Digital Technology Use of Teachers and Students and Their Perceptions of Technology Integration into English Curriculum in Thailand

Abstract

In this digital age, many CALL scholars affirmed the leverage of digital technologies and social media to access enormous authentic online resources. Moreover, technologies can increase students' motivation, their learning outcome and make teaching and learning more constructive and engaging. However, no research to date explored in depth the digital technology use of students and teachers and their perceptions about technologies for teaching and learning in Thai contexts. In response to a call for teachers to incorporate digital technologies into the curriculum, this qualitative study investigated how English language in-service teachers and students at a Thai private university use digital technologies for academic and non-academic purposes. The study also explored their perceptions of technology incorporation into English curriculum. The study's objective is to raise an awareness of practitioners, researchers and policy-makers to create innovative technology-enhanced language learning activities to develop students' digital technologies. It is widely accepted that digital literacies are essential skills to survive in the age of emerging digital literacies. For data triangulation, the findings derived from five sources including teacher and student surveys, teacher interviews, student focus group discussions, class observations and artifacts. The findings revealed that teachers and students felt positive with technology integration into the classrooms, but some hurdles and discrepancy were discovered. The students were more skillful in using more various types of digital technologies and social media than the teachers. Overall, this study will fill a gap of literature on digital literacies, teacher education and technology-enhanced language teaching and learning in Thailand.



Author Information
Pornnicha Weerakanto, University of Arizona, United States

Paper Information
Conference: ACE2018
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Posted by James Alexander Gordon