Voice of América, a website to assess reading comprehension
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Abstract
Introduction: Reading is a fundamental skill in the learning of English as a foreign language, which, combined with technological tools, allows an effective development of the language. Objectives: The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of the Voice of America website on reading comprehension in seventh-semester students of a language program at a public university in Ecuador. Methodology: A quantitative study was carried out with a pre-experimental design and the population was made up of 35 seventh-semester students. In addition, ten interventions of 30 minutes each were made, in which several informative reports from the Voice of America website and different LKT tools were used. In addition, a variety of instruments were used, including a survey on the use of Learning and Knowledge Technologies (LKT), a pre- and post-test based on the FCE standardized test, and a model technology acceptance (TAM) survey. Finally, when applying the SPSS, the alternative hypothesis (H1) with a p value of 0.001 was accepted, indicating that the Voice of America website was effective for the development of reading comprehension of university students. Results: The results showed that the post-test average was higher than the pre-test average, with a difference of 1.6 points. Conclusions: The interventions had a positive impact on the students through the development of different activities such as group discussions, audio recordings, debates, predictions, answers to questions and written tasks that promoted a communicative environment and encouraged their critical thinking. General area of study: education. Specific area of study: language learning. Type of study: Original articles
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