Using Videos to Promote the Use of the Internet

By:
Debbie Li-Miao Huang
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Internet technology has the potential to help students of English in countries where English is not commonly spoken to communicate with other users of English. Students learning English in many countries of the world have difficulty sustaining motivation when they have so little contact with other users of English. Imagining other learners in similar circumstances and the potential for communication may impact on the English learners’ engagement in their language study. Taiwanese secondary and tertiary students in the present study tended to contact others in their native Mandarin rather than using the internet to communicate with others using English. To investigate the possibility of encouraging the use of the internet in English by helping students imagine the community of speakers of English as a global language, the present study used videos of English language users and learners from a wide variety of English dominant and non-dominant countries during an 8-week English language course. This was followed during the course by introducing students to a variety of internet sites which provided students with an imagined community in which they could participate using English. Seeing and hearing other learners of English using English on the videos motivated students to increase their use of the internet in English.


Keywords: Imagined Community, Motivation, Internet Use, Videos
Stream: Pedagogies and Teaching Practices
Presentation Type: 30 minute Paper Presentation in English
Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Debbie Li-Miao Huang

Student of Higher Degree by Research, Faculty of Education, Deakin University
Tainan, TAIWAN

Li-Miao Debbie Huang is currently a full-time, on-campus PhD student in Deakin University, located in Melbourne, Australia. I was born in Taiwan, where I completed my undergraduate and graduate education. Before I come to Australia to do my PhD study, I have been teaching English for 16 years. During my years of teaching English, I am especially interested in how to motivate the students in their English learning that is dominated by passing exams. Until I do my PhD study, I have never thought of how essential it is to look at the students’motivation in English learning through understanding their social-cultural background, lived experiences outside the classroom, which may affect the students as an English learner in the classroom. While English is being used as a lingua franca (ELF) as it spreads globally, does the concept of ELF bring about another meaning to students’ English learning for passing exams? Out of this interest, I am connecting the students with the global community of other English users by using Internet and videos, hoping to see whether this teaching practice can significantly motivate the students.

Ref: LS7P0103