“Pair taping: Increasing motivation and achievement with a fluency practice”

I found this research article by Schnieder (2001) very informative and eye-opening. There are times that we are tempted to throw some of the old technologies away just because they have been around for a long but not because they are less useful. The findings of Schneider's resent research shows how an "old" technology like taping can still be a very effective tool for teaching and learning.

Schnieder conducted a classroom research and investigated how to increase the motivation and achievement of EFL learners through the use of Pair taping. He explains Pair taping as “a fluency practice in which learners record themselves speaking freely in pairs.” Participants in the study were 50 second-year Japanese university students. The study was based on the expectancy-value model of motivational achievement which holds that the extent of future expectancy to succeed depends on what individuals attribute their past successes or failures to, whether to a stable factor such as ability, or to less stable ones like effort, luck, or task difficulty. This theory was complemented by the intrinsic/extrinsic motivation models

A preliminary study of pair taping was conducted with second-year Japanese college learners in their eighth or more year of studying English; this was followed by the main study. Quantitative measures were used to collect and analyze data and a factor analysis was performed on the data gathered through questionnaire with Microsoft SPSS-X 9.0,

The results showed that more than those who remained in class (28), learners who chose pair taping (73) reported increases in ease of speaking English, self-confidence about speaking English, motivation for improving their spoken English, relaxation in speaking English, enjoyment of speaking English, and improvement in speaking English. Factor analysis results mirrored those with the expectancy-value theory of motivated achievement, suggesting that learner improvement was related to their increased confidence and their increased motivation to improve to their increased enjoyment of speaking English.

The implication drawn from the results underlines the importance of pair taping in teaching and learning language. It was noted that if teachers use pair taping they will help students to increase their enjoyment of speaking English as well as the motivation to continue studying speaking English

For me this is a useful reminder to access technology not according to time but its effectiveness


Schneider, P. H (2001). “Pair taping: Increasing motivation and achievement with a fluency practice”. TESL-EJ. Vol. 5. No. 2. Sept.