O n f e r e n c e

Hiroyuki Obari 
Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan 
[e-mail]
A Study on English Education Integrating Emerging Technologies 
in Cloud Computing Environments 
Bio data 
Dr.
Hiroyuki Obari
is a Professor in the College of Economics at Aoyama Gakuin 
University and teaches part-time in the Graduate School at the Tokyo Institute of 
Technology. He obtained his M.A. in TESOL from Columbia University and Ph.D. in 
Computer Science from the University of Tsukuba. He has presented at major 
international conferences including EuroCALL, GLoCALL, e-Learn, EdMedia, AILA, 
EduLearn, World CALL, ASIA CALL, and ASIA TEFL. He was a visiting research fellow at 
the University of Oxford (1998-1999, 2007-2008).
Abstract 
Mobile (M)-learning is motivating to learners to improve foreign language skills, as it 
offers them a rich, informal, contextual, and ubiquitous learning environment. This study 
focused on examining the use of a variety of emerging technologies, from speech 
recognition to web-based learning, to help determine the effectiveness of the blended 
learning activities. Various emerging technologies (Globalvoice CALL, ATR CALL Brix, 
Mobile Learning oriented TOEIC Practice program, Course Power) and online TED Talks 
learning materials will be presented, including an empirical study that indicates their 
effect on improving students’ TOEIC scores. The study
, begun in April 2013 and ended in 
December 2013, targeted roughly 90 Japanese undergraduates who were required to 
spend approximately 50 total hours to complete the online TOEIC course and flipped 
classroom learning materials using a PC and mobile technologies for the purpose of 
improving their English proficiency.
By the end of the second semester in December 2013, the students had completed 
nearly 100% of the online course contents and written about 20 TED Talk summaries. 
The students were administered the TOEIC test as a pretest in April 2013 and as a 
posttest in December 2013. A questionnaire was also administered to the students after 
their exposure to the above activities. The results indicated their mean score of TOEIC 
improved from 570 (SD 102) to 687 (SD 108) for the 3rd year students during the nine-
month period while exposed to the blended-learning environments. After the students 
were engaged in the flipped classroom lessons with online materials, and had delivered 
their English presentations while making DS (digital storytelling) and blogs, they 
exhibited a high level of performance, particularly during the second semester, in terms 
of essay writing about the TED Talks. Globalvoice CALL software was also utilized for 
practicing English pronunciation in terms of words and prosody before the students 
delivered their presentations. 
 

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-273- 
2014 CALL Conference 
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