WIKI AS A TOOL FOR LEARNING THE ENGLISH

LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPACT ON THE INTRINSIC MOTIVATION OF

STUDENTS AT THE UNDERGRADUATE LEVEL

M. Jovic1, V. Stevanovic2

1College of Agriculture and Food Technology Prokuplje (SERBIA)aquila@beotel.net

2College of Agriculture and Food Technology Prokuplje (SERBIA)vesna.stevanovicpk@gmail.com

INTRODUCTIONThe modern age and the rapid

development of science and technology bring changes in all aspects of human life.

Students are growing up with the Internet and modern technology and a teacher has to adapt his work and methods to their interests.

Modern teacher must have program, educational, communication and computer competencies.

INTRODUCTION There are many online resources for

learning English, which is daily enriched with new and innovative features.

A great number of free web tools to integrate these resources and the demands of the curriculum are also available on the Internet.

The task of the teacher is to create a stimulating learning environment, facilitate positive transfer of knowledge, provide communication between student-teacher, as well as communication among students.

WIKI AS E-LEARNING TOOL

e-learning is a system of procedures, processes and teaching materials, which provide the versatility and effectiveness of learning as individual and social activities, which is not only the procedures in the school system, but an activity of development of the entire community and a part of the professional development of different profiles individuals.

WIKI AS E-LEARNING TOOL

Forms of e-learning:Online teaching that is exclusively carried

out using computers and ICT;Hybrid Learning and blended learning (b-learning) is an enrichment of the

traditional classroom with visualization of specific topics with the help of computers, the use of new media and educational software to facilitate the combination of traditional and modern;

Learning in virtual classrooms.

High quality e-learning is characterized by: a high level of interactivity,integration,simulation andanimation,multimedia support,integration with classroom learning andthe development of hybrid learning

systems, support with various e-materials in different

formats, to make joint foundation of student learning and teacher, learning management system by web.

ways of applying wikis in the classroom

Can be used to create web pages, because there is the ability to easily add pages and their navigation;

Collecting data and learning materials; Making presentations and articles by the group,

each of them do their part, set the wiki, the next to take on, added their part, etc.

Development of projects and tasks, in which students work in groups, and teacher directs team work and individual contributions; while during the work it can be commented and after completion of the task, evaluation can be made, and also the peer evaluation.

INTRINSIC AND EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION IN WEB 2.0 SURROUNDING

Motivation can be divided into external (extrinsic) and internal (intrinsic).

External motivation can be achieved through the identification, when people identify with the personal importance of a behavior and accept it as their own rule.

Internal motivation comes from the personality and its interest in the content being taught, curiosity, quasineeds (intellectual tension that creates by an interesting problem) or due to cognitive dissonance.

The teacher will increase intrinsic motivation by encouraging autonomy and student competitions.

When we combine the motivational needs of students and the opportunities provided by Web 2.0 technologies, an enabling environment for the implementation of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) is created.

Students have an opportunity, based on their skills and knowledge of other students, to develop their own learning strategies and find solutions that make it the most effective way led to the goal.

The teacher in this case has a role to initiate the process of analysis and synthesis of the appropriate scope of instructions and explanations.

This means that the teacher should not provide ready-made solutions, but rather to suggest ways and resources that students could lead to a solution.

moderator,monitors on the activities, valuates,criticizes andpraise and directs the course of

making the task.

Teacher plays the role of:

RESEARCH ORGANIZATION

The research was conducted during teaching the subject English Language in the summer semester of 2012/13 academic year with the students of the first year of study at the College of Agriculture and Food Technology in Prokuplje.

These students are on the undergraduate level and English is a foreign language to them (L2).

In addition to the general knowledge of the language (reading, writing, comprehension, grammar), the curriculum is planned to study the concepts and areas related to agriculture, because these students are educated for the future profession in agricultural engineering.

This course is being taught in classrooms equipped with white board, computer, projector and wireless Internet.

Based on previous experience of teaching and interviews with students, it was found that most of them determine as a goal to pass the exam at the end of the semester.

A few of them show desire to invest greater effort and gain higher mark or acquire new knowledge and improve the previous one.

This situation clearly indicates the existence of almost exclusively extrinsic motivation, and that intrinsic motivation is very low.

Therefore, it was assumed that the encouragement to work independently and build knowledge with socializing and peer collaboration significantly influenced the increase of the students’ intrinsic motivation.

It was hypothesized that the introduction of b-learning and the use of ICT in education, as a supplement of classical teaching in the classroom, contributing to the strengthening of motivation and positive attitudes of students towards learning.

As the most suitable for this purpose, was used wiki as e-learning tool.

Students were divided into two groups with similar characteristics.

The criteria for students were average score in high school and mark in the English language in high school.

These data are taken from the survey that students complete during enrolment in high school.

One group (control) consisted of students of the study program Field and Vegetable Crops, and the other (experimental) group consisted of students of the study program Fruit Growing and Viticulture.

Table 1. Students' average score and mark in English at the end of secondary school

•Group 1 was consisted students of the study program Field and Vegetable Crops and in group 2 were students of the study program Fruit Growing and Viticulture. •The ordinal number of the student is entered in the first line, in line two is average rating of overall achievement in secondary school, and row 3 is the grade in English during the final year of secondary school. •In the last column are given the average values of secondary education and evaluation of the subject English Language and on that basis it can be concluded that both groups initially have similar characteristics.

The first group was taught only in a traditional teaching method, while the second group was given access to the wiki page PBworks (Fig. 1) on http://engleskijezikvppspk.pbworks.com

Figure 1. The main wiki page

Wiki task Two tasks for students were set up on the wiki. Time limit of

one month was given for the realization of each task. Students were divided into four groups: two groups numbered five members, and two groups numbered six members. The first task consisted in creating the dictionary and the second task was project realization on the topic of growing fruit crops.

Tasks were rated after they were completed and students were given credits for group work and individual contributions to the development of the project. Quality of successfully completed tasks and individual contribution were ranked by the students, because after the completion, all tasks were placed in a common folder for evaluation.

Student evaluation was performed by doing two tests during the semester and a final exam at the end of the semester.

RESULTS At the start of the research, the assumption was

that the introduction of wiki as an additional teaching resource will result in increased intrinsic motivation of students, which should be manifested through their success in getting better marks in English at the end of the semester.

The students’ achievement was ranked in the following manner:

grade 6 - sufficient, grade 7 - good, grade 8 - very good, grade 9 -excellent and grade 10 – excellent-outstanding.

Table 2. Evaluation of Group 1 at the end of the semester

Group 1

Grade 6 7 8 9 10 SumAverage

scoreNumber of students 10 3 3 2 0 18 6.83

The overall success at the end of the semester for the group 1, (Field and Vegetable Crops)

Table 3. Evaluation of Group 2 at the end of the semester

Group 2

Grade 6 7 8 9 10 SumAverage

scoreNumber of students 3 4 7 6 1 21 7.90

Results for the experimental Group 2 (Fruit Crops and Viticulture)

Chart 1. Comparative review of the results of the control and experimental groups

Comparing the results of the two groups at the beginning of the semester (when the mean score of the group 1 was 0.22 lower than the mean score of the group 2) and the results at the end of the semester (when the group 2 has an average score of 1.07 more than the group 1), we can see that the group 2 achieved significantly better results in the subject English Language during the semester.

More than half of the experimental group students achieved an average or above-average score on the final exam, which can be attributed to a higher level of intrinsic motivation.

From the survey, completed after the exam, it can be concluded that the students were highly motivated to use wikis in teaching and showed interest in a similar way to the realisation of teaching other subjects.

CONCLUSION

E-learning is a very broad term that includes all methods and techniques for teaching with the help of computers and the Internet. The user can access the contents, individual, without spatial and temporal constraints and thus organize their learning with the place and time that suits them.

For the implementation of e-learning it is necessary to form a stimulating learning environment, knowledge transfer from teacher to student, the possibility of communication between teachers and students, as well as communication among students.

E-learning tools which support Web 2.0 technology are designed for collaborative learning. Within these tools, teacher creates training materials, develops tasks for individual and group work and monitors student engagement, their creativity and progression in learning.

Learning under the influence of intrinsic motivation increases the durability of the memory contents, the contents are interesting, adopted without stress and with pleasure. Once approved, these facilities are more memorable, well-connected and easily applied in practice.

CONCLUSION

Using the wiki tool in teaching English motivates students and teachers, encourages their creativity and cooperation and gives them the ability to work as team members and as individuals, and to participate actively in building their knowledge and improving their own skills.

Positive opinion of students on the use of wiki tools in modernizing teaching process is clearly expressed.

Information technology cannot replace the teacher, but may be a useful complement to the classical language teaching method in the classroom.

Wiki as a teaching tool increases the intrinsic motivation of students and positive transfer of knowledge, inspires creativity, and allows teachers to be creators of modern teaching.

CONCLUSION