The impact of integrating ICT in language teaching to enhance students' English-speaking proficiency in Rwanda polytechnic: a case study of IPRC Kitabi

Abstract

Technology has been advocated as a means of assisting students in honing their language abilities, including speaking abilities. The most effective resources for training speaking skills are thought to include the Internet, podcasts, video conferencing, videos, and speech recognition software. The current study aimed at exploring the impact of instructional technology on the improvement of speaking skills for first-year students (A.Y. 2020–2021) in all departments at Integrated Polytechnic Regional College Kitabi. The study relied on both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Purposive and census method were used to select a sample of 132 (128 students and 4 lecturers) respondents. Data were collected using questionnaires and interviews and analyzed using SPSS. Generally, the study showed that both students and lecturers have positive attitudes toward using ICT as a learning or teaching instrument to develop their English language speaking abilities. The relevant audiovisual materials were found to be beneficial in improving students’ speaking proficiency. It also indicated that both students and lecturers benefited from using instructional technologies towards the improvement of their speaking proficiency (e.g., enabling them to practice speaking anytime, talking to other people more freely, encouraging and motivating them to speak up, imitating the sounds and rhythms of the target language without the assistance of explicit instruction, and paying more attention). However, the study identified some challenges that hamper the efficient use of these technological tools. It revealed that certain students confront a number of obstacles including but not limited to not having personal technological gadgets to utilize wherever and whenever they wish, and lack of enough ICT facilities at the college. Therefore, this study postulates that English language lecturers should effectively use ICT as a teaching tool to develop their English language speaking abilities. On the other extreme, students are encouraged to own their personal ICT facilities for efficient use of them to improve their English speaking proficiency. Besides, due to the lack of enough ICT facilities at the college, the college authorities should consider the importance of ICT as a teaching and learning tool and increase ICT infrastructure to serve the purpose