• Corpus ID: 55203615

E-textbooks in ESL classrooms : are learners on board ?

@inproceedings{AlAli2015EtextbooksIE,
  title={E-textbooks in ESL classrooms : are learners on board ?},
  author={Sebah Al-Ali and Azim Ahmed},
  year={2015}
}

• Sebah Al-Ali, A. Ahmed
• Published 2015
• Education

As publishers and academia swiftly head towards e-textbooks, it is important to understand how students feel about using e-textbooks as a primary learning tool. This paper discusses results of a small-scale study looking into how a group of language learners view and use e-textbooks as learning tools in ESL classrooms. The paper concludes by offering teaching implications that could ease integrating e-textbooks in language classrooms in a more effective and efficient manner. Introduction As noted in Besser et al. (1998), textbooks form an essential pillar of a successful class because they form a foundation upon which teachers build their courses and on which students primarily depend for learning support. In a digital age, many publishing companies and higher education institutions are showing more interest in e-textbooks. This global trend has encouraged researchers to look into students’ and/or teachers’ attitudes towards e-textbooks in higher education institutions. While many studies (e.g., Brown, 2013; Falc, 2013; Feldstein & Martin, 2013; O’Hare & Smith, 2012; Philip & Moon, 2013) report an existing ambivalence among students towards integrating e-textbooks in classrooms world-wide, this study aims at investigating what students think about using e-textbooks as their prescribed textbook in their language classrooms. Having a better understanding of students’ attitudes can help direct teachers’ attention to language learners’ concerns about e-textbooks, and accordingly, help teachers identify issues that need to be considered and addressed to facilitate an efficient integration of e-textbooks. What are e-textbooks? According to Moorefield-Lang (2013), “an e-textbook is a book that is instructionally or educationally based and is provided in a digital format” (p. 13). Originally, e-textbooks started off as simple PDF versions of print books (McFall, 2005; Moorefield-Lang, 2013; Woody et al., 2010) which are now referred to as “digitized” books (Nelson, 2008); some of them had additional electronic activities to make them more appealing (Chesser, 2011). However, with the advent of tablet computers, many publishers are now heading towards creating e-textbooks that are uniquely designed to efficiently utilize the e-experience to its fullest potential, either by method of access (Moorefield-Lang, 2013; Lai & Rushikesh Ulhas, 2012) or by layout of content (Chesser, 2011; Rockinson-Szapkiw et al., 2013). For example, many current e-textbooks offer a re-flowable layout, whereby content is not bound by page numbers or a fixed distribution of content; instead, the content is adaptable to each device and is presented in a way that best suits the size of the device’s screen. Although this means that content is responsive and can be easily read regardless of screen size, it can make it difficult to maintain a point of reference for more than one device.