Previous studies on IT integration into EFL classes in elementary schools

in Taipei applies technology into her teaching, the researchers (Huang, Liu, Li, Lin &

Cheng, 2006) made some interesting statements from their observation. First, the school’s policy to set IT integration as their priority plays a major role in her decision to integrate technology into her English classroom. In a school where English teachers can have her own computer classroom, well equipped with information technology, which can be a rare case in Taiwan, the teacher has great confidence in devoting herself to IT integration into her English instruction. For her, on the one hand, technology can facilitate her teaching by increasing students’ motivation in participating in class activities with its multimedia effect, offering the students greater opportunities to do self-learning and repeating drills, and serving as ideal media for remedial teaching. On the other hand, technology’s failure to meet each individual student’s learning need is one of her concerns when using technology in class, especially for classes with

struggling students who have little access to IT at home or the physically challenged. In her opinion, unlike the cases in other core subjects taught mostly through the students’

native language, Mandarin, it is difficult to ask elementary students to do project exploration or net-surfing in English classes since the task requires a larger English vocabulary. With the bipolar phenomenon turning increasingly serious in elementary English classroom, teachers will have a tougher time designing suitable learning materials to fit individual needs, not to mention creating multimedia ones.

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Hsu and Huang (2006) conducted an action research in an attempt to understand the students’ attitudes toward digital teaching materials and to discuss the students’

opinions and the teachers’ introspection upon the teaching instruction. According to the teachers interviewed in the action research, digital English learning materials acquaints the students with IT use and works as tutor in facilitating students’ English learning.

During the process of using digital learning materials, the roles of teachers have move from an instructor to a facilitator, which means the teacher-centered instruction into their English classes has shifted to student-centered learning. To these teachers’ surprise, with the help from digital learning materials, they report to have better achievement in class management and discipline. Nevertheless, the problems concerning the

time-consuming characteristics of the production of digital learning materials and uneven computer literacy levels among students deserve more attention from schools and teachers.

Considering IT integration into core subject curriculum has been recognized as the road all teachers in modern society have to take, more and more research efforts have been made to have better understanding about the status quo in schools of all levels in Taiwan. Since the focus of the present study is on the current IT integration in

elementary English classrooms, a review on such studies done in the past proves to be beneficial. Through a series of comparisons and contrasts made among the three studies (Teng, 2004; Huang, 2007; Cheng, 2008) with similar focal points on elementary English teachers’ use of IT in their instruction, certain insights can emerge as the basis for the design of the present study.

Based on the above comparisons and contrasts made among three recent studies on Taiwanese elementary school English teachers’ IT integration into curriculum

conducted in different local areas, both similarities and differences can be found among them, which serve as significant basis for the present studies. To begin with, most of the

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researchers preferred to do quantitative research by employing a variety of

questionnaires, with two of them having qualitative data as triangulation. Next, all of them reported subjects’ positive attitude toward IT integrating into English instruction and its effectiveness in enhancing student’ learning outcomes. When it came to the pedagogical implications, both Teng and Huang put extra emphasis on the optimistic impact of IT integration accompanied by collaborative learning strategies, which were believed to significantly increase students’ confidence by giving them positive

reinforcement for their growth and improvement in a cooperative learning environment.

Agreeably, all of the studies proposed the same suggestion that authorities concerned and schools should make continuous efforts to support IT related facilitation as well as to host more inspiring and practical training courses for in-service teachers if the goal of IT integration into curriculum were to be achieved. To ensure success in integrating IT into English instructions, English teachers were advised to improve their computer literacy, make flexible use of on-line resources, create digital or multimedia teaching or learning materials through individual effort or collaboration among colleagues, and, most importantly, have confidence and patience during their attempt to integrate IT into instruction. As for their suggestions for future research, both Teng (2004) & Cheng (2008) advised that a closer observation and more qualitative reports need to be carried out so as to generate more fruitful results, which were sure to bring about positive impact on English education in this field. As was often the case with most quantitative research, a larger sample size is always recommended, which motivate the researcher of the present study to conduct a large scale survey study using teachers around Taiwan as subjects. Yet, it was a pity that few of them addressed the issues of participants’ thoughts about specific details regarding successful IT integration experiences, such as whether teachers perceived IT integration into instruction to be able to make the content of instruction more diverse, increase interaction among teachers and students, or affect