ARMY POLYTECHNIC SCHOOLDEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGES

APPLIED LINGUISTICS IN ENGLISH CAREER - DISTANCE LEARNING EDUCATION

VIRTUAL CLASSROOMS AS A STRATEGY TO IMPROVE THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ACQUISITION OF STUDENTS OF THE COMPUTING

FACULTY BELONGING TO “UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA DE CUENCA” DURING THE TERM OCTOBER – DECEMBER 2010BY:Jenny Karina Vizñay Durán

Problematic Situation

Part I

IDENTIFICATION OF THE PROBLEM

VARIABLES WORKING OUT

GENERAL

To demonstrate that the use of technological teaching methods as Virtual Classrooms assist the students to improve their English language acquisition.

SPECIFIC

• To promote the use of Virtual Classrooms to practice the target language.

• To show that the use of this technology influences on the English learning in a better way.

• To explain how to use Virtual Classrooms for the teaching-learning purpose.

Part II

T E A C H I N G L E A R N I N G

P R O C E S S

CHAPTER ITheoretical and Conceptual

Focus

Cognitive Affective Linguistic

CONSTRUCTIONISM

CONSTRUCTIVISM

CHAPTER IIEnglish Language Teaching

Methodology

CHAPTER IIITechnological Tools as a

Complement in Education

VIRTUALSPACES

synthetic reality

REALVIRTUA

L

HOMOGENIZER

NO

GEOGRAPHIC

LIM

ITS

NO TIM

E

ALL Y

OUR SENSES

WORKIN

G

EASY ACCESS

Methodologies of Virtual Classrooms

Synchronic

Asynchronic

Polarizing

Methodology

Experimenting with Methodology

CHAPTER IVNew Trends to improve English

Language Acquisition

ResearchProcedure

Part III

Population230

Sample 29

HypothesisAnalysis &

Interpretation of results

Part IV

Hypothesis System

EXPERIMENTAL GROUP

PRE-TEST

EXPERIMENTAL GROUP

POST-TEST

20 27

28 30

12 21

22 21

18 26

10 19

23 28

26 30

GRAPHICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE MEAN VALUE IN THE EXPERIMENTAL

GROUP (PRE & POST TEST)

CONCLUSION

The use of Virtual

Classrooms as a Strategy to

improve English Language

Acquisition had positive

results.

RECOMMENDATION

Suggest to English teachers and train them in the use of technological tools like Virtual Classrooms as a complement in the English Language Acquisition, because it was demonstrated this strategy allows you to grab the students’ attention to work in an interactive way and learn in a funny way.

Part V

GENERAL OBJECTIVES To develop a technical guide for helping students to create an account in:www.busuu.com for learning English in a funnier way.  SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES To persuade students to create his/her own account to have access to this virtual classroom (virtual community) for learning English.

DEVELOPMENT In this technical guide students will learn how to:

1.Create an account in busuu

2.Use busuu for learning grammar, listening, speaking, writing and chat sessions.

1. Create an account in busuu

2. Use busuu for learning grammar, listening, speaking, writing and chat sessions.

Conclusion of this Research Project

* Eg have improved their English Language Acquistion with the help of virtual classrooms.

* Students are happy with the use of this Strategy as a complement in their education.

* Virtual Classrooms help to teachers in their classes.

* Virtual Classrooms can be considered as an assistant to teachers.