Final Paper

Task requirements:

There are two different opinions about the impacts of media on learning as follow:

"[...] media are mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student

achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in our

nutrition" (Clark 83: 445)

“[…] certain media “possess particular characteristics that make them both more

and less suitable for the accomplishment of certain kinds of learning tasks.” (Kozma,

1994)

Which opinion do you support? Write an argumentative essay (approximately 1000

words) to express your views on the above opinions and the application of technology in

teaching English language to speaker of other languages. Use scholarly articles and

theories learnt in Chappelle (2017), Beatty (2011) and Blake (2008) or from other sources

to support your argument.

 With the advent of technology, foreign language classrooms have witnessed a

proliferation of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) applications whose

influence in the student’s language learning has quickly aroused interest among

researchers in this field. Being seen as the “mere vehicles that deliver instruction”,

media, an interactive approach of CALL materials, was debated to “not influence

student achievement” (Clark, 1983, p. 445). However, it is argued here that teachers

should be aware that the student’s language learning does increase when media is

seen through the lens of cognitive theory.

Coming into existence in the early 1950s, it has been widely acknowledged

that CALL plays an important role in both language teaching and learning, especially

when it comes to the desirable pedagogical aim, that is, to foster learning autonomy in

students (see, e.g., Beatty, 2010; Chapelle & Sauro, 2017; Mutlu & Eroz- Tuga, 2013;

Reinders & Hubbard, 2013; YAHYA, 2016). Multimedia CALL referring to language

learning using multimedia technology has also gained more and more popularity in

instructional material design. With multimedia, that is, the use of multiple forms of

media (e.g., text, video, graphic, etc.) and hypermedia, that is, the system of different

media linked together by a hypertext program (e.g., text + sound or text +

photographs) (Beatty, 2010), students have more access to information implicitly

associated with language features through multi-sensory stimulation in the learning

process. Although multimedia CALL has been considered an effective approach, to

what extent they can enhance the student’s learning achievement is a bone of

contention.

A cognitive psychologist, Clark (1983) in his Reconsidering Research on

Learning from Media contended that the role of media was no more than a means to

store and deliver the instruction that brings “no learning benefits” (p. 445). In order to
defend his position, an array of consistent evidences from comparative studies on

media conducted by Kulik and his colleagues was presented, claiming that it were the

instructional method and lesson content themselves that resulted in any changes in the

student’s learning outcomes, not the media (Cohen,

Ebling & Kulik, 1981; Kulik, Kulik, & Cohen, 1980; Kulik, Bangert, &

Williams, 1983; Kulik, Kulik, & Cohen, 1979, as cited in Clark, 1983). This claim

was in line with Schramm’s (1977) standpoint which is “learning seems to be affected

more by what is delivered than by the delivery system” (p. 273) because media is just

a presentation (Thompson et al., 1992). However, it can be debated that the

articulation is flawed because they failed to examine the media based on the cognitive

process in learning, possibly due to the prominent behaviorism at that time.

Although unbiased instructional information and media can individually or

together trigger student’s cognitive construction, only individual role of each was

scrutinized, not the relationship between medium and teaching method. The

aforementioned studies also lacked the description of neither media attributes (i.e.,

capabilities), nor the instructional method. Therefore, those researchers are hasty in

concluding that any student’s outcome changes were solely due to the instruction, or

the media caused no changes in the test results (Leacock & Nesbit, 2007). In response

to Clark’s (1983) analogy, Komaz (1991, 1994) argued that interaction between

medium and cognitive process should have been scrutinized because a particular

media with certain attributes applied appropriately in instruction can make a

difference in leaner’s achievement in evidence due to its implicit cognitive effect.

Better L2 reading comprehension of hypermedia text was found in Garrett-Rucks,

Howles, and Lake’s (2015) research in 70 French language learners. Similarly, text

media was also pointed out to be helpful in enhancing reading comprehension of

secondary students in Kiswahili (Francis, 2019). Songs and movies integrated in a

language classroom in high school in Dehdasht promoted significant effects on the

student’s listening, reading, vocabulary, and grammar (Haghverdi, 2015).

In terms of assessment, the effectiveness of media in studies included in

Clark’s (1983) review was mainly measured from one source (i.e., the test paper).

However, it is understandable that academic achievement is driven by many other

internal and external factors (e.g., aptitude, classroom factors, etc.), suggesting that

those results might be invalid with respect to media tests. Instead, a student’s

language achievement should be measured from different sources (e.g., students’

notebooks or personal observation, etc.) or by different tests (i.e., retention test or

transfer test) (Mayer, 1997). This can be illustrated in many studies. When students

were given instruction or tasks formatted verbally and visually, they could come up

with more than a half plausible solution (see, e.g., Mayer, 1989; Mayer & Gallini,

1990; Kozma, 1997).

It is undeniable that the emergence of media has drastic impact on the

students’ language learning improvement. The Cognitive theory of Multimedia

learning (CTML) developed when the researcher shifted their attention from

behaviorism to cognitivism implies that learning involves a cognitive process that

only occurs when students actively react to incoming information to build mental

presentations (i.e., verbal mode and visual mode) of that information and

constructively integrate them into their existing knowledge. According CTML’s

Multiple Presentation Principle, students learn better from words accompanied by

pictures rather than words alone (Mayer & Moreno, 1998). Therefore, when designing

teaching materials, it is of importance for teachers to take the integration of different

forms of media into consideration so that students can build the two aforementioned
mental presentations and build connections to deepen their understanding.

Additionally, good material design with the help of multimedia-enhanced CALL can

also bring real-world situations in which media creates an understandable context in

an engaging learning environment while giving many extralinguistic clues for

students (Joseph & Uther, 2009; Bush & Crotty, 1991). From there, students are

motivated intrinsically; as a result, becoming more autonomous (Hasan, Al Younus,

Ibrahim, Islam & Islam, 2020), that is in line with pedagogical aim mentioned before.

In conclusion, within cognitive theory, it appears that the potential for media

to improve the student’s language proficiency is high, especially when multiple media

attributes are cultivated in an appropriate way to support students with different

learning styles. This audio-visual material provides students with great sources of

language linguistics in a real and authentic context which is necessary for language

learning. More importantly, media also increases the availability of appealing

language contents to reinforce L2 students’ motivation.

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