Selevičienė, Eglė

This study aims to evaluate the perceptions and acceptance of artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT for completing writing assignments among ESL and ESP students at two universities in Lithuania and Ukraine. Technology acceptance is understood as users' willingness to employ certain information technologies for tasks they were designed to support. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), developed by Davis in 1986 and validated by Davis, Bagozzi and Warshaw in 1989, is one of the most frequently used frameworks for understanding how individuals get to accept new technologies. For decades, it has been employed to assess ESL and ESP students’ acceptance of all kinds of technologies used to train different language skills. However, there is insufficient empirical evidence regarding how they accept AI tools, such as ChatGPT. This study tries to address the existing research gap. It employs a quantitative method and a questionnaire based on the TAM to assess various factors influencing acceptance of ChatGPT as a writing assistance tool among ESL and ESP learners within a non-mandatory use context. The outcomes are expected to contribute to the understanding of adopting artificial intelligence tools in educational settings and provide insights for integrating them into ESL and ESP curricula effectively.

This book explores the transformative power of Web-based learning technologies in higher education with a focus on English for Specific Purposes (ESP). It delves into the evolutionary journey of ESP alongside with the development of World Wide Web and its technologies. It traces the development of learning theories and presents the latest typologies of Web-based learning technologies. The overviews of research published from 2013 to 2021, including the COVID-19 period, uncover the evolving landscape and potential of Web-based technologies in ESP studies in higher education. Presenting results from quasi-experimental research conducted in two higher education institutions in Lithuania, the book highlights the effectiveness of the Web-based learning technology CmapTools in enhancing ESP students’ learning achievements, particularly in ESP vocabulary acquisition. Useful and relevant for ESP researchers and practitioners seeking research evidence-based strategies, it narrows a wide gap in the literature, providing practical recommendations for both novice and experienced university teachers.

This study is a descriptive literature review which consolidates findings on the effective use of Web-based concept and mind mapping tools in the realm of teaching and learning ESP at the higher education level. It encompasses related empirical research, published in international scholarly journals and conference proceedings within the period spanning from 2019 to 2024, considering the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mind mapping is a teaching and learning technique which helps to visualize interrelated ideas that branch out from a central concept. With education becoming increasingly technologically focused, educators and learners rely more often on the affordances of Web-based mind maps. This review of research aims at presenting the current landscape of using Web-based mind mapping technologies and techniques for teaching and learning ESL and ESP in higher education and provides useful insights for both practitioners and researchers within the field.

IHMC CmapTools freeware environment is the result of research conducted by American scientists A. Cañas and J. Novak, empowering users to represent their knowledge using concept maps, to share them with peers and to publish them. The strategy of using concepts mapping in education is usually based on Ausubel, Novak, and Hanessian’s assimilation theory of learning. Within this theoretical framework the learner shifts away from learning in a rote fashion and moves to learning in a more meaningful way. Rather than memorizing information, the learner searches out the relationships among concepts and organizes a structure to the new knowledge that is unique to him or her. Research to date supports the efficacy of CmapTools for concept mapping in different areas of education, including teaching and learning English as a second language for specific purposes. This article reports on the results of a quasi-experimental research aimed at determining the effectiveness of CmapTools on ESP students’ achievements in terms of specialized vocabulary acquisition.

During recent decades, the use of Web 2.0 technologies has grown in a number of countries at all levels of education. Research in the area has reported that these technologies enhance educators’ ability to address different student audiences and allow them to pattern their teaching styles to many different needs and skill levels in diverse teaching and learning environments, including traditional classrooms, online learning and blended learning environments. It has been also established that the success of the use of Web 2.0 technologies in education is predetermined by a number of factors, including educators and learners’ age, attitudes towards technologies, educators and learners’ acceptance of these technologies, as well as availability of technology and institutional support for teachers. The use of Web 2.0 technologies for teaching and learning English (including English for Specific Purposes, ESP) in tertiary education has been researched from different perspectives. However, it should be noted that the earliest studies (those published within the period 2004–2006) did not investigate English teachers’ attitudes towards these technologies, being mostly focused on the effect that they had on foreign language students’ attainment. Therefore, the contextual and psychological factors involved in the process have not been investigated. Even though the use of Web 2.0 technologies for teaching and learning English (including ESP) in tertiary education has been studied by a number of researchers in different countries, in Lithuania it has not been investigated much as yet. The present small-scale study aims to analyse Lithuanian tertiary teachers’ (which includes university and college teachers) attitudes towards Web 2.0 technologies and their use in the process of teaching English (including ESP), to investigate tertiary teachers’ views of their own ability to use these technologies as well as to establish which of these technologies are used in their English teaching courses (including ESP courses). The data for the present study were collected from the responses of 39 teachers of English (including ESP) in five higher education institutions in Lithuania. The investigation begins with an overview of the literature which reports on the results of previous research, followed by an analysis of the major taxonomies of Web 2.0 technologies. The research methodology as well as research limitations are then discussed. Finally, the results of this small-scale study are reported. To carry out the research, a quantitative methodology was used.

The present small-scale study investigated Lithuanian university and college teachers’ attitudes towards Web 2.0 technologies and their use in the process of teaching English for general and specific purposes (ESP). It also analysed the teachers’ ability to use these technologies as perceived by the teachers themselves and aimed to establish which technologies they use in the process of teaching English, including ESP. A sample of 39 university and college teachers of English from five higher education institutions in Lithuania participated in the present study. The data were collected from their responses to the questionnaire and analysed using descriptive and correlational statistics. The results revealed that most teachers have a positive attitude towards Web 2.0 technologies in general as well as towards their use for teaching English for general and specific purposes. The findings also showed that the majority of the study participants view themselves as proficient or moderate users of digital environments available at their institutions, however, their ability to use educational technologies, such as RSS, the software of social bookmarking and image sharing, as well as blogs and vlogs, for teaching English is limited.