The effect of interactive whiteboard on motivating Van Lang University’s freshmen in lexical acquisition

Abstract

Interactive White Board (IWB) or smart board has emerged recently as one of the most effective language teaching and learning tools. It utilizes a wide variety of multimedia such as videos, audios, pictures and the Internet, or inspiring activities and games designed with ActivInspire software to engage students actively and proactively in vivid as well as memorable language lessons. As opposed to the traditional approaches to vocabulary teaching and learning, the creative and innovative IWB-based activities or games both offer a unique opportunity for quick memory of English lexical items and enhance students‟ motivation in English words acquisition. Regardless of the inspiration from IWB, not many studies offered empirical evaluations of the efficiency of IWB on enhancing Vietnamese students‟ motivation in learning vocabulary in the EFL context. Therefore, this study aimed to discover how IWB could motivate freshmen at Van Lang University (VLU, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) to improve their lexical repertoire. Qualitative research method was used in combination with various tools for data collection such as observation, questionnaire, video recordings and interview. The data demonstrated that IWB together with its highly creative activities sharply aroused VLU‟s freshmen‟s motivation and gave them an essential lexical items background for further English study.