Title :
Animated pedagogical agents to teach kindergarteners selected English vocabulary
Author :
Omar, Murad ; Rias, Riaza Mohd
Author_Institution :
Acad. of Language Studies, Univ. Technol. MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia
Abstract :
Animated pedagogical agent (APA) is a vital instructional tool in kindergartens. However, most kindergarteners are still conventionally taught basic second language words by flashcards especially by those in rural areas. Hence, this research explored the use of APA on teaching rural kindergarteners second language basic words. The software was built and tested on 40 kindergarteners of a kindergarten in a rural area of Malaysia. The items tested were English words and sentences. Pre-test and post-test were conducted on these kindergarteners using five topics of words and sentences. The results showed a significant gain from the pre-test and the posttest. These findings supported other data that APA, a multimedia instructional environment, offers great potential for assisting beginner learners of a second language.
Keywords :
computer aided instruction; computer animation; linguistics; multimedia computing; natural languages; teaching; APA; English sentences; Malaysia; animated pedagogical agents; instructional tool; kindergartener English vocabulary teaching; multimedia instructional environment; posttest; pretest; rural kindergartener second-language word teaching; Computers; Courseware; Educational institutions; Multimedia communication; Software; Vocabulary; Animated pedagogical agent; kindergarteners; second language vocabulary;
Conference_Titel :
Business Engineering and Industrial Applications Colloquium (BEIAC), 2013 IEEE
Conference_Location :
Langkawi
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4673-5967-2
DOI :
10.1109/BEIAC.2013.6560156