Working title of thesis

The affective impact of interactive whiteboard (IWB) multimodality on second language learning in a classroom environment: Exploration of how IWB multimodality could affect classroom interaction and promote cooperative/scaffold language learning.

Current Supervisors

Dr Angela Pickering

Paul Slater

Ken Turner

Aims of the investigation

• To trace those IWB modes which promote interaction and stimulate scaffold learning among young learners.

• To describe and understand the interaction developed among a teacher, learners and an IWB.

• To investigate how this impacts on second language development twofold: socially and cognitively.   

• To provide teachers and material designers insights into how an IWB could pedagogically be appropriated to promote language development through scaffold/ cooperative learning.

Research questions being addressed

The aims of this research could be achieved provided the following questions are answered

• What can the analysis of the sequence organization and turn taking system of classroom talk reveal about the role an IWB takes in the development of interaction between participants? 

• What are the modes/features of the IWB which play a decisive role in the interaction developed among participants?  Is scaffold /cooperative learning promoted effectively? How?

• How does scaffold learning and IWB multimodality intertwine and affect the language learning (cognitive and/or social development of the individual)?