Exploring secondary school English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers' attitudes to and perceptions of using the internet in English language teaching in Benin

Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2014 in the subject Didactics - English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: -, Université d'Abomey-Calavi, course: Didactics - EFL, language: English, abstract: As one of the technologies of information and communication, the Internet has been,

for some years now, the topic of much interest within the educational community. Ways of

using the Internet as a medium to deliver instructional materials and to access digital

libraries are reshaping education in general and language instruction in particular. This

exploratory study has attempted to find out the attitudes and perceptions of secondary

school English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers towards the use of the internet in

English Teaching in Benin. It has also set out to investigate the possible impediments for

such integration in the classrooms. In this line, a review of the existing literature related to

Computer-Assisted Language Learning and the internet uses and benefits for Education has

been presented. Both quantitative and qualitative methods have been employed to collect

data on the field. A questionnaire was distributed to 500 secondary school EFL teachers

during the 2012-2013 school year. The return rate of this questionnaire was 99% (N=495).

This stage was followed by interviews with a random sample of 40 teachers. The results

from both the quantitative and qualitative instruments of research indicated that the

participants had rarely used the Internet, particularly for instructional purposes. Indeed, they

reported more use of the Internet for personal than for instructional purposes. Participants

had high levels of Internet use in mainstream Internet services such as e-mail and the Web.

While they had positive perceptions of the use of the Internet as a pedagogical tool, they

had relatively limited levels of access to and expertise with computers and the Internet.

Positive correlations existed between teachers' level of use of the Internet and five

independent variables, including computer and Internet expertise, place of access to the

Internet, perceptions of the Internet, computer experience, and Internet experience. Multiple

regression analysis indicated that only expertise, place of access, and Internet experience

had a significant predictive value of teachers' use of the Internet. The results also indicated

that 39% of the variance in Internet use was explained by the independent variables

included in this study. To increase Internet use, secondary school EFL teachers need to be

given more Internet training. In-service training needs to be a top priority, with a primary

focus on using the Internet as a tool for teaching and learning. [...]