A Study On The Factors Affecting College English Teachers To Adopt Technologies

As the adoption and diffusion of technologies becomes widespread in higher education, college English teachers will be asked to adopt Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL). Since the role of college English teacher is crucial in the development and use of CALL, the focus is on adoption and diffusion of technologies related to teacher's professional development that may help them effectively integrate technologies in their teaching. However, with technology seemingly available everywhere and embedded firmly in the university's environment, teachers varied their willingness to adopt technologies.The study aims to explore what factors affect college English teachers'attitudes and decisions to adopt technologies in language teaching, and the influence of social, organizational, and personal motivational factor variables on college English teachers'adoptions of technologies. It also analyzes how these factors relate to adopter categories and frequency of technology used by teachers. A survey questionnaire has been disseminated by mails to 50 teachers teaching college English under CALL environment in Chongqing. The results of the study support previous researches that a variety of factors affect teachers'decisions to adopt technologies in language teaching, furthermore, teachers'intrinsic factors (attitudes and motivations) are found more significant in decision-making than other extrinsic factors (social factor, organizational factor, technology literacy and environment). Of the five self-identified categories, teachers identified as innovators had the greatest average technology usage in the four technologies used.The findings recommend that administrators, organizations and teachers should all be aware of these factors that affect teachers'decisions, and school administrators should work closely with college English teachers to address their beliefs and concerns about technology adoption and provide an influential level of individual supports and resources. With the joint efforts of administrators, institutions and teachers, CALL environment can be developed to assist college English teachers in incorporating technologies appropriately to promote language teaching in the classroom.