A Survey Of Network-Based Language Learning

The advent of the Age of Information brings about bright prospects to traditional English teaching and learning. Since the computers and networks were widely applied :o language learning activities, they have demonstrated their great advantages. More ind more attention has been paid to Network-based language learning (NBLL) by worldwide experts and NBLL has become an overwhelming trend.The present survey explored the real conditions of NBLL in Shandong Institute of Business and Technology (SDIBT) through a questionnaire, supplemented with an interview. The real conditions of NBLL in SDIBT in the paper mainly refers to the exploration to find out whether the college has had a perfect environment for students'English language activities based on the campus network. Based on the real data, the author investigated the situation of its four elements to explore:whether the atmosphere of NBLL in SDIBT was favorable; whether teachers have prepared themselves well both in concepts and in skills; whether students knew well about NBLL and had proper learning strategies; and whether the conditions of the network resources were good enough to satisfy the needs.According to the survey, although 93% of the SDIBT students claimed to have got access to NBLL,71.2% of them did not absorb it into their daily learning activities. Such learning mode was just conducted occasionally and the average time they spent was only 1.51 hours per week. In addition, teachers gave little instruction and guidance to their students in the field of NBLL and only 32.2% of them knew it from their teachers. Moreover, merely 29.9% of the students expressed their satisfaction of the learning resources in the campus network. Therefore, neither teachers nor students make full use of rich resources on the Internet. The advantages of NBLL are not exploited to the maximum and the situation of network facilities and information resources is not satisfactory. A favorable NBLL atmosphere has not been formed yet and NBLL environment is not perfect enough in SDIBT.Chapter one briefly states the background and purpose of the study, introduces innovations and puts forward the research questions. Chapter two is the review of literature. The author emphasized the development of NBLL as well as related researches worldwide, and stated the importance and the feasibility of this survey. Chapter three deals with the research design, with an emphasis on classification of the six parts of the questionnaire and the procedure of questionnaire distribution and collection. Chapter four, the main body of this survey, contains the findings and discussion. Based on realistic problems and related learning theories, the author explored how to perfect NBLL environment in SDIBT, put forward several suggestions accordingly, hoping to be helpful for the improvement of NBLL. Chapter five concludes this study, and at the same time, states the limitations of this study, and calls for further studies.