How to use new technology in teaching language

How to use new technology in teaching language

TECHNOLOGY IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

Technology is becoming increasingly important in both our personal and professional lives, and our learners are using technology more and more. Let us try to bridge that gap by providing clear, nontechnical descriptions of new technology tools, and by showing how teachers can use these new tools in the classroom. As such, it is about the practical application of technology to teaching language.

Key words: Computer-based materials, Computer Assisted Language Learning, Information and Communications Technology, monolingual dictionaries, hand-held electronic dictionaries, thesauruses, concordances and corpuses.

Technology in language teaching is not new. Indeed, technology has been around in Language teaching for decades- one might argue for centuries, if we classify the blackboard as a form of technology. Tape recorders, language laboratories and video have been in use since the 1960s and 1970s, and are still used in classrooms around the world. Computer-based materials for language teaching, often referred to as CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning), appeared in the early 1980s. Early CALL programs typically required learners to respond to stimuli on the computer screen and to carry out tasks such as filling in gapped texts, matching sentence halves and doing multiple-choice activities.  Probably one of the best-known early CALL activities is that of text reconstruction, where an entire text is blanked out and the learner recreates it by typing in words. For all of these activities the computer then offers the learner feedback, ranging from simply pointing out whether the answer is correct or incorrect to providing more sophisticated feedback, such as showing why the learner is mistaken and offering remedial activities. The CALL approach is one that is still found on many published CD-ROMs for language teaching. As access to Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has become more widespread, so CALL has moved beyond the use of computer programs to embrace the use of the Internet and web-based tools. The term TELL (Technology Enhanced Language Learning) appeared in the 1990s, in response to the growing possibilities offered by the Internet and communications technology. Although the use of ICT by language teachers is still not widespread, the use of technology in the classroom is becoming increasingly important, and it will become a normal part of ELT practice in the coming years. There are many reasons for this:

Internet access-either in private homes or at Internet cafes- is becoming increasingly available to learners.

Younger learners are growing up with technology, and it is a natural and integrated part of their lives. For these learners the use of technology is a way to bring the outside world into the classroom. And some of these younger learners will in turn become teachers themselves.

English, as an international language, is being used in technologically mediated contexts.

Technology, especially the Internet, presents us with new opportunities for authentic tasks and materials, as well as access to a wealth of ready-made ELI materials.

The Internet offers excellent opportunities for collaboration and communication between learners who are geographically dispersed.

Technology is offered with published materials such as course books and resource books for teachers.

Learners increasingly expect language schools to integrate technology into teaching.

Technology offers new ways for practicing language and assessing performance.

Technology is becoming increasingly mobile. It can be used not only in the classroom, lecture hall, computer room or self-access center, it can also be used at home, on the way to school and in Internet cafes.

Using a range of ICT tools can give learners exposure to and practice in all of the four main language skills - speaking, listening, writing and reading.

The contexts in which teachers are working with technology can vary widely and the access that teachers have to computers - the so-called digital divide - will affect what we can do with our classes in terms of implementing technology. A general lack of ICT training for teachers also means that we still have some way to go until the normalization of technology in language teaching, where the use of technology in teaching becomes as natural as the use of books or pens and paper. What does a teacher need to know to be able to use technology in the classroom? Well, you don't need to have any specialist technical knowledge or skills, much as you don't need to be a mechanic to know how to drive a car!  The basic skills you do need to have are how to use a simple word processing program (e.g. Microsoft Word), how to use email and how to access and use the Internet .Using the suggested process of study, and trying out the activities suggested with your learners ( with plenty of step-by-step help provided in the tutorials on the CDROM if you feel you need it), you should be able to greatly increase your ICT skills set, and to feel a lot more confident about using technology in the classroom.

 You will also need some essential equipment to start to implement technology with your learners:

at least one computer (preferably one per two students)

an Internet connection

a printer

an audio card in the computer, and a headset (audio and microphone) for every computer

basic software ( a word processing program, a web browser like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari or Mozilla, and an email program) [1].

As we saw above, teaching contexts and teachers' access to computers and technology can vary widely. There are plenty of activities which can be done if only one computer is available in class. However, access to a computer room to which you can take your class will provide more opportunities for implementing technology, for both you and your learners. It is worth bearing in mind that the layout of your computer room will directly affect the types of activities you are able to do with your learners, and how they interact with one another and with you. A layout which has computers at desks around the walls, facing the walls, with a large table in the center of the room, allows the teacher to walk around and easily see what the learners are working on and what they're looking at on the computer monitors (screens). The central area provides an easily accessible space where learners can go when they don't need the computers, and for when we might want to do more communicative group work. If the central space is reasonably large, more movement and activity is possible in the center of the room; this will offer up more opportunities for kinesthetic learners, and the chance to use games and physical activities with younger learners away from the computer monitors.  Of course, few of us are lucky enough to be able to choose how our computer facilities look, but it may be possible for you to makes some small changes in the work environment so that it's more comfortable to work in the room, and easier to teach in. It's well worth considering how your institution's computer room could be made more user-friendly for you and your classes. Now let us discuss how to use word processors for creative writing. Word processors lend themselves well to creative writing both in and outside the classroom. As we have seen, learners can work together with documents that can be exchanged easily between pairs or groups of learners, and between learners and teachers, encouraging both teacher corrections, and peer correction and revision. If your learners are engaged in any kind of creative writing, then spell-checkers would seem to be of help in the same way that we often encourage the use of dictionaries, and professional people and other writers will use these tools as a matter of course in their day-to-day work. In these circumstances it would seem rather pointless (not to mention frustrating) to deny our learners access to these tools. Using the spell-checker on a piece of written work can make a learner more aware of errors, and provide a chance for self-correction. When using a spell-checker, learners need to ensure that they have set the language properly for example to American or British English. If your learners are working with word processors to practice language and structures, the spell-checker might best be turned off at least for the first attempt at any exercise. Peer correction can be a more valuable tool in these types of activities.

Using word processors for language practice: word processors are not only capable of enhancing writing skills, but can also be excellent tools for introducing or practicing language. The ability to move words and chunks of text around the page easily can guide learners towards a deeper understanding of how the language works. The ability to undo and redo moves and edits means that experimentation is easier and less time-consuming. When used in conjunction with grammar exercises, word processors can activate 'noticing' skills, increasing awareness of languages structures and encouraging learners to play with the language. Many of the activities we do with pen and paper can work equally well on a word processor-filling in blanks, sentence reordering, adding titles to paragraphs, and soon. They also work well on another level, covering basic text manipulation skills. In this way, the use of word processors in our teaching not only serves as an aid to language practice or for the improvement of writing skills, but also teaches our learners valuable ICT skills which will carry through into other areas of their lives. Using websites is one of the easiest and least stressful ways of getting started with technology in the classroom. There is a large and constantly expanding collection of resources on the web, at a variety of levels and covering an amazing array of topics. You can choose from authentic (written for Internet surfers in general) sources or Ell-specific sites (made by, and for, teachers), monolingual or multilingual sites, sites with multimedia, or just simple text, for those on slower connections. The web is a source of content which can be used as a window on the wider world outside your class, and is - of course - a readily available collection of authentic material. As such, it is a much larger repository of content than would previously have been readily available to you and your students. The technology needed to use the Internet for teaching is relatively limited and the chances of something going wrong are greatly reduced over more complex technology approaches such as attempting to carry out live chat or video-conferencing sessions. Another advantage of this tool is that you don't necessarily have to rely on a constant Internet connection if you bear in mind that it is possible to save local copies of websites on your computer, or print out potentially useful pages for later use. It's important that both you and your learners see the use of the Internet as an intrinsic part of the learning process, rather than as an occasional activity which has nothing to do with their regular study programmer. It is recommended that, if you plan to use the Internet, you should talk to your learners and explore the reasons for using this resource with them. This can be done at lower levels in their own language or in English with higher-level classes. You will need to talk to your learners about why Internet content may be useful to them and discuss their attitudes to technology in general – when they use computers, and what for. Show them how the course book and other materials can be enhanced by extra material from the Internet, but above all, make it clear that this is not a toy, not something that you are just using to fill in the time. With some learners there may be some resistance to regular computer use in, the classroom. It has often been found, for example, that professional people view computers as work tools rather than as resources for learning. It is vital that they appreciate that this is a useful, as well as an entertaining, tool in the classroom and that it can contribute to their language development in a variety of ways, for example by giving them the opportunity to build vocabulary or improve their listening skills. Lower-level classes can be engaged with visual and multimedia materials, the use of songs and other video materials [2].

How to find useful websites? As already mentioned, the Internet is a vast repository of information and resources, and it is perhaps exactly this range that makes it seem, at first, daunting and unapproachable to most teachers. Now let us take a look at how to find and evaluate resources for use in class. The ability to search through Internet content, and quickly and efficiently find suitable resources is perhaps the most underrated, and yet most useful, skill that both teachers and learners can acquire. For teachers, having good search skills means finding useful resources quickly, speeding up lesson planning and facilitating web use in class. For learners, it means being able to quickly accomplish web-based tasks, thus ensuring that the technology enhances the learning experience rather than impeding it. It makes sense, then, both to acquire these skills, and to spend some time sharing them with your learners. The benefits of email: email is one of the most used and useful Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools around today. Most of us probably write emails in both our personal and professional lives, and the same thing is true for many of our learners. Email allows us to keep in touch with other teachers around the world via mailing lists and discussion groups, thus helping in our professional development. It also allows us to communicate with our learners outside the classroom, for example setting, receiving, marking and returning homework and other written assignments. Typically, email will be used outside class time. For example, learners will email work to their teacher or to other learners from their home or from an Internet cafe. However, in the case of key pal projects - email projects set up between learners in different classes or countries - and when learner access to computers outside the teaching institution is very limited, a school computer or computers may be used in class time very successfully. Reading and writing emails either in or outside class time gives a learner more exposure to the target language, and interaction is 'real' in the sense that learners are writing to real people- either the teacher or other learners- using a 'real' medium. In addition, if learners are writing to learners in other countries, as in a key pal project, this allows them to make contact and interact with people with different first languages and from other cultures. One of the biggest advantages of using email with learners from the teacher's point of view is that the technology is relatively simple to use, and most of our learners will already be familiar with it. If our learners are not familiar with email, it is not difficult to teach them to use it, and the technology is both ubiquitous and free [3].

Dictionaries: whether your students are using bilingual, semi-bilingual or monolingual learners dictionaries in paper or electronic form, there is no denying that there is a far greater range 'of dictionary reference tools available than was the case even ten years ago. It is not the intention of this section to advice on the use of dictionaries in the classroom, but rather to outline some of the features that electronic dictionaries include and to show how they have developed beyond the printed page. Here you will be focusing on monolingual dictionaries. Traditionally these have been used by higher-level learners, but increasingly there is a wide range of monolingual dictionaries that have been written for students with a lower level of language proficiency. Of course, you may well have the experience of students bringing into class small hand-held electronic dictionaries, which have translation features and audio recordings of the sounds of the words, alongside pocket-sized bilingual dictionaries in book form. The one thing that can be said about these hand-held electronic dictionaries is that their content is often inaccurate and that, if you can, you should advise your students on the range of products before they purchase, as you probably have done in the past with paper dictionaries.

 Thesauruses: while electronic dictionaries can be used at all levels, it is worth bearing in mind, initially, that thesauruses are more suited to the intermediate and advanced levels than to the elementary or pre-intermediate levels, where much more language is new to the learner. For higher levels, they can be used to enrich and extend your learners' vocabulary, whereas lower-level learners might find the variety of language on offer too overwhelming to be of any direct use.   A thesaurus can do wonders for writing projects. It can encourage learners to be more adventurous in their creative writing at the same time as helping them to analyses their output more critically.

Concordances and corpuses for language analysis: a concordance is similar to a search engine in many respects. Essentially, it is a small program that can examine large quantities of text for patterns and occurrences of particular words or phrases. Concordances are often considered to be the domain of the language researcher or the kind of tool used by writers of grammar references and weighty linguistic tomes. And indeed they are primarily used in this domain. However, they have played an increasingly large part in the lives of materials writers in ELT over the past few years. Being able to make informed decisions on the frequency of words and structures, their collocates and particular positions in the language now influences the writing of much of the printed materials we see in our daily teaching lives, and has transformed textbooks beyond all recognition.

Corpuses: when choosing a concordance, the main evaluation criterion, apart from the price and ease of use of the software, will be the type of language you want to work with: spoken or written, American or British English, legal or journalistic, and so on. These choices will influence which corpus you decide to query, and what kind of results you will get [4]. 

Encyclopedias for research and project work: it used to be the case that having access to an encyclopedia meant also needing to have a large set of shelves on which to store all of the volumes. This collection of volumes then became a small CD-ROM sitting next to our computers, and these days is more likely to be a collection of web addresses to useful and authoritative sources online. Informational reference sites based on printed material are a good starting point and here we would include paper-based volumes such as the Encyclopedia Britannica, as well as Microsoft Encarta, which was originally published on CD-ROM. Do check out how often the content is updated. Microsoft Encarta is updated regularly, but more regularly for premium subscribers than for the free version. Wikipedia is updated every minute of every day, but then we have to bear in mind that it has thousands of editors worldwide, with varying degrees of experience. All this must be weighed up when deciding which to use. In the end referencing a variety of sources may help. Sites such as Encyclopedia Britannica, Encarta and the Columbia Encyclopedia can safely be considered both accurate and fairly comprehensive, but with some this may not be the case. It is worth remembering the caveat made about Wikipedia being user-produced, and therefore potentially prone to inaccuracies. The wealth of information contained on these sites opens up the world to our learners in a way that more traditional collections of classroom objects simply can't. Project work, biographies and other fact based lessons become less arduous for our learners, leaving them free to concentrate on the language side of things, and able to access the information they need for any particular task from a reliable source. There are other examples of fact-finding activities which involve lower-level learners using encyclopedias to find out information about a country they are interested in.

The state of the art: in the ten years, the pace of change has been slow. However, there are signs now that the pace is beginning to accelerate with the advent of more user-friendly tools and software, and greater opportunities for more formalized training. Indeed, it is rare these days for any teacher not to have made some small investment in the use of technology in their work, from the teacher who uses a word processor to put together worksheets to the more active users who are members of online communities of practice groups. But what else might be expected in the future? There are predictions that one will undoubtedly be subject to revision over the next few years, but we hope that these suggestions and areas for further study will prove useful to others. One thing that is certain is that while the teaching profession may not be changing as quickly as we might have expected, technology is still moving on at an astounding pace, and the software and hardware we use are gradually converging into devices which are more user-friendly and which integrate a myriad of services in one place. Lastly, the pace of change will vary for different groups of teachers. Some groups will move very quickly to adopt new technologies and new habits while others will remain largely unaffected by technological changes. There will be no one big movement or trend, but rather a range of trends, some fast moving, and others slow.

REFERENCES

1 www.bbc.co.uk.

2 www.englishcaster.com.

3 www.learn4good.com.

4 www.myspact.com.

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