Graduation Year

2020

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Degree Granting Department

Curriculum and Instruction

Major Professor

John I. Liontas, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Sanghoon Park, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Janet Richards, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Philip Smith, Ph.D.

Keywords

language teacher cognition, multimodal analysis, second/foreign language education, teacher education

Abstract

Educational technology (ET) plays a major role in second/foreign (L2) language teaching and learning. Some factors influencing the ways in which teachers employ ET in L2 education are the teachers’ personal beliefs about how teachers and students should use ET to learn target languages. To develop a better understanding of influences on L2 teachers’ ET-related subjective positions, a need exists to explore the ET-related perceptions and beliefs of current and future teacher educators who are, or will be, responsible for the design and implementation of curricula and learning activities in teacher education programs. In these teacher education programs, future teachers are likely to gain knowledge about and experience with various types of ET. However, scant research appears to exist on the perceptions of doctoral students in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) and ET regarding the use of ET in L2 education. To add to the extant literature, I conducted research that focused on doctoral students who were enrolled in a course on these same topics (i.e., ET and SLA). Specifically, I explored their discussion thread posts and digital stories they collaboratively created on the topic of ET use in L2 education. To triangulate the data, I also collected survey responses and conducted semi-structured interviews. In order to delve more deeply into the participants’ ET-related perceptions and dispositions, I explored the data with Constant Comparative Methods and deductively explored the digital stories with multimodal theory. Primary discoveries were that the participants believed ET implementation should be purposeful with learning objectives in mind, and educators should acquire knowledge about ET to meet the needs of L2 learners of the 21st century. One implication is that pre-service teachers and future teacher educators benefit from critically exploring their beliefs regarding the implementation and employment of ET in L2 education. Another implication is that the collaborative creation of multimodal texts, such as digital stories, offers opportunities for pre-service teachers and future teacher educators to explore their beliefs regarding ET use.

Download

Share

COinS