Educational Applications: Their Impact to the English Language Learners

Due to the declining English skills of students and even professionals in the Philippines, this study evaluated some language applications in tablet PCs using standardized rubric for educational applications and its impact to English language learners (ELL). A descriptive-survey design was employed using purposive sampling. Ten student respondents enrolled in the second semester of SY 2012–2013, who were regular users of tablet PCs, participated in the study. Two instruments were used: (1) a standardized rubric-based evaluation form for assessing the top five educational apps across seven criteria (relevance, customization, accuracy, thinking skills, usability, engagement, and sharing) and (2) a researcher-made questionnaire to gather student perceptions on the impact of these apps to their language learning. Data were analyzed using frequency counts, rankings, weighted means, and standard deviations. The standardized educational application rubric originally created by Harry Walker was used by three English teacher-evaluators to determine if each application meets the criteria needed. Both the evaluation and the gathered data were computed using the weighted mean. Results indicated that the most frequently used application was the search engine, followed by word games, reference tools, quizzes, and eBooks. Among these, all except the quiz apps received “Excellent” ratings across most criteria. The highest-rated categories included usability (M=3.87), relevance (M=3.80), and accuracy (M=3.60). The impact of app usage on English language learning yielded a mean score of 4.27 (SD=0.30), indicating a very high perceived impact. However, the overall rating for all the criteria was “Excellent”. It was concluded that the computer applications are suitable and recommendable for English Language teaching supported by the result of the applications’ impact to the learning of the selected respondents. Thus, the use of these applications greatly aided the users in their language learning.