Innovation in Language Learning

The prevalence of the search engine technology influences education shift to personal digital learning allowing learners who are digital natives to access unlimited knowledge beyond the regular classes. Self-directed learning with appropriate search engine technology support can nurture the digital native learners with academic achievement and learner autonomy. This qualitative study investigated the effects of the search engine technology on the students’ retention, self-esteem and the way the students gather their task requirements for their task assignments via task-based learning. Forty undergraduate students at a university in Thailand participated in the study in an ESP course in English for Airline Business. Data were obtained through students’ task performances, retention test, and interviews. The findings illustrate that Google with YouTube and Google Web Search promotes the students’ language noticing and use together with related content and knowledge. Also, the results of the study reveal that the students gained more self-esteem and confidence to use the language. Findings also show that the students’ retention was quite high (85%) after three months. However, the findings reveal some setbacks facing the students of insufficient ICT infrastructure and computing facilities

Keywords: search engine technology, English language, self-esteem, retention, task-based learning