The use of the interactive whiteboard in primary school (student motivation)

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyse if the pupils of first grade of primary education are more motivated to learn the English language through the use of the Interactive Whiteboard (IWB). To start with, and as an indispensable element to contextualize my study, it has been necessary to carry out a thorough theoretical research about the use of the IWB in the primary class, about the advantages and disadvantages that has this instrument in the school. Subsequently, I created a didactic unit organized in six sessions where we used the IWB in most of the class. In the same section, I have explained how I created the instruments to collect the data, how I carried out the activities in class and how I evaluated the pupils. This didactic unit has been carried out with pupils of six and seven years old by means of vocabulary related to the food and the story «The very hungry caterpillar». During the different sessions I could observe how the pupils seemed motivated to learn and interact in the class through the IWB; behaviours that I subsequently compared with the observations that I made in a class with no use of the IWB.

The purpose of this study is to analyse if the pupils of first grade of primary education are more motivated to learn the English language through the use of the Interactive Whiteboard (IWB). To start with, and as an indispensable element to contextualize my study, it has been necessary to carry out a thorough theoretical research about the use of the IWB in the primary class, about the advantages and disadvantages that has this instrument in the school. Subsequently, I created a didactic unit organized in six sessions where we used the IWB in most of the class. In the same section, I have explained how I created the instruments to collect the data, how I carried out the activities in class and how I evaluated the pupils. This didactic unit has been carried out with pupils of six and seven years old by means of vocabulary related to the food and the story «The very hungry caterpillar». During the different sessions I could observe how the pupils seemed motivated to learn and interact in the class through the IWB; behaviours that I subsequently compared with the observations that I made in a class with no use of the IWB.