An account of a research study on EFL teachers' beliefs, attitudes and competences and ICT.

1. 46TH ASOCOPI ANNUAL CONFERENCE
“The Role of ELT Innovation and Research in
Challenging Times”
October 13 - 15, 2011, Bogotá, Colombia

2. INNOVATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING
PRACTICES THROUGH ICTS: WIKIS
Yamith José Fandiño Parra
Universidad de La Salle

3. INTRODUCTION

4. INTRODUCTION
The situation of language teachers wanting or having to
use Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
in their classes is complex. They need to acquire and
constantly update their ICT skills, while also
ensuring that the online teaching activities they use
are fully integrated into [a sound] pedagogical
framework… beneficial both for their students and for
themselves
(Beaven et. al., 2010).

5. INITIAL REMARKS
This study emerged as an opportunity to contribute to the qualification
of in-service EFL teachers for the use of ICT in their classes.
This project aimed at studying the impact of an ICT formative
process (WIKIS) on EFL teacher’s beliefs, attitudes, and
competences.
This research is especially significant considering that the study was
conducted in public schools where the use of new technologies can
be rather difficult. In addition, teachers’ experiences and
perceptions about new ICTs can pose challenges, which in turn can
cause their interest in using them to be minimal.

6. RESEARCH QUESTION
AND OBJECTIVES
Research question
What is the impact that a formative process on ICT can have on the
beliefs, attitudes and competencies of a group of English teachers from
public high schools in Bogota?
Research objectives
o Identify the beliefs, attitudes and competences that a group of EFL
teachers have about ICT.
o Determine the impact that a formative process can have on the use
of ICT in the foreign language classroom.

7. LITERATURE REVIEW
BELIEFS
Beliefs are the judgments and evaluations that people make of
themselves, others and the world surrounding them (Dilts, 1999).
Teacher’s beliefs or “personal constructs” determine how they
approach their teaching and affect the materials and activities
they choose for the classroom (Hampton, 1994).
Changes in teachers’ beliefs precede changes in their teaching
practices (Golombek, 1998).
Jimoyianiss & Komis (2007) state that teachers’ beliefs about ICT can
be positive, neutral or negative, which impact whether they see
technologies as effective tools for instruction and learning.

8. LITERATURE REVIEW
ATTITUDES
A tendency to behave in a consistent and persistent way before
determined situations, objects, events, or people (Coll, 1987).
Watson (1998) maintains that the development of teachers’ positive
attitudes is a key factor both for enhancing computer integration
and avoiding teachers’ resistance to computer use.
Teachers’ attitudes, maintains Sancho (1994), range from technophilia
to technophobia; technophilia refers to a conviction that technologies
are a source of solutions to pedagogical problems and technophobia
expresses a rejection to technological innovation due to its
dehumanization tendency.

9. LITERATURE REVIEW
COMPETENCES
Competences are the continuous and autonomous performances of
individuals, requiring cognitive, attitudinal, and procedural
knowledge to face and solve concrete situations with the available
resources and strategies (Araujo, 2007).
UNESCO (2008) establishes three approaches to education:
technology literacy, knowledge deepening, and knowledge creation.
Each of these approaches entails a set of skills for teachers.

10. LITERATURE REVIEW
APPROACH TECHNOLOGY KNOWLEDGE KNOWLEDGE
LITERACY DEEPENING CREATION
APPROACH APPROACH APPROACH
ICT These teacher These teacher competences Teachers who show these
competences include include the ability to competences will be able
basic digital literacy manage information, to design ICT-based
skills along with the structure problem tasks, learning resources and
ability to select and use and integrate open-ended environments and use
appropriate off-the-self software tools and ICT to support the
educational tutorials, subject-specific development of
games, drill-and- applications with student- knowledge creation and
practice, and web centered teaching methods critical thinking skills of
content to complement and collaborative projects students.
standard curriculum to solve complex, real-
objectives and world problems.
assessment approaches.

11. LITERATURE REVIEW
ICT
ICT is an all encompassing term that includes the full range of
electronic tools by means of which people gather, record and store
information, and by means of which they exchange and distribute
information to others (Anderson, 2010).
Education needs to turn to ICT in order to increase learner motivation
and engagement, facilitate the acquisition of basic skills, and
enhance teacher training (Tinio, 2003).
Modern technologies have provided new possibilities to the teaching
profession, but at the same time have asked teachers to continuously
retrain themselves and acquire new knowledge and skills while
maintaining their jobs (Jung, 2005).

12. LITERATURE REVIEW
WIKIS
For turning students into producers of online content, enabling peer-to-
peer learning, and creating a collaborative learning environment, wikis
appear to be excellent tools for language teaching and learning
(Kovacic, Bubas & Zlatovic, 2007).
Wikis can be used to facilitate the dissemination of
information, enable the exchange of ideas and facilitate group
interaction (Augar, Raitman and Zhou, 2004).
Wikis are closely associated to project-based and problem-based
language learning practices where students and teachers alike
contribute to the construction of knowledge and the sharing of findings
(Gimeno and García, 2009)..

13. METHODOLODY
Action research (AR) guided this study. It seeks the description and
comprehension of the situation and the involvement of the
participants (McKernan, 1999; Sandín, 2003).
The process of AR is regarded as a set of reflexive cycles, which
begins with a plan, continues with action, includes observation on the
action, and demands reflection.
PLAN
PLAN
Report
REFLECT ACT
REFLECT ACT
OBSERVE
OBSERVE

14. METHODOLODY
The study was conducted with EFL teachers from public high schools in
Bogotá. The schools were located in Kennedy and Fontibón.
For this study, variables such as age, sex, academic formation, or
professional experience were not considered. Because of time and
space constraints, the study followed a convenience sample: the
selection of the most accessible subjects (Marshall, 1996).
SCHOOL Alfonso López Costa Rica Saludcoop Sur Manuela Ayala
Pumarejo
NUMBER OF Six Six Two Six
PARTICIPANTS
DISTRICT Kennedy Fontibón Kennedy Fontibón
EQUIPMENT It has a computers It has a computers Although the school The school has a
room with 20 room with 20 has a computers room, computers room
computers. They have computers and a video the access is restricted without Internet and a
basic programs and beam. so a lot of the work is limited access to
slow access to the done with the teachers.
Internet. researcher’s laptop.

15. DATA COLLECTION
INSTRUMENTS
First cycle
It consisted of a series of about seven sessions, in which researchers
and teachers initially discussed ICT, ICT in education, technophobes
and technophilias, and ICT challenges for education in the 21st century.
These sessions were designed following what Gayetzky (2005) calls
“total workshops”. These workshops consist of group meetings, in
which people carry out a project and study a specific topic.
Later, there was a rather instrumental stage, in which teachers were
more concerned with understanding the mechanics of wikis than
reflecting about their pedagogical use in the classroom.
However, remarks were constantly made about their impact in the
language classroom.

16. DATA COLLECTION
INSTRUMENTS
First cycle
Surveys: Based on principles established by Cea D Ancona (1998)
and Burns (1999), the survey was designed with three sections: the first
section sought information to identify the participants, the second
section got the participants’ perceptions and dispositions on the use of
new technologies in education and the last section sought to determine
the level of expertise with ICT through multiple choice questions.
Diaries: The use of field journals (Burns, 1999) was suggested for
teachers and researchers to “describe” their experiences during their
encounters with the groups of teachers in the high schools. Through
this instrument, anecdotes, experiences, and reflections were collected
as soon as the sessions were over.

17. DATA COLLECTION
INSTRUMENTS
Second cycle
The second cycle consisted of about seven sessions, in which
researchers and teachers moved from practicing with the creation
and use of wikis to reflecting about the pedagogical
implementation of wikis in the foreign language classroom.
Some of the sessions were devoted to studying social
constructivism, project-based learning and cooperative language
learning. Most authors agree these approaches are useful in designing
and implementing ICT-based learning environments (Escontrela y
Stojanovic, 2004; Martínez, 2008; Schwartz, 2003 and Torres, 2008). A
didactic proposal was created based on these approaches.

18. DATA COLLECTION
INSTRUMENTS
Second cycle
Questionnaires: They, states Burns (2010), allow to collect three types
of information: factual (background, experiences, etc.), behavioral
(actions, routines, etc.) and attitudinal (opinions, interests, values, etc.).
In this regard, Wallace (1998) maintains that as introspective
techniques questionnaires let participants report their own
perceptions, experiences and values.
Interviews: Interviews can be understood as a conversation with a
purpose. (Burgess, 1984). To Wolcott (1988), interviews are any
activities that a field researcher does in order to intrude a natural
context with the intention of obtaining information directly from the
participants.

19. DATA ANALYSIS
Miles and Huberman (1994) define data analysis as consisting of three
concurrent flows of activity: data reduction, data display and conclusion
drawing/verification.

20. DATA ANALYSIS
The process of data analysis for this study consisted of a mixture of
different techniques and coding procedures.
On the one hand, the researchers used what several authors called
descriptive research or statistics, which consists of collecting data that
describe events to then organize, tabulate, represent and describe them
through graphs and tables to facilitate the comprehension of information
(Glass & Hopkins, 1984).
On the other hand, the researchers used content analysis. This method
consists of examining social communication artifacts: written documents or
transcriptions of recordings. This analysis seeks to make inferences when
identifying systematically and objectively the special features of messages
(Norton, 2009).
This mixture of different qualitative techniques and coding procedures
sought to increase the methodological triangulation of the study.

21. FINDINGS

22. FINDINGS

23. PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
The impact of new technologies on EFL learning and teaching does
not consist of a promise of more efficiency but above all an
extension of the relations between teachers and students
beyond the two-dimensional models of instruction to
multidimensional networks (Kennell, McBride & Kelly, 2009).
The use of ICT requires change in the way teachers think about
teaching and their teaching practices (Motallebzadeh, 2005).
Such a change is not simply a transition from traditional teaching to
teaching with technology. Instead, this change involves what they
call a shift in teaching paradigms: a shift in the way of thinking
about teaching (Van de Ven and Poole, 1995).

24. PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
EFL teachers should not just receive technological
instruction, but be given technological education. The former
simply regards teachers as technicians in need of standard
operating procedures whereas the latter considers them as
interpreters capable of making decisions in their English classroom
(Widdowson, 1990).
Based on the work done in this study, it is possible to suggest that
the Constructivist, Self-regulating, Interactive and
Technological (CSIT) teaching model (CAIT as it called in
Spanish) may be a concrete way to strengthen educational
planning, implementation and evaluation through new technologies
(Beltrán and Pérez, 2003).

25. PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
Fernández, Real & Tortajada (2005)

26. REFERENCES
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28. Thank you!