Carol Anne Ochoa Alpala holds a B.Ed. in Modern Languages from Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia (UPTC) and an M.A. in Languages from UPTC. She also holds an M.A. in Education and new technologies from UDIMA. Currently, she is a PhD candidate in Research and Pedagogy at UNADE.

Adaptive Learning and Tech in EFL Contexts 

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This project was developed on a platform called Smartsparrow. It is a smart platform that organizes different learning paths and offers activities based on feedback. These activities depend on the ability of each student, so that students can take advantage of a personalized methodology with features such as learning styles, students’ interests and needs. The research involved 40 elementary and pre-intermediate level students from different semesters and faculties at a private Colombian University, focusing on English as a foreign language (EFL) during tutoring spaces. This research project arose from the necessity to take advantage of tutorial spaces that are provided in order to reinforce the topics studied in English classes. Due to large groups or lack of time during classes, it is not possible to provide personalized teaching during class-time and as such, tutorial spaces provide the ability to solve students’ doubts in a personalized way.

Adapting courses, organized on platforms that allow the adaptation of content, activities, feedback and evaluation, was one of the key concepts in carrying out this research.

In order to make tutorial spaces useful, strategies and resources were created. These spaces were used, not only to guide the students’ learning process, but also to develop awareness of autonomous learning, regulation and recognition of their learning styles and allow them to be active participants in EFL classrooms.

. Undergraduate students claimed that they had a virtual space which met most of their needs as well as a connection with their face to face classes. Additionally; mistake correction was effective since the students improved the use of the English language.