Interactive digital media assignments: effects on EFL learners’ overall and micro-level oral language skills

Abstract

Owing to the plethora of user-friendly audio/video creation and editing applications as well as free full-featured hosting platforms, videoing and sharing has become a lifestyle of today’s students. Utilizing these spontaneous practices, the current study examined the effects of digital media assignments (DMAs) and accompanying asynchronous interaction on EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners’ oral language skills. For this purpose, a cohort of 124 EFL college students was randomly selected and assigned into three groups: interactive digital media assignments (IDMA, n = 43), non-interactive digital media assignments (NDMA, n = 41), and traditional face-to-face assignments (FTFA, n = 40). The study adopted the mixed-method sequential explanatory design wherein quantitative data collection and analysis (oral language skills pre-posttests) was followed by qualitative data collection and analysis (perceptions survey). Quantitative findings revealed that participants in all groups showed improvements in both overall and micro-level oral language skills (i.e. oral content, fluency, pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar). However, IDMA students outperformed both NDMA and FTFA ones. Comparing NDMA and FTFA groups, the former performed better than the latter only in content and vocabulary, whereas it could not in fluency, pronunciation, grammar, or overall oral language skills. Thus, it can be inferred that DMAs alone helped improve only content elaboration and vocabulary. However, when done interactively, they could bolster students’ overall as well as all micro-level oral language skills when compared to face-to-face assignments. Besides, despite describing digital media production as exhausting and time-consuming, IDMA students reported increased self-confidence, technical literacy, and language competence and decreased speaking apprehension.