THE IMPACT OF INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIAL EXPERIENCE IN THE COLLEGE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

ABSTRACT

Technology has been used widely in the field of education for a long period of time. It is a useful tool which could be a mediation to help language learners to learn the target language. In order to investigate how technology and social experience can be integrated into courses to promote language learners’ desire to learn English, the researcher combined Gardner’s socio-psychological system and students’ social experience (social construction, cooperative learning, and communicative competence) as guides to explore their motivation (desire to learn English). 315 students from two Taiwanese universities taking English courses were involved in this study. The data included 35 Likert-scaled questions, 11 demographic information questions, and two open-ended questions. Regression analysis, and correlation coefficient were conducted to analyze the data. Based on the findings, learning with technology, technology experience and social experience had positive relationship with their desire to learn English, and learning with technology and social experience were also strong predictors of desire to learn English. Because integrating technology and social experience in language learning appeared to benefit desire to learn English, educators might consider including these elements throughout their language-learning curriculum to promote students’ learning motivation.