Abstract

The outbreak of COVID-19 worldwide in 2020 has posed tremendous challenges to higher education globally. Teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) is among the many areas affected by the pandemic. The unexpected transition to online teaching has increased challenges for improving and/or retaining students’ language proficiency. WeChat, a popular social application in China, was widely used for TEFL at Chinese universities before COVID-19. However, it remains unclear whether the use of WeChat can facilitate Chinese university students’ English-language lexical proficiency during the pandemic. To fill this gap, the aim of the present study was two-fold: (1) it initially explored the relationship between the variables including students’ academic years, genders, and academic faculties/disciplines, and their lexical proficiency; and (2) it evaluated the effectiveness of a WeChat-assisted lexical learning (WALL) program in facilitating learning outcomes of English-language vocabulary. One hundred and thirty-three students at a university in Northern China participated in the WALL program for three weeks. As the results indicated, the independent variables had no correlation with the students’ lexical proficiency. More importantly, the students had a decline in the test scores after using the program, compared to their initial test scores. Moreover, the difference was reported to be medium. The findings further proposed questions on applying WeChat to vocabulary teaching in a large-scaled transition. The study is expected to provide insights for tertiary institutions, language practitioners, and student stakeholders to troubleshoot the potential problems regarding implementing WeChat-based TEFL pedagogies.

Highlights

  • The COVID-19 pandemic has caused massive disruptions to educational institutions worldwide

  • The research method underpinning the PhD project is a mixed-methods research design, including open-ended questionnaires, tests, and semi-structured interviews. This reported study was designed as the pilot study. It primarily focused on the quantitative data collected through two sets of vocabulary test papers, These tests included a Diagnostic Test administered before the WeChat-assisted lexical learning (WALL) program and a Follow-Up Test administered afterwards

  • The present study evaluated the effectiveness of a WeChat-based program in facilitating students’ vocabulary learning outcomes at a Northern Chinese university

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Summary

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused massive disruptions to educational institutions worldwide. The English-language vocabulary test papers Two sets of English-language vocabulary tests were used as the measurement tool The lexical items were all extracted from the latest formal test papers of the College English Test: Band-4 (CET-4) (Retrieved from http://cet.neea.edu.cn/html1 /folder/1608/1178-1.htm accessed on 19 May 2020) and selected based on the English teaching syllabus at the university. The lexical items in this paper were all based on the learning materials and content delivered in the program. A. carnivore B. arthropod C. marsupial D. reptile” Another example was as follows: “The town of Binalong Bay is ____the southern end of the beautiful Bay of Fires. Three experienced English-language teachers from the university were consulted to check all the target lexical items online before the program commenced. The practical relevance and difficulty levels of the lexical items were verified

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