Research Information System
CUELT 2017 - Cukurova International ELT Teachers Conference (3rd), Adana, Turkey, 20 - 21 April 2017, pp.62
Many learners are now quite digitally skilled. However, this does not entail that they know
how to learn through digital technologies and that is what educators need to help them with.
Therefore, by establishing some kind of an interactive virtual learning platform that connects
everyone together in a classroom environment and helping learners become familiar with such
media might serve a set of purposes in any educational setting: working in collaboration to
learn from others and help others learn, having unlimited access to instructional content and
easy online access to instructors and classmates, and planning studies with a consideration of
individual needs, expectations, and preferences (pace, timing, location). Today, with the
advances in web-based learning technologies, a hybrid teaching methodology has become
popular: blended learning. It is a term increasingly used to describe the way e-learning is
being combined with traditional classroom methods and independent study. Educators in
various fields design online materials (games and activities) and utilize them in synchronous
(through chat or videoconferencing) or asynchronous (offline via web, email, message boards
or forums) ways to suit the convenience of learners and instructors and program demands. In
this study on a group of English language learners at a preparatory school, the goal was to
enhance students’ vocabulary learning performance by using asynchronous games and
activities to teach collocations with a specific focus on their predictability as to the aspects of
connotation, animacy and metaphor. The data consisted of the students’ scores on progress check quizzes and the post-activity feedback from the students and teachers. The findings
were discussed with respect to the efficiency of incorporating asynchronous learning materials
and suggestions were offered for future applications.