Social Media Technologies for Collaboration and Communication: Perceptions of Novice EFL Teachers in the Czech Republic

Conference: The European Conference on Education (ECE2022)
Title: Social Media Technologies for Collaboration and Communication: Perceptions of Novice EFL Teachers in the Czech Republic
Stream: Teaching Experiences, Pedagogy, Practice & Praxis
Presentation Type: Live-Stream Presentation
Authors:
Jinjin Lu, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China
Feifei Han, Griffith University, Australia

Abstract:

With increasing numbers of international schools, traditional EFL teaching methods cannot satisfy students’ needs. This study aims to investigate perceptions of social media technologies (e.g., Web 2.0) and willingness to adopt such technologies to collaborate and communicate in multicultural classrooms among novice K-12 EFL teachers in the Czech Republic. The participants were 100 novice K–12 EFL teachers in Prague and the South Moravian regions in the Czech Republic. The study used a mixed research method consisting of a survey (stage 1) and a semi-structured interview (stage 2). The survey examined the participants’ perceptions positive and negative perceptions (concerns) of using social media technologies to collaborate and to communicate; and the level of willingness to use social media technologies. A hierarchical cluster analysis using participants’ ratings of the positive and negative perceptions identified three clusters of teachers. Based on the cluster membership, one-way ANOVAs were conducted on teachers’ willingness to use social media, which showed significant differences between the clusters. The results from the semi-structured interviews were consistent with those from the survey. Jointly, the results from the two stages demonstrated that most pre-service teachers favored using Web 2.0 technology for collaboration and communication between colleagues and stakeholders in a broader community, but they displayed contrasting levels of positive and negative perceptions towards using social media technologies. Participants believed that these might be due to their different levels of ICT proficiency, workload, and working environment.

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