| Summary: | 碩士 === 南臺科技大學 === 應用英語系 === 104 === The purposes of this study were (a) to explore the current developments for and the usage of interactive whiteboard (IWB) by English teachers in a Kindergarten Chain Schools, (b) to explore the teaching strategies the teachers use to teach with IWB, (c) to investigate the factors which influence teachers’ usage IWB, (d) to understand the advantages of teaching with IWB, (e) to understand these teachers’ viewpoints and teaching difficulties of using the IWB.
This study was a quantitative and qualitative research. A survey of the questionnaire was conducted with 57 English teachers in order to collect the quantitative data. Classroom observations and interviews were conducted in order to collect qualitative data from seven teachers.
The findings and results were summarized as follow.
1.The perceptions of English teachers using the IWB in English teaching were positive. Teachers’ main application of the IWB was to display teaching materials by using the basic functions-and to encourage students to operate the board. Besides, teachers often used the teaching material from the publishers and sometimes used the materials designed by themselves.
2.The teaching strategies teachers used with IWB included: (1) Most teachers would use the special functions of IWB, such as screen capture, camera, spotlight, cover the screen and display (IWB special function use), (2) Teachers would design the teaching materials and class according to the multimodal principle to help student learn from words and pictures, rather than from words alone. (3) Teachers would consider the appropriate font and object size when they design the teaching materials. (4) Teachers would usually ask student to operate the IWB. (5)Teachers usually encouraged students to do drill & practice with IWB. (6) Teachers usually conducted whole-class teaching and learning. (7) When using IWB to teach, teachers adopted a student-centered learning approach.
3.(1)The other reasons that influenced teachers’ use of IWB were extra time, increasing teaching load, and worries about the influence of IWB on the regular course schedule. (2)The assistance teachers need when using IWB were to have complete materials and resources offered by schools, to receive training programs, and to obtain technical support from schools. (3)The reasons influence teachers teach with IWB as following, attracting students' attention or cause motivation, showing pictures and videos, explaining more complex or abstract concepts and the concepts of operational questions or questions or demonstration (ex. workbook), and viewing the student's learning process.
4.The advantages of using IWB included: teachers received positive feedback from students. IWB teaching increasing student participation, concentration and willingness to express themselves in class. Teachers believed the investment in whiteboard at school is worthwhile, and were willing to use IWB for teaching. Overall, teachers considered IWB teaching has more advantages than disadvantages and would recommend the use the IWB to other teachers. Most teachers were willing to continue to use the IWB for teaching.
5.The teaching difficulties teachers encountered were the equipment management and maintenance, as well as extra time and efforts spent on designing courses. Moreover, the stability of the IWB software and hardware was the problem that troubled English teachers the most.
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