Notas y mapas

TOPIC ONE: Student variables in the use of technology for language learning

Individual language students are going to respond quite differently to the use of technology in the classroom. Some will find it useful; some will strongly dislike it; some will find it very enjoyable and motivating; and some won’t really care one way or the other.

The variables that contribute to these different student responses include the following:
•Previous experiences with technology
•Skill with technology
•Level of confidence with technology versus fear of technology
•Age
•Language level

TASK ONE: Based upon your own experience and opinions, discuss how each of the above variables might positively or negatively affect student attitude towards the use of technology in the language classroom. Also discuss the challenges these variables present to the language teacher using technology. Use 200 words in your response.

One can expect that students with previous or frequent exposure to information technologies respond positively to the use of technologies in the classroom, but a neutral attitude or a negative attitude can also be expected. Some students can engage easily with tasks that require computers, others may not be interested in them. The challenge a teacher faces with students who are computer literate is to motivate those who find some resources outdated or boring.

Students with little experience with technology, low level of confidence in technology, or fear of it, might be more concerned in learning how the technology works rather than with the topics of study. The teacher might end up using the language instruction time in teaching how to operate something. The challenging situation is a heterogeneous group, where there are both experienced and inexperienced users of technology and the teacher has to help some students to gain the confidence necessary to complete some tasks, while keeping other focused in their work.

Generally young learners get easily motivated into using different resources, but they also get frustrated easily when their knowledge of the target language is not enough to understand what to do, for example, in a game.

Another variable that we can include when studying the response of students to technology is that learning goals and skills are culturally influenced, and some students, even with the knowledge of IT, prefer to study using old methods of memorization, as they find the use of computers not helpful enough to learn a language. I understand these students because I realized that I understand and remember better what I read from printed sources than from a screen.

TASK TWO

Reading: Sandholtz, Judith H, and Brian Reilly. “Teachers, Not Technicians: Rethinking Technical Expectations for Teachers.” Teachers College Record. 106.3 (2004): 487-512. Print.

Briefly state your opinion as to how much a language teacher needs to be a technician in order to successfully use technology in the classroom. Use specific examples from your own experiences with technology as well as examples from the article. Use 200 words in your response.

I taught Beginners’ Spanish at a postsecondary education institution where all the classrooms had projectors, the textbook had online components with tech-support, the students were knowledgeable in the use of Internet and had their own equipment (laptops or PCs), and the online component of the course was a homework. These conditions did not require a lot of technical knowledge from me in order to teach in the classroom. But, because these conditions are not common, I do think some technical knowledge is necessary in order to teach using technology, especially when both the educational institutions and the students have expectations about the capacity of the teachers to use it. Such knowledge increases the confidence of the teacher in her own work, and the confidence of the students in the teacher, contributing to develop a good learning environment in the class, or, as in the experience of the teachers from the Sandholtz and Reilly’s article, contributing to the productivity of the students (491).

My experience as a technology user in the language classroom comprehends mainly the presentation of instructional material in class: power point presentations, websites such as map sites or weather sites. Once, I had a problem with my laptop in a session in which a faculty member was observing my class. I was able to fix the problem quickly, and there was a positive comment about that in his report. Preparing a presentation and, then, being able to solve a technical problem to show it were ways to make good use of the class time that everybody in the classroom was able to appreciate.

Another side of my experience with technology in my courses is the “outside the classroom” work. As some of the teachers referred in Sandholtz and Reilly (498), I created websites (blogs) for my courses, where I posted presentations showed in class and answered the questions some students emailed me between sessions. The blogs were not intended to be accessed during instructional time. They provided additional explanations to the topics studied in class. I consider beneficial to students this way of keeping contact with them outside the classroom. In some cases, students obtained through the blogs the answers to questions they didn’t dare to ask in class.

The textbook used for the courses had a companion website containing audio files, audio flashcards, additional quizzes and other learning resources. There was also an online workbook. Students were expected to complete weekly assignments that represented one hour of homework. Both the textbook website and the e-Student Activity Manual were very easy to work with, and the publishing house offered technical support that solved problems within 24 hours. Thus, as in the case of the centralized, server-based network used by the school district mentioned in Sandholtz and Reilly (502), the online component of the course didn’t require the technical aid of the teachers, who were only grading, not in instructing how to use the technology. This was a big relief; because it kept the classes focused on language learning, but I think that if the teachers show some technical knowledge that saves time to students and to themselves, that will help to create a good learning atmosphere in the classroom.