A study on interactive whiteboards used to teach grammar to young english learners

Abstract

The aim of this final undergraduate dissertation is to determine if the use of Interactive Whiteboards when teaching English grammar to young learners is more effective and motivational than the use of traditional worksheets. To this effect, the thesis relies on the premise that Interactive Whiteboards are good to maintain students actively involved, increase their interest with visual input and keep them focused for a longer time (Povjakalová, 2012). Thereby, the present study has been carried out in two different stages: a theoretical part that deals with the computer-assisted language learning (from which everything began), grammar teaching, and its important role when dealing with language learning, and also, the use of Interactive Whiteboards in the classroom (along with its advantages and disadvantages); and a practical stage where there has been a review of market research that was held to compare both methods of teaching English. On this basis, two lessons were conducted and questionnaires were distributed at an educational centre in Vila-real, Spain. The results obtained show that all the students know how to use an Interactive Whiteboard, but prefer the traditional way of learning grammar despite feeling more motivated when learning grammar by means of this new technological device. Despite this, the study comes to the conclusion that a mix of both methods would be a suitable solution for the improvement of the student’s motivation. Thus, the implementation of Interactive Whiteboards in schools would be a mean of reaching higher level scores for students and, consequently, a mean of obtaining the so desired academic achievement. and reason of motivation of the implementation of Interactive Whiteboards in schools.