Overcoming the Affective Filter in Computer-Assisted Language Learning: Using Padlet and Virtual Walls in EFL Teaching

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, language education has undergone dramatic changes, leaving EFL tutors with no alternative other than to go online, which put to the test that group of individuals defined by literature as digital immigrants (Dudney, Hockly 2007). Furthermore, a cause of concern about Technology Enhanced Language Learning (TELL) voiced by most language instructors is the risk of students becoming increasingly alienated from a real-life learning environment and consequently losing touch with reality (Frolova et al. 2021). While on the surface this may seem a valid objection to Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), on closer inspection such assertions might prove untenable under certain circumstances; more specifically, in the post-pandemic scenario, which has witnessed education going through irreversible and radical transformations. In light of this, the main aim of this study is to demonstrate how helpful the integration of technology into regular feedback and writing practice sessions could be in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and how beneficial its effects may prove in the long run. This empirical analysis sets out to gainsay the former proposition, going as far as to argue that open online resources such as Padlet can significantly contribute to the establishment of genuine rapport between learners and educators, and to the removal of the affective filter (Krashen 1985). This phenomenon defines the emotional barrier that often comes between the student and the teacher, thus causing learners to experience impeding tension and nervousness. Indeed, research shows that the affective filter acts as a ‘sieve’ determining the amount of input learners take in and filter out: the higher the barrier, the less information students will absorb (Du 2009). To counter the detrimental effects thereof, which can profoundly affect students’ learning curve in the long term, this study suggests that technology could serve language tutors in good stead. In this regard, the chief purpose of this research is to assess Padlet as a learning tool, an online platform developed to foster collaboration among users on colourful and tailor-made virtual walls adoptable as a form of Learning Management System (LMS) and exploitable for a variety of purposes, not least the elicitation of authentic and anonymous feedback and opportunities to practise writing with more complex structures (i.e., inversion, conditionals, cleft sentences among others). Withal, this paper will prove that, in the wake of unforeseen events, like the COVID-19 pandemic, which threatened the regular delivery of language education, EFL tutors fully unlocked the educational potential of online resources theretofore unexplored. Among such innovative digital tools, which enabled EFL tutors to grapple with this unprecedented disruption to language education, Padlet stands out for the provision of virtual interactive spaces for writing practice. Evidence of educational support offered by Padlet and explored in this study derives from (1) the chance to collect real samples of students’ frequent mistakes in writing and compare them against the Open Cambridge Learner Corpus by using the corpus software Sketch Engine; (2) the guarantee of reliability in students’ feedback thanks to anonymity; and, more importantly, (3) the alleviation of learners’ anxiety in the classroom, as data reported in this research will prove. Based on experience with Beginners (number of students: 20, Upper Intermediate (number of students: 30) and Advanced (number of students: 18) learners having attended English courses at the Language Centre of the University of Naples Federico II (CLA) and reading Modern Languages, this ongoing project points to the further conclusion that one of the main advantages of using Padlet in language classes is the provision of further spaces devoted to writing, which is said to be the least practised of the four skills in Communicative Language Learning Methodology (CLLM) (Scrivener 2011). More specifically, if a comparison is to be drawn between traditional writing sessions and Padlet-assisted writing practice, it could be argued that the former, classifiable as genre-based forces learners to produce language within specific constraints derived from the genre in question; whereas, the latter leaves more room for creativity and authenticity, thereby enabling students to develop language in a real-life context disengaged from the stringent norms or standards of conventional genres. In addition, digitally-aided writing on Padlet invariably occurs in an environment interactive by nature in that all students’ language flows on a virtual wall collecting all learners’ contributions as they are submitted. In so doing, by reading each other’s posts, students gradually become part of an unbroken interactive writing environment rich with stimuli that would be hard, if not impossible, to recreate with traditional methods. Examples provided in this paper will show how Padlet contributed to fostering interaction in writing, allowing students to open up and put their thoughts into words however fearful they were at first, and gradually disentangling them from the inhibiting mesh of the aforementioned affective filter.