Digital Pedagogy Tools for Classroom-Based Documentation in Multisensory English Language Learning

Digital technologies are becoming more integrated into the English Language Teaching (ELT) classrooms, but their daily application is still not well represented in empirical studies. This paper will discuss the integration of modest, teacher-mediated digital pedagogy tools into a multisensory ELT curriculum to facilitate the systematic recording of early language learning behaviors. The descriptive design was carried out in a classroom setting in two naturally occurring classrooms with 93 Grade-1 learners. The baseline and post-observation of learner behaviors in the areas of listening, speaking, reading, and writing were recorded in the structured observational rubrics. Digital devices such as audio that is recorded by teachers, projected visual scaffolding, and digitally mediated shared reading displays were integrated into regular teaching to make instructional input more stable and provide a consistent set of conditions of observation. The exploration of measures of central tendency, variability, and distributions of language scores was conducted using descriptive statistics. The results indicated that there were substantial differences between classrooms at the baseline and minimal variations within groups as time passed. Distributions of scores exhibited a tendency towards the rubric's upper end, indicating possible ceiling effects and a potential lack of sensitivity of the measurement approach to short-term changes. These results indicate that teacher-mediated technologies may help the consistency and traceability of classroom-based observations by reducing variance in classroom and observation contexts. The findings point to the need to match the scale of development with measurement sensitivity for more meaningful research in early ELT and the need for more sophisticated observational approaches.