critical-review--批判性文章.docx

Review on Learner to Teacher: EFL Student Teachers Perceptions on Internet-Assisted Language Learning and TeachingIntroductionOver the last decades of information age, the Internet has become an important part of modern education. According to Abdallah (2007), applying the Internet into English language teaching process is useful for teachers to help students develop language learning skills. Celik (2013) also regards Internet-based facility in classroom as a significant tool in teaching procedure, especially in foreign language teaching. Recent years, a number of studies, opinions and articles have been put forward to this topic of Internet and English language teaching. Even though these researches have been very useful to English teachers and students, some of their instructions and findings are not very practical and comprehensive in modern English teaching process. Considering such situation, this paper examines Kuos view on the perceptions for English teachers and EFL students who use Internet during their teaching or learning procedure in his article Learner to Teacher: EFL Student Teachers Perceptions on Internet-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching. In order to delivery my review completely, a summary to Kuos article will be provided at first. And then, this paper will discuss my review on the article by analyzing its content, findings and discussions. At the end of paper, a brief conclusion will be presented.SummaryAccording to Kuo(2008), the rapid development of Internet and computer promotes educators to integrate internet-based technology into classroom, because it can create a self-governed and cooperative learning circumstance for EFL students. With the help of the Internet, they can have access to practice their second language skills. Even though the Internet and computers have bought great changes to the EFL education, how to take advantage of these new inventions is an unsettled issue in language teaching process. Kuo finds that this brings controversial questions, such as “can every student benefit from this innovation” or “Is there any problem they encounter when they use Internet-based facility?” The answers to these questions will help educators to define what kind of role should Internet-assisted technology plays in current EFL instructions.In order to find out opinions of Taiwan ELF student teachers on their experience when apply the Internet to the learning and teaching procedure, Kuo conducted a research at Wezao Ursuline College in Taiwan. In the research, 101 senior student teachers who aged from 21 to 29 and on EFL courses were selected as samples. During this research, 101 questionnaires were sent out and 77 of them were returned. Kuo also used Likert scale which ranges from Strongly Disagree(4) to Strongly Agree (1) to evaluate students and teachers responses. In order to make the survey results more clear, all data are reported in numbers and percentages. He also presented three table charts to summarize the findings in the research.The first table illustrates the EFL student teachers experience on Internet-based English learning. 81.8% of the participants who returned the questionnaire agree or strongly agree that the Internet provide them with positive experience to promote English language skills; 83.1%indicated that more attention was paid to English language classes which base on Internet; 84% teachers thought they have developed self-guided learning habit through Internet. In the article, Kuo discussed that technological education has made an elementary success in guiding students to recognize the significance of the Internet and computers. He also concluded that Internet-based instruction not only create self-guided learning environment but also catch students attention to learning language. The second table given by Kuo shows the EFL student teachers personal belief on functions of Internet-assisted language instruction. Figures from this table indicate that the majority of those teachers (92.2%) confirm that they can get abundant learning environment from the Internet; 93.5% of them assert that internet is a helpful tool by assisting teaching process in the future; moreover, ESL or ELF online resources are found useful for EFL student teachers teaching. By analyzing the data, Kuo believes that EFL student teachers learned the importance of Internet-assisted language instruction and thought it is a helpful instrument to promote English language teaching quality in the future.Kuos last table makes teachers personal attitude on future Internet-based language teaching classes. As shown in this table, 80.5% participants said that they are willing to apply Internet materials in their future English classroom and introduce online activities to the students. However, there are only 72.2% thought that they are confident for taking advantage of the Internet and operating computers in their real teaching classroom. 88.3% EFL student teachers felt that specific computer operating training courses are needed to promote their abilities and 80.5% recognized that they have to learn how to combine Internet resources with textbooks in the classroom circumstance. From these data, Kuo claimed that most EFL student teachers are lack of experience to use computer in the future English language teaching classroom. In the last section of Kuos article, it has been concluded that an innovation of EFL instruction are going to be developed by integrating traditional teaching method and modern Internet-based facilities. He also pointed out that with the help of technology training courses EFL students would have access to specific instruction used to satisfy their needs by joining various online interaction activities. Regarding the results of Kuos research, many EFL student teachers are not certain whether they have the ability to apply technology into their future English taught classroom, even though the majority of them are happy with their experience instructed by the Internet during learning process. Therefore, Kuo suggesting in the end of his article, EFL directors need to provide teachers with trainings to develop ability on building right perceptions of using the Internet and computers in the future. EvaluationOn the first inspection, Kuos article seems to realize its aim commendably. This article is well-organized with impressive subtitle in each section. It helps readers to understand its main points in every part and quickly get involved in what the author talks about. For example, from the abstract to conclusion section, the authors discussion are centering on the main point and the research. This would constantly remind the reader of the argument in this article so that they are not likely to get lost. Another advantage of this article is the way that the author deals with the original data collected though questionnaires. In the research, there are fifteen questions and every question has four options. That means the result figure would be very difficult to display. However, the author transformed the results into percentages and presented in three classified tables. In addition to readable data tables, the tone used to explain and discuss the result by the author is formal and objective. In the discussion section, the author also combined similar opinions to analyze the result. For instance, regarding to the question “Through my learning experiences, I was motivated to learn English by the use of the Internet”, the author cataloged options such as “Agree” and “Strongly Agree” to “positive attitude”, which illustrates that the participant who agree or strongly agree held positive attitude toward the application of the Internet. By combining similar answers, the author made it easier for his readers to understand the survey result and his discussion on it. As a result, what the author wants to achieve in his article was successfully delivered to us. However, the major criticism of Kuos article is the limitation of samples selected in the research. According to experience from former researchers, a qualified study would examine a large and randomly selected sample (JR Fraenkel, NE Wallen, HH Hyun, 1993). At the beginning of the article, Kuo indicated that the aim of his research was to probe the opinions and attitude from Taiwan EFL student teachers on their experience of using Internet during language learning activities. However, there are 32 public colleges and universities who have open EFL subject in Taiwan, while Kuo only select samples from Wenzao Ursuline College. That means the outcome is more likely a result from only a small scale place of Taiwan. Furthermore, different teaching instructions and university conditions may have effect on students opinion on Internet-assisted language teaching. For example, if EFL instructors in a university often encourage their students to make use of the Internet and bring computer technology into their class, students is more likely to have a positive attitude towards Internet. On the contrary, it is possible that students who have a vintage tutor preferring traditional teaching method believe Internet-assisted language learning is not very helpful for them. Therefore, among 32 institutions in Taiwan, result from only one college is not persuasive enough.When looks into the details of questions used in the research, flaws can be found in some parts that the author put many similar questions which can be combined to a specific one. An academic research should be designed in a logical and clear way, while Kuos questionnaire failed to achieve this goal. For instance, in the second table, questions such as: “The Internet in a useful tool for my teaching” “EFL websites are useful for teaching English” can be combined, since both questions are created to explore EFL students opinion on whether the Internet is useful for their future teaching. Another same problem can also be found in the third table, the last two questions which aim to make out whether EFL student teachers need more knowledge to use and apply the Internet to practice can be summarized to a simple one. Another disappointment lying in Kuos article is the lack of practical suggestions for the result. As regarding to the finding, Kuo recognized that EFL student teachers need more opportunities to strengthen their computer skills. But he did not make any practical suggestions for how to help students. What was recommended in his article is to combine traditional education with modern one. There is no doubt that this advice itself is definitely right. But when one returns to the main topic of Kuos article, this information seems unnecessary. Conclusion To sum up, this paper summarized and reviewed Kuos article on the research to explore EFL student teachers view on Internet-assisted learning and teaching experience. It is important to emphasize that Kuos article offered us a good sample of how to organize a