Technology in the classroom for teaching English

Technology has had a big impact in the world, it covers different aspects in our everyday lives, and it has changed our conception of the world. One of the most important technological developments was the invention of the computers and the internet, the entire world has been connected and has become in only one. This is the phenomenon of globalization that in a sense has affected the communication between people, businesses, cultures and education. The technological revolution and the quick development of globalization produced a big change in the way we get knowledge, and the way we get in touch with the environment.

A long time ago, the way of learning and teaching languages was limited by just focused on reading and writing approaches; just books and old-fashioned methodologies were used and people always tried to memorize the structures and vocabulary; but the learning experience was not significant at all. This is why the interest of implementing new approaches to develop all the skills in learning languages (Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking) has been increased last decades. In the 70’s a particular interest grew in how feelings and emotions could affect the learning process of the students. Researchers and experts of the humanist psychology area determined that students’ feelings are as important as their mental or cognitive skills. This is why new approaches were developed in order to motivate students to learn new languages and to make that process more pleasant for them.

How could technological resoruces be used for teaching purposes?

It has been demonstrated that students need to be immerged in the language they pretend to learn; and one way to make this immersion possible is exposing students to different cultural experiences using the technological resources. If they learn about the real world using the target langague as a bridge for communication, their learning process could be significant.

A big improvement in teaching languages, especially in English, started with the invention of computers, Internet, television, IPods etc, which made the learning process more interesting. Nowadays, students can have easy access to all information from around the world; in fact, it has been demonstrated that researchers prefer to look up for information through internet instead of look it up in books. Also, teachers can use different technological resources to make an interactive class. An example of this could be a class with a projector showing videos of real people in different situations, like a report of news from BBC, ABC or CNN; or playing an audio of the magazine “Speak up” which contains stories or interviews with real actors, scientists or people from different countries who have different English accents, it could help the students in the improvement of their reading and listening skills.

In conclusion, technology is very important to students in their everyday learning; however, the teacher guidance is crucial in this process. A good teacher knows how to use the best ways and methods for teaching, and how to intertwine them with the diversity of technological resources. Also it is really important the discipline and the dedication of each student to achieve this goal.

Posted by Adriana Salas