In order to make public education substantial and thereby reduce the dependence on private education, Cyber Home Learning System has been carried out since 2004. In fact, Korean students, who learn English as a second language, are able to be given En...
In order to make public education substantial and thereby reduce the dependence on private education, Cyber Home Learning System has been carried out since 2004. In fact, Korean students, who learn English as a second language, are able to be given English learning contents for 24 hours at any internet accessible places. In this aspect, Cyber Home Learning System seems to be an effective English learning tool.
Therefore, to make Cyber Home Learning System for elementary English learning more effective, this study was intended to investigate learners’ participation into the system, their satisfaction and preference, and thus explore something to be improved. Accordingly, the research questions are made as follows.
What is the status of elementary English learning through Cyber Home Learning System utilized by learners, and their satisfaction and preference?
And, what is the plan to facilitate elementary English learning in the Cyber Home Learning System?
To address the issues, this researcher first investigated e-learning which is a basis of Cyber Home Learning System, and then explored previous studies related to Cyber Home Learning System. After that, for pre-survey, fourteen 5th year students of an elementary school located in Incheon are interviewed. And then, the survey of questionnaire prepared based on the interview was conducted on two hundred and five 5th year students of the school. Moreover, for more details, ten students and two English teachers are interviewed after the questionnaire survey.
The results are summarized as follows.
First, the use of the Cyber Home Learning System for elementary English learning and the satisfaction with the system were found low. Furthermore, the satisfaction with English course through the Cyber Home Learning System was considerably lower than one with the public English education. Also, the questionnaire survey indicated that although students certainly wanted interesting contents and new contents differentiated from textbooks, the Cyber Home Learning System failed to provide enough contents suitable for their requirements. In addition, as shown in the survey of this study, the use rate of the Cyber Home Learning System by students is low, and their rate of participation into private education is high. This implies that the Cyber Home Learning System for English has been not yet placed as a learning tool to replace private education.
On the basis of the results shown earlier, something to be improved in order to increase the use of the Cyber Home Learning System for English is proposed as follows. First, contents reflecting learners’ requirements should be provided. More than anything else, the interesting contents learners want should be offered. Especially, it is necessary to develop contents, which feature amusement aspects, with the balanced use of Edutainment (Education & Entertainment) effects, rather than simply repeated contents. Moreover, as shown in students’ opinions, contents differentiated from textbooks should be provided. Under the EFL environment where students have few opportunities to learn English other than in regular English class, if new contents going beyond the textbooks’ contents are provided, it would be possible to reduce private education cost and help learners get opportunities to learn English interestingly of their own. Lastly, efficient operation being a match for the private education market is required. The current Cyber Home Learning System for English is provided for those who are more than 3rd year elementary students. The survey result presented that most students already experienced prior learning before becoming 3rd year elementary students who formally learn English in schools. Accordingly, if the Cyber Home Learning System is expanded to low-year elementary students, it would be possible to reduce private education cost for prior learning. In addition, it is necessary to operate a proper learning compensation system in order to improve the learners’ motivation for learning. Given the fact that children going to elementary schools have weak motivation, it is considered that applying such an attractive learning compensation system to the Cyber Home Learning System would positively influence their participation into learning.