Can tablets in EFL classes impact students’ motivation to learn english?

Abstract

The goal of this study is to understand if there is an impact on students’ motivation to learn English as a Foreign Language when mobile technologies are used to support active learning activities that develop students’ oral production competences. The participants were two teachers and their 106 students, divided in 3 classes of the 7th grade and 1 of the 8th grade, who were using their own tablets at school. This use was the result of a school project for promoting the integration of technology in classroom activities. At the beginning and end of the school year, students answered a questionnaire that contained three dimensions of a motivation index from Gardner’s “The Attitude/Motivation Test Battery”. Following a preliminary analysis of these quantitative data, the instrument for qualitative data collection was created – an interview protocol which was applied to the two teachers. After analysing the qualitative data, all the data was analysed and the outcomes scrutinized. Thus, this mixed methods research design followed a sequential explanatory strategy, since the latter allowed a further analysis of the initial results. The results revealed a favourable tendency in terms of student motivation, although statistically significant differences were only found in the case of students with initial lower and moderate levels of motivation. Both teachers referred improvements in student participation and engagement in classroom activities.