Track 02 - Educational innovation Authors: Ana Mª Pinto-Llorente, Mª Cruz Sánchez-Gómez and Francisco José García-Peñalvo

1. DEVELOPING A VLE TO ENABLE THE INNOVATIVE LEARNING
OF ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION
Ana María Pinto Llorente
Mª Cruz Sánchez Gómez
Francisco José García Peñalvo
Oporto, October 2015

2. RESEARCH PURPOSE
TEEM’ 15 Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality
October 2015
RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
To highlight the benefits of some transmissive, interactive and collaborative tools to learn
English phonetics and phonology.
1. English pronunciation learning level and the satisfaction of students will be higher with the
implementation of this technological innovative model.
2. The VLE implemented will help them to develop their ability to perceive and produce English
more accurately, and it will supply them with a natural environment for pronunciation practice.

3. BLENDED LEARNING MODEL
TRANSMISSIVE
RESOURCES
TEEM’ 15 Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality
October 2015
COLLABORATIVE
RESOURCES
Podcast
Videocast
Forum
INTERACTIVE
RESOURCES
Online questionnaires
Online glossary

4. METHOD
QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
Quantitative
Ex-post-facto design.
Natural groups.
Descriptive study, survey method, using
techniques of descriptive & inferential
analysis.
TEEM’ 15 Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality
October 2015

5. SAMPLE
TEEM’ 15 Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality
October 2015
Quantitative
87 students
English Phonetics and Phonology
Probability sample.
Cluster sampling.
Relative error 2.5%.

6. INSTRUMENT
TEEM’ 15 Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality
October 2015
Quantitative
2 Questionnaires
Open, closed, multiple choice, and Likert scale -rating questions → halo effect
Internal consistency → Cronbach’s alpha, α=0.819 & 0.824
External validity → Experts

7. FIELDWORK
TEEM’ 15 Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality
October 2015
Quantitative
Students filled in the questionnaires during the first and the last face-to-face lesson of the
course.
174 questionnaires.

8. TEEM’ 15 Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality
October 2015
ORGANIZATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA
Quantitative
We followed this scheme in the process of quantitative data analysis:
1. We prepared the register coding to process the questionnaires → the data matrix.
2. We introduced the data.
3. We did descriptive and inferential analysis using the SPSS statistical software version 20.
We used Microsoft Office Word to illustrate the results.

9. RESULTS
TEEM’ 15 Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality
October 2015
Effectiveness of Podcast, Videocast, Online Questionnaires, Online Glossary & Forum
There were significant differences between groups in the effectiveness of podcats
(p=.000), videocast (p=.000), online questionnaires (p=.000), online glossary (p=.000)
and forum (p=.000), and in the mean of the effectiveness of any of these resources
between the groups as a whole.
Tukey post-hoc test revealed that there were statistically significant differences in the
effectiveness of Podcast, Videocast, Online Questionnaires and Forum between the
youngest (20-24 and 25-29) and the oldest students (30-34, 35 or more than 35). However,
there were no significant differences between the groups of students aged between 20-24,
and 25-29.

10. TEEM’ 15 Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality
October 2015
The youngest students (20-24 and 25-29) assess better the effectiveness of these
technological tools (Podcast: 20-24 4.65 and 25-29, ẋ =4.56, Videocast: 20-24, ẋ=4.77 and 25-
29, ẋ=4.58, Online questionnaires: 20-24, ẋ=4.73 and 25-29, ẋ=4.49, Online glossary: 20-24,
ẋ=4.67 and 25-29, ẋ=4.63, Forum: 20-24, ẋ=4.63 and 25-29, ẋ=4.50) than the oldest age groups
(Podcast: 30-34, ẋ=3.95 and 35 or more than 35, ẋ=3.78, Videocast: 30-34, ẋ=4.09 and 35 or
more than 35, ẋ=3.84, Online questionnaires: 30-34, ẋ=3.10 and 35 or more than 35, ẋ=3.35,
Online glossary: 30-34, ẋ=3.40 and 35 or more than 35, ẋ=3.38, Forum: 20-24, ẋ=3.77 and 25-29,
ẋ=3.96).

11. RESULTS
TEEM’ 15 Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality
October 2015
Effectiveness of the E-activities to develop students’ phonological competence and
improve their pronunciation and oral skills
There were significant differences between groups in the dependent variables that referred to
the e-activities to develop students’ phonological competence, to improve pronunciation,
and to improve oral skills (p=.000, p=.000 & p=.000).
There were statistically significant differences in the three variables between the youngest
(20-24 and 25-29) and the oldest students (30-34, 35 or more than 35.) However, there were no
statistically significant differences between the groups of students aged between 20 and 24, and
25-29.

12. TEEM’ 15 Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality
October 2015
The youngest students (20-24 and 25-29) agreed with the statement that the e-activities
developed in the blended-learning model were more effective to improve phonological
competence, pronunciation and oral skills (20-24: ẋ=4.18, ẋ=4.06, ẋ=4.15 and 25-29: ẋ=3.95,
ẋ=3.96, ẋ=4.15) than the students of the oldest age groups (30-34: ẋ=3.52, ẋ=3.61, ẋ=3.63 and
35 or more than 35: ẋ=3.25, ẋ=3.36, ẋ=3.40).

13. RESULTS
TEEM’ 15 Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality
October 2015
The VLE as an Environment to help students to develop their ability to perceive and
produce English more accurately
There were statistically significant differences between the age groups in the dependent
variable that refer to the VLE as an Environment to help students to develop their ability to
perceive and produce English more accurately. These differences existed between the
oldest students (35 or more than 35) and the rest of the age groups (20-24: p=.000, 25-29:
p=.001, 30-34: p=.001).
Most of students considered that the VLE implemented had provided useful tools and e-
activities to develop their ability to perceive and produce English more accurately (20-24:
ẋ=4.38, 25-29: ẋ=4.24 and 30-34: ẋ=4.19). On the other hand, if we take into account the
opinions of the oldest age group (35 or more than) we appreciate that they neither agree nor
disagree with this statement (ẋ=3.63).

14. RESULTS
TEEM’ 15 Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality
October 2015
Students’ self-assessment of their level of oral skills and pronunciation
We analysed if there were statistically significant differences (CI 95%) between all the
items of the pre-test and post-test that referred to oral skills and we found that there were
differences between the mean of speaking (t=-22.578), listening (t=-21.313) and
pronunciation (t=-24.036). We rejected the null hypothesis and say that there was a
relation between the improvement of students’ level of oral skills and pronunciation,
and the effectiveness of the technological model implemented in the subject English
Phonetics and Phonology. We conclude that the participants in our study clearly improved
their level in this matter.

15. CONCLUSIONS
TEEM’ 15 Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality
Octubre 2015
Blended model implemented & transmissive, interactive and collaborative resources to
create the e-activities are appropriate to improve students’ English pronunciation level and
their ability to perceive and produce English more accurately.
Their satisfaction towards the course is very positive and their interest towards the subject is
higher with the implementation of this technological innovative model.
They consider that the VLE implemented has helped them to develop their ability to perceive
and produce English more accurately, and it has supplied them with a more natural
environment for pronunciation practice and to acquire the competences of the subject.
.

16. CONCLUSIONS
TEEM’ 15 Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality
Octubre 2015
The learning outputs and their improvements in their oral skills and pronunciation are in
line with the positive results of students’ satisfaction.
Data show the effectiveness and potential for using podcast, videocast, online
questionnaires, online glossary and forums for academic purpose, specifically for learning
and improving English pronunciation.
Our study provides more information for future educational and innovative proposals that will
allow us to decide better the priorities in educational intervention and move towards more
effective models to teach English Phonetics and Phonology in higher education.