Adopting Gartner’s hype cycles to investigate the lifespan of computer assisted language learning from EFL learners' perspectives

Abstract

It is crucial to study how L2 learners use technology when examining the lifespan technology in L2 pedagogy. Therefore, we adopted Gartner’s hype cycles to investigate the lifespan of CALL from the perspectives of EFL learners. To this end, we utilized an explanatory narrative design and gathered and analysed the perspectives of 87 EFL learners regarding the CALL lifespan using autobiographical narratives and semi-structured interviews. The results of the deductive thematic analysis presented motivating and demotivating factors that were asserted to affect EFL learners’ uptake of CALL technologies. Moreover, the findings revealed that EFL learners had fallacies about CALL in the first stages of using technology for L2 learning and tended to reduce those fallacies later on. Therefore, it can be concluded that EFL learners start their use of CALL with some misconceptions stemming from the motivating factors of CALL, continue their use of CALL by facing some demotivating factors originating from fallacies about CALL that they have already committed, and finalise their use of CALL by exploring about CALL features that help them avoid their fallacies. The study has implications to shorten the time of reaching the awareness zone by the L2 learners.