The Impact of Easy Teacher
Educational Blog as a Tool in Improving the Oral Skill
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Karla Avalos Charpentier[1] https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5028-082X Universidad Hispanoamericana
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Lucrecia Quesada Jiménez https://orcid.org/0009-0001-1193-0399 Universidad Hispanoamericana
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The importance of learning English in Costa Rica is very important because the people can have many opportunities in jobs, education and more. Technology is also important and there is an advance in many ways. However, in education technology is relevant because it is an easy tool for teachers and students. This research focused on improve the oral skills in students by using technology creating a blog where teachers can find many activities that they can apply with their pupils in conversational classes and how these digital resources impact and help educators to make their classes more attractive for their kids, getting this information with different instruments as observations, interviews and questionnaires to know the results and if the objectives were achieved, and some conclusions with the comments of the teachers and children in Centro Educativo Pasos de Juventud located in Barva Heredia. Some recommendations were taken from the instruments and observations made in this research.
Keywords: Blog; Improve; Tools; Teaching; Websites; Activities; Pronunciation
El impacto del blog educativo Easy Teacher como herramienta para mejorar la habilidad oral
RESUMEN
La importancia de aprender inglés en Costa Rica es muy importante porque la gente puede tener muchas oportunidades en trabajos, educación y más. La tecnología también es importante y hay un avance en muchos sentidos. Sin embargo, en la educación la tecnología es relevante porque es una herramienta fácil para profesores y estudiantes. Esta investigación se centró en mejorar las habilidades orales de los estudiantes mediante el uso de la tecnología creando un blog donde los docentes pueden encontrar muchas actividades que pueden aplicar con sus alumnos en las clases de conversación y cómo estos recursos digitales impactan y ayudan a los educadores a hacer sus clases más atractivas para sus estudiantes, obteniendo esta información con diferentes instrumentos como observaciones, entrevistas y cuestionarios para conocer los resultados y si se lograron los objetivos, También las conclusiones se obtuvieron con los comentarios de los docentes y niños del Centro Educativo Pasos de Juventud ubicado en Barva Heredia. Además de los instrumentos y observaciones realizadas en esta investigación se tomaron algunas recomendaciones
Palabras clave: Blog; Mejorar; Herramientas; Enseñando; sitios web; Actividades; Pronunciación
Artículo recibido 15 abril 2023
Aceptado para publicación: 15 mayo 2023
INTRODUCTION:
English language is a very important part of globalization in the world, it is one of the most important languages around the world. In addition, English in Costa Rica (CR) is a must in most companies. The Author Avalos, 2021, (par. 1) mentions “Nowadays, English learning has become a very important subject at school because it is needed for future opportunities, so it is important to learn it in a proper way since people is young”. Therefore, second grade at Pasos de Juventud School students need to have English lessons and learn in a proper way to improve the English language and to become well prepare to develop themselves in circumstances that require to master the language.
Also, this school offers to their students a high technology. They include in all the classrooms smartboards where the teachers can use interactive activities to the development of the oral skills in the students. Also, it is important to mention that the professionals can use the English books in the smart boards and many other apps.
Second grade students from Pasos de Juventud School are facing a stage in which they seem to be afraid of speaking in English and expressing their feelings and thoughts in the language; therefore, there is a need to plan and look for the best strategies and technological activities to make students use and be more aware of the target language. Due to the importance of mastering English in CR and considering that children from Pasos de Juventud have a need in developing more the communicative skills in English, the aim of this research is to look for digital resources that help students in the process of acquiring English as a foreign language and more specifically to develop the oral skill.
This research looks for create an education blog named “easy teacher” where teachers can find many different tools to apply in the class and achieve to improve the oral skills in pupils of second grade.
Oral expression is one of the most important skills in the teaching of English. In Pasos de Juventud school, the English learning is a very important part of the curriculum, but most of the strategies applied are not enough to get the best result in students. Therefore, there is an evident situation happening in the way students are perceiving knowledge and they type of activities and methods applied in the classroom. The following information refers to the background of the problem, problematization, and other elements that will explain the objectives of this research.
Students of second grade talk Spanish as mother tongue, it means that at home students used to talk in Spanish frequently. In Pasos de Juventud English is taught as a foreign language. “The learning of a foreign language is a new experience for students that are accustomed to hearing and understanding only one language (their mother tongue)” Avalos, 2021, p3). In Costa Rica, talking English is important in most of the companies because of the international business, people often must communicate in English. Educate pupils in English as foreign is very important for the future of business and globalization of the country.
Also, in Costa Rica it is very common that many students have difficulties in oral expression. According to Krashen (2009) (p. 30), some factors are “anxiety, self-confidence, fear to speak, among others, are aspects that contribute to increase this difficulty”, regarding with the second-grade pupils of Pasos de Juventud School, it can be one of the troubles to oral expression because, when visiting some school children seem to be nervous, when they have to talk in public. This is some problems that students present in this school. It can have many reasons that will be investigated through the research.
In relation with the research of Lopez & Salas (2018) (par. 4), they mention the factors that affect the oral expression in public in students, some of them are: “motivation, self-confident and anxiety and how some strategies that teachers can use to help their students”. Significant activities can help the learning acquisition: therefore, teachers must look for motivational and significant activities that catch the attention of the students. It can make pupils forget the factors that make them not focus on the learning and develop in a better form in front of the audience. In that way students express better the conversational skills.
In addition to Lopez & Salas (2018) (par. 4), research, and compared with the second graders at Centro Educativo Pasos de Juventud, the problematic is the same; students are not learning as much as they could because of different factors, and the objective is to find many digital resources that help teachers to motivate students in developing oral expression teaching.
In relation to Richards, (2008) (p. 1), the author mentions that listening strategies are very important to improve the English oral expression and learning in classroom. Richards also mentioned that listening and speaking worked together are relevant skills to communicate effectively and to acquire English learning communication, so teachers need to improve it in classroom to get better results in the development of the language in students. Including this theory with the objective that this research wants to get; it is important to include strategies in listening and specking to improve the oral expression in students of second grade in Pasos de Juventud.
This research is also interested in how teachers can help students to improve the oral expression in pupils by finding digital resources. One of the techniques that are used in this research is the technology because it is one of the most important tools that English programs require and the world demands in education. Now a days, technology is one of the resources that teachers and educational institutions use the most. It is an easier way to teach for most of the teachers have in Pasos de Juventud.
The investigation mentioned above, provides important information as a base of the topic and to achieve the objective of this research discovering the best way to help the students from Pasos de Juventud School to improve the oral expression skills in class.
For the majority of primary private schools in CR, regarding the target language, it is not only important a correct statement, grammatical structure, or vocabulary lists, but to be able to use the target language to communicate effectively. In the English classroom it should be necessary to contribute to create interactive real situations and contexts through communicative activities that integrate not only the English skills but autonomy and critical thinking. While students are practicing orally in the target language, the use of technology will lead them to interact and get more information in a very successful manner; making students achieve the objective of having good communication, understand and express themselves in different situations.
This study acquires importance for the children community to be a subject of great controversy. The English language nowadays is required for most of the daily life tasks, and it is a very important part in children life since it is surrounding almost everything and everywhere they go, for example, video games, social media, and others. The public schools become institutions where they take English like an important matter but as a comparison to private schools, they do not reach the same level and in ether modality, teachers are responsible for making English learning happen in the best way.
The most important objective of this research is to help students increase the oral expression and communicative competences so that the children can complete the year with better fluency and using more expression in the target language.
The current research wants to investigate the problem and to give solutions through different online strategies to be applied in the English lessons to make a progress in the oral skill subject. Also, it will be a comparison between the before and after of the application of the blog with the activities that promote teacher ability to transmit knowledge and make students use the target language.
What is the impact of Easy Teacher Educational blog as a tool of improving the oral skill in second grade students at Centro Educativo Pasos de Juventud, Heredia during the 1st semester 2022?
To identify how digital resources, help teachers in strengthening the oral expression in second grade students at Centro Educativo Pasos de Juventud, Heredia during the 1st semester 2022
To use digital resources in the English class in strengthening the oral skill in second grade students at Centro Educativo Pasos de Juventud, Heredia during the 1st semester 2022
To recognize the improvement of the oral skill development after using digital resources in second grade students at Centro Educativo Pasos de Juventud, Heredia during the 1st semester 2022
The use of technology in schools is very important to facilitate the teaching process through increasing effective transmission of knowledge and the development of different skills. When technology is directly applied to an educational setting, such as a school, both the students and teachers can be active learners. This can be seen as a tool to increase teacher knowledge and its use helps the process of learning in students. Therefore, Theorical Conceptual Context
The digital age has revolutionized some aspect in our daily lives, and education was not an exception. According to School of Education online programs, 2020 (par. 13) “Technology provides students with easy-to-access information, accelerated learning, and fun opportunities to practice what they learn. It enables students to explore new subjects and deepen their understanding of difficult concepts” The incorporation of new technologies in schools, has changed educational methods and it opens a better way for digital culture in classrooms. Becoming in an excellent tool for teachers to improve the education, get many resources and finding teaching strategies easily.
Some private and public schools have the possibility of acquiring the internet, computers, smartboards, smart phones and tablets to share their knowledge or organize classes and homework. These facilities have managed to adapt educational methods to the digital age, where there is a greater number of teaching and learning resources for both teachers and students. According Gascoigne, 2021 (Parr 1). He mentions eleven different teaching tools for online.
Zoom is probably the most popular online software in the market for holding meetings, classes and online get-togethers, especially since the start of the pandemic.
Google Meet for teachers is another popular software application for online tutors, virtual teachers and anyone conducting classes online because of its integration with Google’s suite of other apps like Google Classroom and Google Drive.
GoToMeeting, as stated on their website, puts the “class in online classes.” They are an up-and-coming competitor to some of the larger video platforms because of how they gear their functions to suit teachers and students in an online class.
Boom Cards are self-checking interactive activities that give students real-time feedback on their responses.
Nearpod allows teachers to make any lesson interactive. Take those boring worksheets and make them fun and engaging.
Asana is your personal teaching secretary all in one powerful app that gives you control over your tasks, projects and to-do lists.
Trello
Trello is another online productivity app that works similar to Asana but has some differences. Trello is a collaboration tool that lets you organize your projects into boards.
Quizlet is a free tool that helps teachers create learning activities for students, like flashcards, study material and interactive quiz games.
Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that makes it really simple for teachers to create and share learning games or quizzes in a matter of minutes with their students.
Canva
Canva is amazing! It is a free tool, although there are premium features you can pay for that lets you create just about anything for your classroom.
Google Slides, while more limiting than Canva, is another easy-to-use, free tool for teachers to use to make lessons, presentations and content for their classroom.
They are some of the most important tools that some teachers in schools use to educate and transmit the knowledge to the students in institutions around the world. Add source.
The impact of technology in education is a popular idea around the world Lim, 2021 (par. 1) wrote in his article “Recent years have seen a great evolution in the technological world. With more and more people getting into digital media, it is essential for teachers to use the latest tools available in their work to engage students” being technology seen as a positive tool for teachers in schools, and also being an important part of schools now a days.
Technology also has many disadvantages for students so teachers and parents need to be careful with the kids that it, since they must control the uses of this tool at home and in the institution. Lim, 2021 (par. 11) “The internet has many ways for people to lie about their accomplishments and mislead others about what they know about something so they can get credit for something they did not do or do not know anything about” it is one of the reasons parents and teachers need to establish a balanced or sustainable relationship with technology and in this way, pupils will have the best learning, both, in schools and homes.
The propose of most of the teachers in instruction and practice in oral communication is to help students understand the way of different speaking situations, to develop their ability to make appropriate decisions about communication goals and strategies and to develop their ability to achieve those goals through communication, behaviors, and forms to express that are effective in their future.
According with the Author Richards, 2008 (p2) “Speaking in traditional methodologies usually meant repeating after the teacher, memorizing a dialog, or responding to drills, reflecting the sentence-based view of proficiency prevailing in the audiolingual and other drill-based or repetition-based methodologies of the 1970s.” In some schools, many students use to memorize the oral presentations because it is the easiest form to talk in front of the audience. When students repeat vocabulary or statements is a good strategy that teachers can implement to improve oral skills in students, however, memorizing does not mean learning. Students need to find ways to remember and apply knowledge in different contexts; there is where meaningful learning is put into practice.
Richards, 2008 (p.2) also mentions “Fluency became a goal for speaking courses and this could be developed through the use of information-gap and other tasks that required learners to attempt real communication despite limited proficiency in English.” This article has showed the importance of the fluency in specking and the way to students get. It can be the situations when they must survive talking in English in real live, one example can be when a person that does not talk English goes to USA, in some month the person is going to understand and communicate with people there. People use real life situations to adapt themselves to them, and it can be one of the best ways to students get a better fluency.
Menezes, 2019, (p10) mentions “complexity, connectivism, and learning ecology are three theoretical perspective which will help educators to understand the use of digital tools for the development of oral skills in an online environment” she says that these perspectives are important to understand the impact of the digital tools in the student’s behavior and the interaction between them. It is important to know that digital tools will help students in the development of oral skills, most of pupils use digital tools where they can listen in English and interact with people around the world, producing in them a natural oral expression.
Education transformers of society and any improvement in it is very important for the learning process of people. This can be achieved with the use of technologies such as the smart boards that facilitates teaching and learning.
Bouchrika, 2020 (par. 24) mentions “the ability to write, edit, annotate, and navigate directly on the screen—is the biggest draw for students. Also, the smart technology of IWB allows teachers to leverage interactive apps to illustrate concrete concepts or engage students in group problem solving and brainstorming” the smart boards are very important in education, because its facilities the teaching in teachers. It also can catch the attention of the students motivating them and in this way most of the teachers can have better result in the class objectives.
Interactive Learning Approaches
Bouchrika, 2020 also mentions important interactive learning approaches recommended to teachers to improve the learning in students, some of them are:
Gamification in learning is a psychologically driven approach for incorporating game design elements in the learning environment to increase student’s motivation.
Collaborative learning is an approach to teaching and learning that involves small groups of students working together in stations around the classroom to complete a task, solve a problem, or create a product.
Students in this day and age are easily distracted. In fact, studies show that the majority of students have used their digital devices for non-classroom activities (McCoy, 2016). This is why it has become pertinent to engage them in more active learning activities such as experiential learning.
Social learning is the process of learning and acquiring knowledge by observing or interacting with another individual. The social learning theory of Albert Bandura emphasizes the significance of observing and modeling the attitudes, behaviors, and emotional reactions of others.
MICROLEARNING
Microlearning has long been used primarily for corporate training where participants need to learn new processes in a short period of time. However, it is becoming popular in the education sector as well. (par. 26) All the approaches mentioned before, are very important that educators incorporate in the schools and the learning process because it helps to increase and transmit the learning in an innovative form.
Teachers need to catch the interest of students in their classrooms. One of the most important approaches can be interactive resources. As is mentioned above the technology is a verry important tool in classrooms and teachers can improve their teaching by using interactive resources to give their pupils the better learning and knowledge.
Carter 2021 (parr 6) mentions “As well as being a ‘hands-on’ approach to learning, interactive learning is also the utilization of technology to aid children’s education. We live in a time of digital transformation and evolution, and it makes sense that technology has become an active part of the education system and process.” It is relating with the motivation of the students in class to improve learning by using all the necessary resources that give the children the energy and interest to learn in an interactive way.
Pasos de Juventud is a school that offers the students technological tools for example smart boards where teachers can project videos, virtual books, interactive bogs or pages and many others. It helps teachers to prepare all the contents in an interactive form becoming the teaching easier and interact with students in a digital form.
Smart boards are very profitable for teachers and students, because at the time to use interactive books, students always can see the different videos, use virtual practices, listen audios and more in the best way. Pasos de Juventud offers to the students Oxford Discover that is an interactive book and teachers use it in the smart bord. This book also has a platform, that teacher uses, and students can complete exercises by using the smart bords or complete at home. Pupils in Pasos de Juventud enjoy interactive resources that the school offers. This resources facility in many ways the teachers’ classes development.
Project is pedagogical approach where students and teachers participate creating a new knowledge as Hernandez,2019 (p4) mentioned “This approach, beyond providing both teachers and students an opportunity to elaborate real-life and risk-free situations in order to build knowledge within real contexts, also provides students tools to enhance their autonomy and cooperation skills, elements that are essential at the moment of strengthening oral production in a foreign language” the educators play an important place on it, they need to guide students in the process of learning the topics and also expressing oral communication and oral skills incrementing the communication in English.
Projects can catch the interest in students and also improvise the communication at the time they talk about interest topics. Hernandez,2019 (p12) also mention “This strategy had as a purpose to allow students to communicate in a spontaneous way and at the same time improving their communicative capacities in familiar and ordinary situations. Based on this, projects were implemented to develop students’ oral production. Throughout five projects related to students’ necessities and interests, such as their hobbies, it was witnessed an improvement on students such as the construction of a variety of oral-production abilities which led to a more meaningful learning of the topic’s students saw during the lessons” This research look for students of second grade improve their oral communication skills and projects are verry important for them. In this way pupils and educators can achieve their objective by including projects in the school evaluation.
Blogs offer many benefits for education. Promotes autonomous learning by providing opportunities for students to take more control of their learning, motivates students to become better readers and writers. Promotes discussion among students. Encourages the use of the Internet and the Web among students and teachers.
According with Cambridge dictionary blog means “a website on which one person or group puts new information regularly, often every day” It is one of many form of online publishing that creates opportunities for producing knowledge, sharing research, building social networks, developing professionally, or documenting personal growth.
Some educators in Costa Rice use blogs in many ways including as online portfolios, for student personal reflective journals, as a record of field notes, as discipline specific spaces for knowledge sharing, as a space for student dialogue and for class administration. Blogs give teachers the opportunity to use design, images, audio, and video to supplement their classes.
Blogs in daily education is relevant to improve the knowledge in students in Costa Rica, analyzing the research of Curran, K. & Marshall, D. 2011 (p.3516) “A blog could make education demand oriented and participant-centered which is excellent for self-driven learners who need individual feedback” The information mentioned before gives to the teaches the key to give students many extra material to strength the English knowledge creating different interactive activities that motivate the students to work individually. This is one of the many benefits that teachers in Pasos de Juventud can obtain with blogs and digitals resources.
Blogs are essential for a lot of teachers and students and provide a platform for varying needs. As professionals, a blog is an excellent way to establish and develop contents in an interactive from for pupils. When teachers include practical information and guides that are updated regularly, educators prove that blogs are some motivational resources for students, and it can be easily for students improve their foreign language.
BENEFITS OF BLOGS IN TEACHING AND LEARNING
The possibilities offered by blogs in educational processes are many. The most significant is that it can help to stimulate some students in various areas such as writing, listening and oral expression. It also promotes teamwork, designing and organizing their ideas when they express.
Thanks to these platforms, teachers can interact with teachers from other educational institutions, and this enrich their sources to teach classes, and this can also happen with students. As stated by Paul University (2021) blogs support learning by different ways.
Blogs help grow learning communities by allowing students to share their own perspectives and experiences while learning about those of their classmates.
Blogs let students take ownership of their learning, offering them a space to tease out tough problems, explore possible solutions, and basically do the hard work that critical thinking requires.
Blogs encourage creativity of expression by giving students a platform to experiment with a variety of genres, allowing for the unique personalities of both students and faculty to emerge.
Blogs create multimodal spaces capable of hosting a wide variety of multimedia: oftentimes images, audio, video, and other media can communicate ideas more effectively than written text.
Blogs give students opportunities to address audiences other than their professors: their posts could be read by other students, their parents, and visitors from across the globe.
Blogs foster opportunities for reflection and provide them with tangible evidence of their learning over time: students can look at their previous posts to identify recurrent patterns in their thinking, times of change or growth, and other markers of learning and development.
Blogs familiarize students with widely used web content platforms: The knowledge and skills gained by writing and maintaining a blog are transferrable to a wide variety of work contexts, as blogging platforms (particularly WordPress) power an increasing number of websites around the world. (par. 2)
It is noticeable that blogs help parents and teachers and students to get the possibilities in educational processes, the most significant is that it helps to stimulate students in various areas such as writing, exchanging ideas, promoting teamwork, designing, organizing texts and many others.
There are three blogging platform for teachers mention for Pappas, 2013, (parr 7) “Edublog.com , Kidblog.com and WordPress.org” they are the top of the three most important in his research. He writes that teachers can add interactive videos, links, photos and other resources. Teachers or students do not need purchase any advice, it is also flexible for all educators and pupils.
The idea in this research is to create a blog as mentioned before for Pappas. To facility the work of English teachers in Pasos de Juventud School. Where teachers can add and find different digital and interactive resources for the strength and development of oral skills in the students.
TEACHER AND STUDENT’S ROLE IN ORAL COMMUNICATION
The feature of teacher talks which is dominantly used by the teacher help students more active in the class because the teacher gave the opportunity to the learners to deliver their ideas and try their ability in speaking skill. The teacher's role makes students feel interested in learning is very important.
According with Diyah, Y. Mochammad, A. Farida, N. Sri, W. & Muhaimin, R. 2017 (p 2) teachers are the most important influence in students he mentions “the teacher should be able to use the language correctly, they should be the example for the students to use English fluently without many hesitations and also has to make sure that utterance can be accepted well by the students” If teachers always talk in English in the classroom, students repeat or mimic the teacher and it is a good way educators can help to develop oral skills in pupil
Research approach
This research is qualitative, Bhandari, 2022(parr. 1) defines qualitative research as “Qualitative research involves collecting and analyzing non-numerical data (e.g., text, video, or audio) to understand concepts, opinions, or experiences. It can be used to gather in-depth insights into a problem or generate new ideas for research.” it means that the investigation is planned, ordered and public. Related with this research, it focuses on plane some strategies to find the impact of the digital resources in strengthening oral skills then order the results and finally public the positive results to other teachers and find facilities for teachers and students. This research is qualitative because it analyses data as qualities in students as the behavior of students when they interact with the digital activities, also the point of view of other teachers about the use of this resources in their classes and students.
Research Techniques and Instruments
Instruments are tools to collect information in research, Abawi, 2014 (p 2) “Accurate and systematic data collection is critical to conducting scientific research. Data collection allows us to collect information that we want to collect about our study objects. Depending on research type, methods of data collection include documents review, observation, questioning, measuring, or a combination of different methods” In this research is used three different instruments to collect the most important data.
Observation is a qualitative tool in which the researcher can see in real time the results of the study as Canals,2017 (p396) states “Researchers can make use of observation guides that will help them focus on what they need to know. This is highly recommended when more than one researcher is involved in gathering data as it ensures that everyone follows the same procedure” In this, the data is found when students are using the techniques applied by the teacher in charge or in this case the researcher. The idea is to know in at the time the impact of the virtual activities in students focusing on the oral communications skills.
The questionnaire is formed with questions to the population that the researcher has worked, as Canals,2017 (p398) states “Data can also be collected using questionnaires and surveys which, at the same time, can become part of more extensive interviews. As in interviews and other similar methods, the type of questions we include in questionnaires should make the participants feel comfortable” the idea of the questionnaire used in this investigation is to collect the information of the point of view of the pupils, it used many questions about how they feel with the digital tools using in the conversation class and in this form the researcher knows the results about if the objectives are or are not achieved.
Interviews according to Canals,2017 (p397) is “Interviews can be conducted in the classroom by the students themselves, and at the same time can be used as research and educational material for subsequent tasks” In this investigation is implemented two different interviews, both are for teachers, the fist consist in to know the purpose of this interview is to know the perspective of teachers in the use of technology in the English class and the second wants to know the perceptions of teachers regarding the blog for the conversational class. Both interviews the researcher wants to regard the purpose of this interview is to know the perspective of the English Teachers in Centro Educativo Pasos de Juventud about the importance of using digital resources as tools in class.
Data Analysis
The researcher creates a blog where is placed some links with ideas of educative websites. In these teachers can find many examples of the use of them in class and visit it easily. The propose of the blog is to facilitate to educators the use of digital tools. The information regarding with the teachers is analyzed by the researcher and considered for this investigation
The information represented in this chapter shows the answers that were gathered from the interviews applied to English teachers and observations of second grade students from Centro Educativo Pasos de Juventud. It also has information of the impact in students of second grade after the use of digital tools to strength oral skills.
The following table represents the five observations done by the researcher in the English class. It is included charts and graphics with the results of the application of the instruments.
Analysis and interpretation of results
Based on observation 1, most of the students had some troubles spelling the words, but they enjoyed the activity so much. The actively participation of students in this activity made them review contents and at the same time practice more. Thus, this page is very useful in all they ways, for oral, grammar; therefore, it can be an important tool for teachers nowadays and in the future.
Observation 2. The vocaroo activity made the students speak in a very natural way, students could express their ideas and feel free meanwhile speaking. After the students recorded the audio, they had the chance to listen to themselves and do a self-evaluation. Because of the effectiveness of the activity, it is considered that vacaroo is a very important tool in developing the oral skill because it is a free resource where students can record themselves as many times they need, and it allows teachers to check whenever they can.
The observation 3 is the zoom app. In this app, students had to practice conversation with other groups. In this case students had a good time speaking with fourth graders; however, the older students were interacting more than the students from second grade. The second-grade students expressed that zoom was kind of boring; they prefer more interactive activities such as games. Therefore, it can be concluded that zoom seems to be a better resource for older students rather than young students.
Analyzing the observation 4, students had many troubles when completing the assignments in the Cambridge website. Even though the teacher guided and motivated the students, it was frustrated for students at the moment of participation. Because of the lack of interest and difficulties observed, the Cambridge assignments should be considered for a more advanced English level like II cycle students.
Based in the observation 5, students participated actively of the practices projected on the board. Even though some students had answers incorrectly, they were practicing and having fun. Based on the observation, Live Worksheets website is useful for the target population and students enjoy it so much. Also, for teachers it is a virtual tool that facilities their teaching task with easy practices. This page can be used most of the time for grammar and listen but if educators use it thinking of developing the oral skill, it can be adapted and help students to improve communication, pronunciation and oral production.
Interview to English teachers.
Question 1.
What type of digital resources do you use to teach English?
Based on the question 1, the most common resource teachers use is the smart board, and the least frequent is digital books. There are some others like games and apps. All professionals agree that webpages are great resources, and they can help them to develop oral skills in students.
Question 5.
What is your opinion about the use of digital resources in class?
Based on the question 5 participants focus on the importance how digital resources impact their students and how they can catch the attention of them, producing the best learning in their classes and pupils. Participant 1 mention the importance of games about topics because some cases topics are not attractive for students and on this way students can learn better. Participant 2 wrote about attractive activities that can be better for educators transmit different knowledge. Participant 3 mentioned dynamic and attractive activities for classes it is also for the best learning.
Question 7.
What are some advantages and disadvantages of digital resources to teach English?
Based on the question 7, Educators mentioned the motivation and the attentions as advantages, that produce digital tools in students It can help them to learn in an easy and interactive way, facilitating the teachers work in some of cases as conversational lessons and spiking improving. Some disadvantages mentioned before is the lack of internet or electricity, but it does not happen always.
Interview to English teachers after use the blog.
Question A.
What is your perception of the for developing the conversational class?
Based on the question A of the second interview for teachers. Participants mention the perception of the activities in the blog and the importance of it to improve the classes of conversation and the learning of many other contents as vocabulary oral skills. They also said that there are so many options and different activities that are necessary in their classes.
Question B.
Do you think it is useful for the oral production in students?
Based on the question B of the second interview for teachers. Teachers mentioned the importance of the blog in conversational skills for kids, no matter the grade they had the possibility to improve speaking in students and also the facilitation that educators have with the use of the blogs in classes. The motivation in students is another important fact that was relevant for them because interactive resources cached the attention of their pupils.
Interview to English teachers after use the blog.
Question C.
What do you recommend after knowing about the Easy Teacher Blog?
Based on the question C of the second interview for teachers. They recommended the blog for all the classes because it is attractive for students and their lesson of conversation and include it into the methodology to have more strategies to teach in in a different and innovative way.
Question D.
Would you use it in your classes? Why?
Based on the question D of the second interview for teachers. In these answers educators mentioned affirmative in the use of the blog as an interactive tool in the classes to improve, because it will facility their plannings and they will have many different activities to apply in conversation lesson. In this way students can improve their oral skills.
Questionnaire students of second grade.
Question 1.
How do you feel when you have English class?
Based on student’s questionnaire, the 92% like English class because it is more interactive for them, the 4% almost do not like and the 4% do not like because it is difficult to understand and talk. Therefore, the answers show that the majority of students really enjoy when they are studying English in the school.
Question 2.
How do you feel when you talk in English?
According with the question 2, the 76% of second graders like to talk in English, then the 20% of pupils are in a medium point, and the 4% do not like, which means that most of students feel happy talking in English and the other part of them do not feel confident when they must talk in this language.
Question 3.
How do you feel when you communicate with classmates in English?
In the questions number 3, the 68% of students like to communicate with their classmates in English, the 32% kind of like it. Therefore, it is evident that the majority of second graders do not have problems communicating in English with their classmates, and the others do not seem to be confident to communicate and interact with their peers.
Question 4.
How do you feel with the virtual activities in the English class?
According with the question 4, 96% of the students like virtual activities in the English class, and 4% kind of like them. It means that most of the students enjoy the virtual activities in class and just a few pupils do not.
Question 7.
How do you feel after using the activities in the blog?
Based on the last question, 88% of the students like when they use the activities in the Easy Teacher Educational Blog and 12% kind of like it. According to the answers it is evident that the blog is very attractive for them to learn and a good way for the teacher to present content and practice.
Digital resources are very useful in teaching English because students enjoy online activities and teachers use them as a resource for strengthening not only the oral skill, but any content taught in class.
The Easy teacher Educational Blog provided the teacher with 4 webpages to enhance the oral skill: however, there are some activities that are better developed in higher level. The webpages “liveworksheets” and “wordwall” were great pages that had many activities that help students enjoy and develop the oral skill.
Webpages like Vaccaro motivates students to talk and make them more confident to express and listen their own mistakes and correct it in a different form. Nevertheless, with the evaluation and supervision of the teachers.
The Easy Teacher Educational Blog motivates students to improve the oral skills in a different way, making them orally more active, because they need to answer questions in English, pronounce vocabulary and expressing in English in front a recorder as the page Vaccaro. However, pupils felt better talking in front others and improve their pronunciation.
Digital resources tools cause motivation in students and make them improve their oral skills, expressing the ideas as conversation, sentences with teachers of classmates in a natural way.
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