Anthropomorphic Agent vs. Pointing Finger in Multimedia Grammar Instruction: A Comparative Study
Hamed Babaie · 2009
This research sought to compare the effects of two types of multimedia agents, an anthropomorphic agent and a pointing finger, with teacher instruction on the learning of three major types of subordinate clauses in English by learners in an EFL context. To this aim, the three groups under study received treatment on nominal, adjectival, and adverbial clauses under one of three conditions: The first experimental group received treatment through a multimedia program drawing on an anthropomorphic agent, researcher's voice, and texts to introduce clauses. The second experimental group received treatment through a multimedia program using a pointing finger, voice, and texts to teach clauses, and the control group received treatment on clauses through teacher instruction. The three groups were then post-tested on the clauses taught. The post-test results revealed that both multimedia courseware were more effective than teacher instruction in introducing subordinate clauses in English. Nevertheless, the study favored the use of the pointing finger in multimedia environments as a more effective attention-getting device that might better focus learners' attention on salient aspects of grammatical structures of language.