A study of the effectiveness of interactive multimedia in adult ESL education

In recent years, Interactive Multimedia has emerged as an important learning tool that can be used for many second language students who have struggled for various reasons to acquire communicative competencies. However, its potentials and applications to the field of second language pedagogy are only beginning to be fully investigated.; Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess effectiveness of Interactive Multimedia in developing communicative competence of adult ESL learners. To achieve the purpose, the researcher examined strategies for communicative activities using audio-visual resources; developed an educational package for a simulated interactive multimedia environment with an emphasis on communicative skills needed in job-related situations; field-tested it for the targeted population; conducted a quantitative study, as well as making qualitative observations, to evaluate its effectiveness. A pilot study was also performed, prior to the actual research, to determine the feasibility of the exploratory process for the dissertation study.; In order to measure the effectiveness of the interactive multimedia design, two statistically comparable groups of English as a Second Language (ESL) students were setup at a county college. They received two contrasting sets of instruction: The control subjects did not receive any interactive multimedia instruction, while their experimental counterparts were engaged in interactive multimedia activities. Both groups were taught by the same research facilitator, an ESL professor of the college, who instructed the control group in the same way she practiced for her regular ESL classes.; A quantitative analysis of the results, obtained from the pilot as well as actual research, was performed to test the null hypothesis that there would be no difference in learning gains between the experimental and control groups, as revealed by their difference scores in the pre- and post-tests of oral proficiency. Accordingly, the group means of the gain scores were calculated to test the hypothesis at the 0.05 level of significance. The mean score of the experimental group, in each study, exceeded that of the control group and, consequently, the null hypothesis was rejected.; The study concluded that ESL instruction with the simulated interactive multimedia design was more effective than the one devoid of any interactive multimedia support.