TEACHERS’ CIRCUMSTANCES AND PRACTICES IN USING CALL
(COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING) IN INDONESIAN
SUBURBAN SCHOOLS
Arfiyan Ridwan
(arfiyan.ridwan@gmail.com)
STKIP PGRI Bangkalan
Jl. Soekarno Hatta no. 52 Bangkalan, East Java, Indonesia
Abstract: Nowadays, the integrated use of technology is inevitable in the digital world, including instructional process. The present study reports on the findings of English teachers teaching using CALL approach in suburban areas in Indonesia specifically in Bangkalan as one of the underdeveloped regencies in East Java province. From a total of 50 respondents across the regency, 25 English teachers from 15 schools responded intensively in answering the online questionnaire with closed-ended and open-ended questions. The researcher
attempted to find out the teachers’ efficacy, the concrete form of CALL approach,
and downsides when applying CALL during instructional process. The results indicated that in the digital era, those teachers already implemented CALL approach a simple manner despite limitations related to operational activities and facilities. Thus, this paper argues that the results of the research must be addressed with policies by the stakeholders that suburban teachers need to explore CALL approach more deeply as they are restricted merely in simple ways of CALL approach.
Keywords:CALL, Technology in Language Learning, Teachers’ believes
The use of technology of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is inevitable in many aspects of human life. Education is one aspect which cannot be separated from the use technology as its advancements are very helpful in instructional activities such as radio, tape-recorder, films, televisions, broadcasts, and gadgets.
passive objects, but the teacher was responsible for all this. Through creativity in methods, teaching aids, as well as patterns of interaction, learning activities will not be monotonous and boring; so, it will have positive impact on the learning process. Learning will not be boring because of their appeal forms of technology students the students like.
Beatty (2010, p. 7) defines computer-assisted language learning (CALL) as a process in which learners use computer media which resulted in an increase in language skills. Gamper and Knapp (2002, p. 329) also define computer-assisted language learning (CALL) as “a research field which explores the use of computational methods and techniques as well as new media for
language learning and teaching”. Computers as the media give very wide access
to utilization instructional material that can be developed with the computer itself. Variations of instructional material can be anything related to computers and the Internet as a computer-based materials such as eBooks, interactive videos, and other computer products, even if supported by Internet connectivity.
The rapid development of new technology has recently been predicted by previous researchers that the teachers in education need to adjust themselves to all the sophistication of technology. Chapelle (2003, p. 10) make the conclusion that the role of technology experts is highly correlated with the attitude of a teacher or researcher. The potential of technological sophistication is going to make access to technology products in the lifestyle. In this case, the teacher will adapt the possibilities how to change the way they work and professionalism which in this case is to teach. Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) is a form of learning approach that involves the use of a computer and can be powered by the Internet network connectivity. This approach is in accordance with the development of technology-based learning that is ideal undertaken by teachers in the 21st century.
The digital revival of the 21st century has been anticipated by the
researchers’ use of technology in language education where advancements of computer technology will extend to other devices currently known as gadgets. Since the 1950s in the early development of CALL until now has been a lot of changes that extend coverage to the Mobile-Assisted CALL Language Learning. The existence of VCD and DVD has been replaced with smartphones that have supported a fast internet connection. For example (Beatty, 2010) mentions examples of the application of CALL in the era of the 21st century as follows:
a) Web browsing, Hotmail and Gmail, streams of audio and video b) Email transfer to mobile devices through smartphones.
c) Instant messaging application as default features of smart phones. d) Online shopping
f) Worksheets via smart phones.
g) Digital photo settings, editing, printing, to upload and print services without wires, and published in websites.
METHOD
Since this research has quantitative and qualitative source of data, mixed methods are applied. Despite relatively new in social science and education research, mixed methods can be an alternative option to utilize the strengths of both qualitative and quantitative research (Creswell, 2009) with the expectation to improve the whole quality of the research Johnson & Christensen (2012, p. 430).
Johnson & Christensen (2012, p. 437) suggest eight major stages to conduct mixed methods research. Those cover (1) determining whether mixed design is suitable; (2) determining the justification in using mixed methods; (3) selecting the mixed research design and mixed sampling design; (4) selecting the data; (5) analyzing the data; (6) continually validating the data; (7) continually interpreting the data and finding (8) writing the research report.
Simple quantitative approach was applied in counting the results of survey combined with pie charts since the data are in the form of numbers. In addition, qualitative approach was employed for analyzing results of interview with the respondents using social media due to the researcher’s hindrance in visiting some schools in remote places. The researcher attempted to analyze the answers given by the respondents in depth.
Participants
The population of this study is the English language teachers of high school level in the town of Bangkalan in both public and private schools, where there are 4 Public Senior High Schools (SMA), 4 Vocational Senior High Schools (SMK), 1 Public Islamic Senior High School (MAN), and 5 Private Senior High Schools. Purposive sampling was employed on this study in which the teacher(s) from each school
Questionnaire
freedom in delivering their own opinions and explanation regarding to their circumstances and methods in using CALL in instructional process.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Teachers’ exposure to computers
The first part of the questionnaire was about computer possession at home and at schools. The questions were meant to investigate in what extents the teachers have good access to computer use making them familiarize to computer use, not only at home but also at schools where they teach.
The table shows that as many as 92% (23 people) of the respondents said they have a computer / personal laptop in addition to the existing facilities at the school. Only 8% (2) of respondents stated that do not have a computer / personal laptop. This shows that the majority of English teachers in the town of Bangkalan have a computer / personal laptop so that there are indications that the membership of these teachers tend to be high in computing seeing that the ratio between the two voters who certainly significant difference.
The second question in the online questionnaire is related to how well the school facilities become a support in CALL approach. When asked if the school facilities support them as teachers for teaching and learning process, as much as 76% of teachers answered yes and 24% do not. Having explored further, it was found that teachers whose school has a language laboratory facility or a computer is included in the public schools either at the high school level, SMK, and MA. It is very contrastive with the teachers who answered not where they come from private schools that are still growing, especially from private Islamic Senior High Schools. Nevertheless, overall it can be concluded that the computer facilities have been spread out in most schools senior high school.
It turns out that the number of computer facilities owned by senior high schools in Bangkalan varies from a few, fair in number, up to very many. Schools whose number of computer in the labs is less than 15 accounted for 8 schools. This figure looks quite many considering the role of computers in the language laboratory is very helpful in the learning process. The same number, 8 schools, also happened to the category 15-26 computers. Although slightly more than <15 computers, this number is still considered far from enough. Only one school has 27-35 computers in the language lab. Last, the number of schools that have> 35 computer looks pretty high, i.e. 8 schools.
with 27-35 and > 35 computers belong to a whopping 9 school both. Conversely, the number of schools that have computers 15-26 and <15 computers also greater, namely 16 schools.
When calculating the overall school teachers who participated in this study, the mean ratio of one computer is for two students. This condition is far from ideal in terms of effective use for students, which also indicates the severity of the financial support to be allocated by the schools in terms of procurement, maintenance and updating of computer to achieve the ideal ratio for learning with ICT.
Challenges for the teachers
It seems that the teachers in the suburban areas in Bangkalan face a number of challenges to conduct CALL-based instructional process in their workplace. Two comments are presented below:
“I found that my school is not able to provide adequate computer facilities for
students because it is associated funds.” (K25) “The electricity is not adequate.” (K20)
It can be analyzed that there must be necessary support in facilities. Many schools do not complete language laboratory with a comprehensive computer support so that teachers are undergoing difficulties in the use of language laboratories for learning activities. In addition to a number of computers, the ability of schools to provide electrical power support was still lacking. There are public schools that need to enhance its power source so that a conducive learning activity is achieved without having to worry about the electricity to go out because of an electricity overload.
Another reason for not using a computer is often associated with the ability of teachers to operate them on a computer.
I’m not so proficient in operating the computer. (K22)
The chart illustrates the frequency of English senior high school teachers in Bangkalan in using computers for learning activities in the classroom. Computers or laptops are used to support technology-based learning approach. In general, the majority of English teachers are very familiar with the use of computers in the classroom. Only about 8% of teachers said that they always use a computer. At the top, 60 percent of respondents said they often use these devices. For the second, 28% of teachers said sometimes, and there is only 1% of teacher who said never.
In further investigation, the reason why they did not so often use computers for learning activities, the various answers were given from the total of 25 teachers. Here are the reasons of some respondents:
“LCD projectors are limited.” (K5)
“The number of projectors is very few at school.” (K7)
“LCDs projectors are often inadequate or broken.” (K15)
This suggests that the procurement of the electronic support is very important in learning activities at schools.
“Frequent power outages.” (K14)
The second biggest barrier that prevents teachers to use computers in the language lab is frequent power outages due to lack of electric power in the school. This is related to the basic infrastructure that should be owned by the school. The average school with frequent power outages is still in the range of 1300 VA. For the size of the school, the power is still very low and still not ideal to support fairly large electronic devices in the laboratory.
Concrete modes of computer use in language learning
The bar chart above shows how teachers in the use of computer media in the learning process in the classroom. The result indicates that there are variations of computer use offered by the researcher. Computer as a medium of learning is very popular among the teachers in which all respondents answered the questions by choosing more than one options.
material explanation previously been prepared at home with the preparation was done by inserting appealing graphic features. This causes the teacher will have more efficient time without having to write material by hand on the board. Students will be more interested since the teaching materials are presented more attractively. Looking at the other options, the use of videos, listening activities, ad picture display are quite the same, accounting for 74%, 74%, and 77%, respectively. Merely around 40% teachers applied computers for group presentation.
Teacher’s CALL exploration and scope
What was found during the research is that the teachers tend to make use of computers only in limited scope. In other words, the coverage activities were very limited to the ordinary use without exploring more to the other variations of activities. In fact, there are numerous alternative activities that the teachers can maximize the computers do.
Table 2. Suggested further classroom activities with computers
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
This research is a study on the use of multimedia computers and Internet in the learning embodied in the approach CALL to the teachers of English in Bangkalan as one of the suburban areas in East Java province. There are various difficulties faced by teachers in teaching with ICT, ranging from technical aspects such as the ownership of computers by public or private schools and
Teaching with one
computer in the class
Self-access learning Distance learning
delivery of content
(PowerPoint,
word-processor, Webpages,
etc.)
drills and exercises delivering online
course content
classroom
activities/discussions
mediated by the
computer
word processing CMC activities: email,
discussion forum, chat
rooms
Interactive whiteboard resource searching tandem learning
electric power can be used, the availability of the projector, up to the teacher’s
familiarization in technology.
This research can be a reference for the local government to make measures regarding to how to encourage the teachers to maximize their way of teaching by taking the advantage of ICT in the digital world.
REFERENCES
Beatty, K. (2010). Teaching and Researching Computer-Assisted Language Learning. London: Pearson Education Limited.
Chapelle , C. A. (2003). English Language Learning and Technology. Philadelphia : John Benjamins North America.
Creswell, J. (2009). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches . London: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Gamper, J. and Knapp, J. (2002), “A review of intelligent CALL systems”, Computer Assisted Language Learning, Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 329-342.
Hismanoglu, M. (2012). The Impact of Curricular Innovation on Prospective EFL Teachers' Attitudes Towards ICT Integration into Language Instruction. International Journal of Instruction, 5(1), 183-202.
Johnson, B., & Christensen, L. (2012). Educational Research: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Approaches. London: SAGE Publications, Inc. Levy, M. and Hubbard, P. (2005), “Why call CALL ‘CALL’?”, Computer Assisted
