The purpose of this paper is to share the findings of an action research aiming at helping college students to improve their speaking by applying a WeChat-based autonomous learning community.WeChat is the most wide-sp...The purpose of this paper is to share the findings of an action research aiming at helping college students to improve their speaking by applying a WeChat-based autonomous learning community.WeChat is the most wide-spread social media platform in China.In this 10-week action research,a total of 16 participants in a Chinese university were involved.After identifying the incentive of participating in this WeChat Group speaking activity,most of which were related with pronunciation and a lack of speaking fluency practice,an action plan was developed and implemented.In this WeChat group,the participants received weekly learning material about pronunciation and speaking assignments accordingly,then they had one week to learn the pronunciation independently and prepare the oral assignments.Following this,participants submitted their voice recording in the WeChat group and were given feedback by an instructor in this group.Observations,questionnaires,and surveys were used to collect data.The results show a positive feedback from the learners on a WeChat-based autonomous learning community.The study observes(1)college EFL learners have a strong motivation;intrinsic motivation especially has a positive relationship with participants’performance;(2)students have a positive attitude towards WeChat-based autonomous learning community;(3)timely feedback from instructors is highly valued by language learners.展开更多
文摘The purpose of this paper is to share the findings of an action research aiming at helping college students to improve their speaking by applying a WeChat-based autonomous learning community.WeChat is the most wide-spread social media platform in China.In this 10-week action research,a total of 16 participants in a Chinese university were involved.After identifying the incentive of participating in this WeChat Group speaking activity,most of which were related with pronunciation and a lack of speaking fluency practice,an action plan was developed and implemented.In this WeChat group,the participants received weekly learning material about pronunciation and speaking assignments accordingly,then they had one week to learn the pronunciation independently and prepare the oral assignments.Following this,participants submitted their voice recording in the WeChat group and were given feedback by an instructor in this group.Observations,questionnaires,and surveys were used to collect data.The results show a positive feedback from the learners on a WeChat-based autonomous learning community.The study observes(1)college EFL learners have a strong motivation;intrinsic motivation especially has a positive relationship with participants’performance;(2)students have a positive attitude towards WeChat-based autonomous learning community;(3)timely feedback from instructors is highly valued by language learners.
