THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING PADLET IN ESL CLASSROOM

MunirahHaris, Melor Md. Yunus and Jamaludin Hj Badusah. Faculty of Education, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia. ...................................................................................................................... Manuscript Info Abstract ......................... ........................................................................ Manuscript History

Learning and working together on a wall is what a Padlet might look like for those who has tried this digital pinboard. This multimodal production tool is simple yet powerful to support teaching and learning. This study investigates the effectiveness of using Padlet in improving students" learning in English grammar. The data was collected by the means of pre-post tests and questionnaire survey. 30 students at University Sains Islam Malaysia were participated in this study. The data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential analysis. The result from pre-post tests indicated a significant improvement in students" performance. The result from survey also showed high preference and participants" positive attitude towards using Padlet as a means for learning grammar. The findings indicated that the use of Padlet is effective in enhancing students" performance in language learning.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….... Introduction:-
Grammar is one of the fundamental aspects needed in learning a language. Sufficient knowledge of English grammar contributed much in two main aspects in Englishwriting and speaking (Valentine &Repath-Martos, 1997). For a second language learner, writing with the right grammar might be one of the concerns the students faced. For this to be improved, the use of strategies might be helpful. One of the most widely implemented strategies in teaching and learning nowadays is by integrating technology.
The world today drowns us in an ocean of technological tools and gadgets. In education, without exception, technology already became a part of teaching tools as well as a support for learning. Looking closely in language learning, implementing technological tools and apps might be a good approach to scaffold learning. In this respect, in particular in grammar learning, educators can integrate the use of technology to assist students and to polish their understanding on grammatical concept. One of the technologies that can be used is Padlet, an online virtual website application where anyone can work on an idea or do activities together anytime anywhere.

Literature Review:-Web 2.0 Technologies in Education :-
For a vast development of technologies introduced in education claiming their effectiveness for learning, a number of studies have been done to see whether the integration of these tools could promote active learning for students and a support for teaching (Bower, 2015, Yunus, Kiing&Salehi, 2013. This is particularly looking at the booming of Web 2.0 applications such as Blendspace, Slideshare, Padlet, Voki and Storybird. Web 2.0 technologies offer a platform to establish a learning network, collaborate and share information to engage students with their learning  (2011) investigated the effect of integrating Web 2.0 technology in language learning. The findings revealed a significant improvement in students" performance particularly in writing.This paper will focus on one of Web 2.0 tools -Padlet.

Padlet:A Virtual Wall:-
Padletfeatures an "online wall"web-based where ideas are collating via virtual post from the users (Shield, 2014). This tool offers enormous benefits to its users without the need to have an account. Users can create unlimited walls, invite others to collaborate on their walls, customize and set privacy on their Padletsmerely by using a free account (Fiester& Green, 2016;Miller, 2016). Users can also add links, images, text, documents and video files in their wall and move them round freely like sticky notes on the wall. Sign in up for an account will be beneficial for teachers as their can manage their classroom interaction and performance. An email will be sent to notify the teacher each time a student responded to the teacher"s wall (Wood, 2016).
In classroom setting, Padlet works well with activities such as brainstorming, discussion and project work (Stannard, 2015). Students can learn through Padletanytime anywhere with any internet-enable devices such as smartphone, tablet, and computer with internet connection. There is no software needed to be downloaded to use Padlet. Students can then share their works on Facebook, Google+, e-mail or even embedded the URL into their blog (Wood, 2016). Previous studies on Padlet mostly covered the usefulness of Padlet to support collaborative activities (Dembo& Bellow, 2013; Fuchs, 2014; Ellis, 2015).However, there isvery little research that has been done on the effectiveness of Padlet in enhancing students" language performance in classroom. Therefore, the present study was designed and conducted for this sole purpose.
This study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of using Padlet for grammar learning in English language classroom. In order to achieve the purpose of this study, the following research questions were addressed: a) Does using Padlet is effective for enhancing students" performance in language learning? b) What is the students" perception and attitudetowards using Padlet in classroom?

Methodology:-Study Design:-
This study was a pre/post-test experimental design. The respondents were introduced to the use of Padlet during their grammar lesson and were given few tasks on Subject-Verb Agreement (SVA). Pre-and post-tests were given to the students to evaluate their current understanding of the SVA concept as well as their performance before and after using Padlet. The students were also asked to complete a questionnaire survey at the end of the post-test.

Participants:-
The participants of this study were 30 first-year undergraduate students at UniversitiSains Islam Malaysia (USIM). They came from diverse majors including Islamic Finance, Islamic Study, and Business. They were currently enrolled in an English coursesas part of the university requirement courses. The course was designed to prepare the students before they sit for Malaysian University English Test (MUET). The class met once a week and took two hours for each session. All the participants are native speakers of Bahasa Melayu and learning English as their second language. As far as their English proficiency was concerned, they have a relatively wide range of proficiency level from low to high. Most of them were at low intermediate level of English proficiency and their use of English was mainly limited to the classroom context. All the participants owned a smartphone and have active connectivity with the internet.
Instruments:-One of the instruments used in this study was Pre/Post-Test. The test was adapted from OWL English website using the link http://OWL/SubjectVerbAgreement/. The pre-test was given to the participants as a means to diagnose their current understanding of one part of English grammar -Subject Verb Agreement (SVA). After few weeks of learning SVA using Padlet, the participants were then asked to redo the test again. This time, post-test questions were given to the participants. The items were the same one with pre-test but have been purposely rearranged from the original number of arrangement in order to see their performance.
Another instrument used in this study was questionnaire survey. The questionnaire items were adapted from Izyani& Mohamed Amin Embi"s (2016) study to identify students" views and attitude on using Padlet in language learning.

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The questionnaire items were provided with four-point Likert scale. The participants were required to respond on each item based on the given rating scale: Strongly Agree (4), Agree (3), Disagree (2), and Strongly Disagree (1). The rating scale was presented in even number considering the issues of the existence of middle category (i.e. "Neither Agree Nor Disagree", "Indifferent" or "Neutral") that will prevent the participants for making the real choice (Dörnyei, 2003). The participants will be given further explanation if they did not understand any item of the survey. The reliability of was calculated using Cronbach Alpha which was 0.97 representing good internal consistency.
For the instructional material, the researcher used the usual syllabus planned by the course lecturer. However, instead of using slides and whiteboard, the lesson usedPadlet as the means of teaching and learning. The students were just started their learning in Grammar component after completing their speaking component in their previous class. Following their syllabus, Subject-Verb Agreement (SVA) was their first topic for the grammar component.

Data Analysis and Procedures:-
Before they started their lesson on SVA, the participants were given a pre-test as a diagnostic tool to see their understanding of this grammar aspect. Following the pre-test, the participants were taught about SVA using Padlet. The learning took 5 weeks and all the lessons and activities were all delivered via Padlet. At the end of the lessons, they were asked to sit for the post-test to assess their performance. A questionnaire survey was also distributed right after the post-test. All the data collected were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive methods using frequency, percentages, means, and standard deviation were used for analyzing the pre-and posttests. A bar graph was presented to illustrate the score performance. Statistical method using t-test analysis of variance was also been used in order to answer the research questions.

Results:-
Thepurpose of this study is to investigate the effect of using Padletinlearning English grammar for ESL students in Malaysia.

The effectiveness of using Padlet to enhance students learning:-
The data was computed and the pre/post-test scores were compared in terms of frequency, percentages, mean and standard deviation. Table 1  This means scores indicated a significant improvement in students" score after integrating Padlet in their grammar learning. This analysis can be supported by the percentages of differences in score performance as indicated in Figure 1 below: 786 Figure 1: Pre/Post Test Score"s Performance Based on the result, out of 30, 18 students scored higher marks in their post-test compared to their pre-test. This number makesabout 60% percentages of students who performed better after incorporating Padlet in their grammar learning. On the other hand, 30% obtained lower marks for the post-test and 10% showed no changes in their scores performance. With the percentages of performance, there is a significant improvement depicted to show the effectiveness of using Padlet in enhancing students" performance in learning grammar.
To support the above descriptive analysis, paired t-test was conducted to find out any statistically significant differences in this study and the result is as shown in Table 3  The t-test results indicates a significant difference between the mean scores before and after using Padlet in grammar learning (t=-2.735, p>0.011).Overall, the differences in scores indicate that the use of Padlet is effective enough in improving students"performance in grammar learning.This finding is parallel with other previous studies which showed the effective usage of Padlet in learning (Dembo& Bellow, 2013; Fuchs, 2014; Ellis, 2015).

Students' perception and attitude towards using Padlet in classroom:-
The questionnaire items have been analyzed and the data was calculated in percentages. The result can be referred in Table 3  7.9% 81.6% 10.5% 0.0% Table 3:-Students" perception and attitude towards using Padlet in classroom.
The findings in Table 4 indicated that majority of participants favored incorporating Padlet in learning grammar. Most of the items received a higher weightage in "Agree" column whereas there is no vote in the "Strongly Disagree" column. Looking closely in terms of attitude and perception on using Padlet in grammar learning, Table 4 showed that in general, more than 50% of participants have positive attitudes towards Padlet. 97.3% agreed that learning language via Padlet is a good idea. 79% agreed that Padlet is convenient for their academic engagement purposes and 84.3% found that Padlet is useful for their language learning, Even though they favor the use of Padlet, 52.6% disagree that their interaction in Padlet messaging was clear. This can be explained as it was the first time for majority of them to use Padlet. Thus, even though they like it, it still taking time for them to get to know the tool and communicating using it for learning grammar. In terms of their performance, 60.6% agreed that their performance in language learning was improved by the used of Padlet while 84.3% agreed that the interaction via Padlet helped themto become active in language activity. Overall, most participants regarded Padlet as an effective means for learning language and 89.5% participants will use Padlet in their language learning in the future.

Discussion and Conclusion:-
From the analyses of pre/post-test and questionnaire results, it can be concluded that there is a significant improvement in students" performance when integrating Padlet in their grammar learning. Also, the participants favored the use of Padlet and found it useful for their language learning.Some students found that it is their interaction in Padlet messaging was unclear due to the fact that it was their first time learning via Padlet. This should be an aspect to be considered by researcher. Issues in digital competency and technical aspect of the tool can disrupt learning process since students need to explore how to use this tool and may take some time to familiarize it before using it for their learning (Redecker, Ala-Mutka, Bacigalupo, Ferrari &Punie, 2009). Overall, Padlet provides a platform for students to actively participate in their learning. Students" engagement in learning established through collaboration and sharing ideas usingPadlet. This will help students to be aware of their own learning and thus improve their performance in learning language. The findings of the present and the previous studies support the effectiveness of Padlet in learning. Therefore, Padlet is as one of the Web 2.0 technologiesthat should be promoted and utilized as a means to support students" language learning. For future suggestion, further studies can be done onPadlet to other parts of English grammar such as tenses and nouns or to a larger extent of other language skills such as speaking and writing.