Being one of the most epoch making invention of the 21st century, computers have fundamentally altered every aspect of people&rsquo / s lives, including the education domain. Thus, for decades, computer-assisted language learning has received considerable amount of attention among researchers and language teachers by serving interactive, multi-sensory, and autonomous learning opportunities. In this respect, innumerable large or small-scale projects blazed a trail for other teachers to follow. The present study, therefore, is primarily concerned with the students&rsquo / attitudes towards computer-assisted language learning. Its main purpose is to investigate what the students&rsquo / attitudes are towards computer- assisted language learning (CALL) by also taking their attitude towards computer assisted learning (CAL) and foreign language learning (FLL) into consideration. Finally, factors affecting students&rsquo / attitudes and the relationships among computer assisted learning, computer assisted language learning and foreign language learning are also explored within the scope of the study. The findings demonstrate that most of the students have positive attitudes towards computer assisted learning, computer assisted language learning and foreign language learning. Age, grade, gender, years of studying English and prior CALL experience affect students&rsquo / attitudes. Moreover, students attitudes towards computer assisted language learning, computer- assisted language learning, and foreign language learning are, indeed, interrelated.

The maze task is a psycholinguistic tool that is used in experimentally measuring online sentence processing time (Forster et al., 2009). It asks subjects to "weave" their way through sentences, choosing the correct grammatical alternative from two choices. This task can also offer insight into the processing strategies of L2 learners. Thus, whether or not this task can be used as an effective training program for beginning L2 learners is the topic of this current investigation. The maze task is therefore transformed into the "story maze", which contextualizes sentences for learners. Because the task provides immediate feedback regarding the precise location of an error, learners can efficiently tune their L2 processing strategies, which echoes VanPatten (2004) and his objective with processing instruction. In effect, connections made in the classroom through explicit instruction can be reinforced and strengthened through implicit maze task training. Using L2 Spanish learners, the efficacy of training types is tested in order to investigate whether the maze task can assist learners in altering their processing strategies of complex, L2 structures that are not found in the L1. Furthermore, the task's generalizing capability with respect to building the implicit and explicit knowledge bases is examined. Lastly, because the task speaks to students' identity as learners in a technologically advanced world, the likability of this task is evaluated through qualitative data, and pedagogical implications are discussed.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 81-84).

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-84). Also available in print.

The present study examines students’ use, attitudes and preferences, when it comes to EE (Extramural English). EE is defined as English language activities that learners are engaged in outside their ordinary language class, such as reading books, reading newspapers/magazines, watching TV, watching films, surfing the Internet, playing video games, listening to music, etc. The results of the study are based on data that was collected from Swedish upper secondary-school learners of English over a period of one term on several occasions. Information about students’ EE activities was collected by quantitative questionnaires, including both multiple-choice and open-ended questions. The results showed that Swedish upper-secondary school students were engaged in many different extramural activities. The extramural activity that the students were most often engaged in, was watching English language movies. The second most popular extramural activity was watching TV-programs in English with Swedish subtitles. Furthermore, according to the surveyed upper-secondary students, most of their language skills they develop with the help of their Extramural contacts with the English language. These are for example understanding of spoken English, speaking English, understanding of English vocabulary and understanding written English. However, when it comes to the written English and the development of English grammar, it appears that the students see themselves as developing these language skills more successfully within the language classroom than in their free time. The results also showed that, whereas the above-mentioned extramural activities were preferred by both boys and girls, there were also some differences in their use of extramural activities. Whereas boys rather preferred such activities as "English-speaking role-playing or computer games", girls, according to their answers, preferred such activities as "reading texts in English". The results of this study have shown that, according to the students’ responses, there is no strong gender difference when it comes to attitudes about learning English in school versus outside the school.

This thesis aims to explore whether some Swedish teachers and students feel that they are helped by ICT tools in their classrooms or not. It is vital for this thesis to find out whether or not teachers experience that their students are positively stimulated by the use of ICT when learning English. Ascertaining whether teachers find that ICT tools make it easier for them to teach or not is also of particular interest. Students’ answers to questions regarding the perceived benefits of technology and what they think about their teachers’ technology usage are also important. In order to accomplish this aim, four teachers were interviewed about their opinions on this matter and one English class per teacher, totaling 70 students, answered questionnaires regarding their opinions on the matter. The results reveal that teachers believe that while ICT offers some great tools to create variation in the classroom and that it might increase student motivation, opinions on whether or not technology also helps students to produce better results differ. The students’ results on the other hand clearly show that most students believe that they learn better when using computers, they would like to use computers more during class, and they prefer to write using a computer rather than pen and paper. Overall, the students have a more positive attitude to ICT tools than the teachers.

The thesis examines the concept of normalisation of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL), i.e. complete, effective integration of technology, in the context of primary Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) in England. While normalisation research is conducted predominantly in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context, understanding normalisation in the primary mainstream education in England is important due to the contrast between teachers’ lack of readiness to deliver languages as part of the National Curriculum, and technology penetration in the classrooms. This thesis therefore, taking a sociocultural perspective of Activity Theory, attempts to redefine normalisation to include context specific characteristics, identify what factors contribute to and impede normalisation, and assess where primary CALL is on route to normalisation. An ethnographic approach was deemed to be most suitable to gain deep understanding of normalisation. Prolonged immersion in a primary school and the thematic analysis of observations, interviews, field notes and audio recordings revealed that factors impeding normalisation of primary CALL revolve around the following areas: attitudes, logistics, training and support and pedagogy. The issues related to the subject itself, e.g. negative attitudes toward the subject, lack of skills, impact on the achievement of normalisation to larger extent than issues related to technology. Hence in the primary context, normalisation needs to be considered from the point of view of normalisation of MFL and then the technology that is embedded into MFL. The analysis of the data allowed the researcher to create a model which serves as a form of audit of factors that need to be considered when thinking of successful technology integration into languages. Such guidance is needed for the primary MFL context having reoccurring issues, but is also relevant to primary EFL contexts in Europe where similar problems related to teaching of the subject are reported.

This thesis aims at exploring what linguistic challenges and opportunities multilingual students experience when reading in English. This paper has a qualitative approach and consists of focus group interviews as the method for collecting data. The participants were students in compulsory school, ninth grade, studying English as a foreign language. A total of nine multilingual were divided into three groups. Firstly they received a piece of informative text to read, containing a picture and a heading, and secondly they answered and discussed questions about their use of reading strategies. The results from the present study show that they tended to use top-down strategies when reading. The picture was not regarded as important as the heading; yet it was clear that they transferred already developed strategies from other languages. Previous research has shown that a reading ability developed in a student´s first language will be transferred to other languages, through an underlying proficency. Likewise it was expected in this study that the students would use their first language in order to understand English as a foreign language, but unpredictably findings show that Swedish was the preferred language when translating. In conclusion, one can therefore argue for Swedish as the strongest academic language and therefore important in scaffolding multilingual students.

Thesis (M. Sc. (Computer Science)) --University of Limpopo, 2019 / A Text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis system is a software system that receives text as input and produces speech as output. A TTS synthesis system can be used for, amongst others, language learning, and reading out text for people living with different disabilities, i.e., physically challenged, visually impaired, etc., by native and non-native speakers of the target language. Most people relate easily to a second language spoken by a non-native speaker they share a native language with. Most online English TTS synthesis systems are usually developed using native speakers of English. This research study focuses on developing accented English synthetic voices as spoken by non-native speakers in the Limpopo province of South Africa. The Modular Architecture for Research on speech sYnthesis (MARY) TTS engine is used in developing the synthetic voices. The Hidden Markov Model (HMM) method was used to train the synthetic voices. Secondary training text corpus is used to develop the training speech corpus by recording six speakers reading the text corpus. The quality of developed synthetic voices is measured in terms of their intelligibility, similarity and naturalness using a listening test. The results in the research study are classified based on evaluators’ occupation and gender and the overall results. The subjective listening test indicates that the developed synthetic voices have a high level of acceptance in terms of similarity and intelligibility. A speech analysis software is used to compare the recorded synthesised speech and the human recordings. There is no significant difference in the voice pitch of the speakers and the synthetic voices except for one synthetic voice.

Motivational research has recently shifted focus to include what role teachers, and the motivational strategies they use, play in the language learning classroom (Cheng & Dörnyei, 2007; Dörnyei & Csizer, 1998). Motivational research has traditionally gathered data from either teachers or students. However, researchers have recently been calling for a shift in focus from this individualistic perspective to evaluating motivation more holistically (Dörnyei, 2001a; Oxford, 2003; Ushioda, 2006). Nevertheless, few studies have included the opinions of both the students and teachers. This study has elicited the opinions of both students and teachers to find out which teaching practices both groups believe foster motivation in the foreign language classroom. The results indicate that students and teachers alike find teaching practices related to Teacher, Rapport, and Climate as the top three most motivational conceptual domains. Furthermore, only 3 conceptual domains, out of 17, were statistically different between groups: Task, Effort, and Comparison.