows. Surprisingly, there are only three
participants (6.1%) thinking of doing many tasks simultaneously online as a benefit because most of them (22 participants) felt doing many things online seems to lead them to distractions, as mentioned in the previous section. A participant, on the contrary, valued this feature by stating that:
P2: I think reading online can help me look up new words and do the reading at
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the same time. So, I can read even faster. Besides, if there is something I don’t know in the content, I can check it through the Internet immediately (FG#15)
Preferences of reading English online or in print
In order to know the participants’ preferences of reading English online, interview question 9 required the participants to express how they prefer to read, online, in print, or in both ways, and why. The result presented in Figure 9 reveals that regardless of many advantages that reading on the Internet can bring, only 10% of the participants (5 participants) exclusively preferred reading online, 39% (19 participants) exclusively in print, and 51% (25 participants) both in print and online.
Figure 9. Distribution of preferences of reading English online or in print
Interestingly, it is found that the reason why more participants (19 participants) particularly preferred to read in print than online (5 participants) happens to be related to the disadvantages of reading online they remarked in their interviews that were reported in prior section. Nineteen participants favored to read in print since they felt that reading in print are more liable to: (1) concentrate on reading contents, (2)
underline and take notes, (3) remember reading contents more, (4) possess and collect books, (5) read almost everywhere, (6) maintain eyes health, and (7) read more
Both In print
Online
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educational information.
In addition, from the interview data, it is found that the reason why there are only five participants particularly favoring to read online is connected with the advantages of reading online that were touched on previously. Five of them would rather read online because they spilled that the Internet can provide them with (1) a wide range of reading topics and materials, (2) the latest information, (3) the convenient access to desired information, (4) others’ opinions and perspectives, (5) multimedia information, and (6) chances to do multitasking.
More than half of the participants (25 participants) reported that they prefer reading both online and in print in accordance with their reading purposes. To them, different reading purposes can lead them to read in different ways; therefore, they did not particularly like reading in either way.
Suggestions for teachers to incorporate Internet use into classes
Interview question 10 asked the participants about their pedagogical suggestions to their teachers who intend to integrate the Internet English reading into their courses.
Because the participants must have experienced their teachers’ instructions with the use of the Internet technology before, this question intended to require them to recall their prior experiences of employing the Internet in preparation for their teachers’
assignments. To be specific, they were required to spill the problems they had encountered, based on which they then had to provide some suggestions to solve them.
The findings of the participants’ suggestions to their teachers are presented in Table 4-18. As shown in the table, there are six main themes of suggestions found from the interview data. The participants suggested teachers (1) recommend useful websites with 43% of all the responses, (2) teach search skills with 16%, (3) create
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e-learning websites with 16%, (4) appropriately assign online tasks with 11%, (5) create opportunities for teacher-student interactions online with 7%, and (6) incorporate Internet use into classes with 7%.
In Table 4-18, the subtotal number of each main category suggestion, highlighted in bold, is the total number of the frequency in reporting some subcategorized
educational suggestions for the teacher who intend to integrate the use of the Internet into the course. The participants were allowed to offer more than one main category of suggestion. However, even if the participants mentioned the same subcategorized suggestion more than once, the frequency was merely counted once. The total number of frequency in all suggestions was calculated by adding the subtotal number of each main category of suggestion. As to the percentage of each subcategorized suggestion, it was computed by dividing the frequency of each subcategorized suggestion by the total number of frequency in that certain main category of suggestion in order to show the percentage that each subcategory of suggestion takes up. In addition, the
percentage of each main suggestion was calculated by dividing the subtotal number of frequency of each main category of suggestion by the total number of frequency in all main categories of suggestion.
Table 4-18 Suggestions for Teachers Intending to Incorporate Internet Use into Classes
Suggestions Subcategories N %
1. Offer students more useful websites to use 35 78%
2. Provide searching keywords 7 15%
3. Categorize the recommended websites 3 7%
Recommend useful websites
SUBTOTAL 45 (43%) 1. Instruct students to use recommended websites
or journals 11 65%
2. Train students to judge the reliability of online
information 6 35%
Teach search skills
SUBTOTAL 17 (16%)
Create e-learning 1. Provide course-related information for students 10 59%
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2. Try not to receive assignment or give tests online
4 23%
3. Provide a place for students to discuss 3 18%
websites
SUBTOTAL 17 (16%)
1. Graded level of reading materials 4 33%
2. Topics of interest 3 25%
2. Provide feedback to students' assignments posted online
1. Manifest readings or concepts mentioned in textbooks
3 42.86%
2. Check upon students' online learning 2 28.57%
3. Connect local students with foreign students 2 28.57%
Incorporate websites into classes
SUBTOTAL 7 (7%)
TOTAL 105 (100%)
Note. [N] = the number of the responses the participants gave concerning the pedagogical suggestion to the teacher who intending to use the Internet in the course.