ELT Journal Advance Access published online on March 12, 2009
ELT Journal, doi:10.1093/elt/ccp006
© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
Student views on learning grammar with web- and book-based materials
Huw Jarvis is a Senior Lecturer in ELT at the University of Salford in the UK. He has 25 years experience as a language teacher and trainer and has worked with teachers in Sudan, Kuwait, Thailand, Malaysia, the People's Republic of China, and Taiwan. He is the webmaster and editor of www.tesolacademic.org which is a site dedicated to the linking of theory and practice in TESOL-based educational research through a series of video clips
Marta Szymczyk has worked as an English teacher in Poland for a number of years. She recently completed her MA in TEFL at the University of Salford
Email: H.A.Jarvis{at}salford.ac.uk
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Abstract |
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This paper reports on a study which examined students’ attitudes to learning grammar in autonomous contexts and their preferences for the learning materials with which to do so. In all, 38 students were surveyed and 13 of these then spent some time working in a language resource centre (LRC) with web- and paper-based materials. Students then completed a series of questionnaires concerning what they liked and disliked about the two types of materials. Four participants were then interviewed in more detail about their responses. The data suggest that despite the well-documented advantages of the tutorial role of computers and the notion of the ‘digital native’, participants generally preferred working with paper-based materials. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this for materials that LRCs stock and for the changing role of computers in self-study contexts.