Running Head: MODERN TECHNOLOGY IN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

Modern Technology in Language Classroom

Naw Gracie

Adventist International Institute of Advanced Studies

Naw Gracie, MA

EDCI 625 Instructional Media

Tuesday 27th February, 2018

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Modern Technology in Language Classroom

Nowadays almost everyone have mobile phone in their hands. Everywhere, we can

see the technology and digital media and they support learning. As the digital generations,

students like to use various kinds of technologies for communication and accessing

information from multiple resources. Moreover, technology gives multiple ways for students

to show what they have learned and they get feedback immediately (Kaushal, 2013). Blake et

al. (2012) also mentions that technology provides learning to be easier in the language

classroom.

Important of Technology

Technology takes as an important role in language teaching and learning. It becomes

part of daily lives and it also creates new opportunities in teaching and learning (Semih, M.

Samancio-lub, M.& Bali-bel, M., 2010). It is helpful for teachers and can motivate in

students’ learning. According to Read (2004), with the increasing use of computers to deliver

language learning programs, there are new opportunities to enhance vocabulary acquisition,

either directly through vocabulary learning activities or more incidentally in the context of

reading tasks.

Blake (2009) points out the technology helps the teachers to develop the classroom

time to be enjoyable and motivational way. Even teachers can demonstrate a procedure,

record and play it back on a larger screen for their students to view and discuss by using

technology. Garretts mentioned in Kaushal (2012) that students have different skills to

express themselves in audio, video, animation, design software, etc. Furthermore, technology

can provide more immediate feedback for the students in the online gradebooks and student

question forums. So the students who are afraid or shy can ask or write the question to their

teacher through forum or online journaling.

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Technology in Teaching

From the use of technology, language teaching can definitely benefit in many

different ways. Teachers can make technology-based instructional materials like online

learning materials, audios, videos, PowerPoint Presentations, and many more in preparation

for a language class which they plan to teach. They search different sources for each lesson

from online (Kashual, 2013). Blake (2009) says that even teachers can offer the course for the

students who take the distance courses. Language teacher can also communicate with their

students, colleagues, parents, and others through technology.

Kashual (2013) mentioned that teachers must use different methods in teaching

process which enhance student independence for their own learning. For example,

“Collaborative often-team based experiences” where students engage in understanding

information and process inquiry problem-solving, discussion and communication. As a

teacher, introducing different software will help students to acquire more information in their

studies. Incorporating short videos clips related to the discussion help students understand the

lesson well. Some lessons require recording, and this motivates them to hear their voices and

their friend's voice, correct pronunciation and speech problem. Online word game, online

quiz, and online reading are also fun entertaining activities for the students.

Technology in Learning

Blake (2009) discuss, that learning should be interactive though it’s manipulated by

technology, in the same way, teaching process must be student-centered, entertaining and

enhance interaction between students and teachers. Technology is a major part of the life of

the Net Generation. It is important to give the opportunities for the students to use technology

and enjoy their language process more. They can use technology to learn new vocabulary,

reading, writing, listening, and even speaking. In addition, they can record their projects and
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present them to the class with technology. The internet is filled with several language

learning materials. Language students need to learn how to find the necessary sources, how to

evaluate their quality, and how to utilize available resources.

Motteram (2013) mentions that technology is very useful in project work. Learners

are supported to learn about thing through language because this is the best way to develop

their skills. Teachers and learners can listen or read their interest, and they can write or speak

about that they have found by using online. Blake (2009) mentions that audio and video are

crucial in distance learning. Vialogues would be a good option.

Technology in Assessment

The technologies will aid learners to get real-time feedback from classmates and

teachers. It gives chance for teachers to guide students and pay attention to individual

differences while developing the appropriate skills of the L2 learners in a cooperative and

collaborative environment (Kaushal, 2013; Maloney & Liu, 2016).

Technology is very useful in assessing students. It is used in testing accurate,

objective measurement of people in language proficiency. It can also be used to assess

students’ learning progress. It can provide feedback on practice activities. It can be used to

create many different assessment activities for different purposes. Furthermore, it can prevent

some mistakes that can easily be committed when one is writing by hand. It helps to record

the speech of the students so it is easier for the teachers to evaluate the work of the students

(Kaushal, 2013).

New Technology in Language Classroom

Young people are web generation and they live their lives by using technology. For

integrating the language learning, it is great assessment to add new technologies in language
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classroom. They can be encouraged the learners to develop in the four c’s: communication,

creativity, collaboration and critical thinking. Technology like Padlet, Popplet, Linoit and

Printerest give students to collaborate with others and reproduce on learning. Modern

technology like Quizlet is a helpful for remembering words, phrases and producing sound

spelling links. Therefore, teachers and students can easy to look for the list and create theirs.

Another free tool is Socrative that uses for instant feedback, formative assessment, and

classroom voting. In that technology, teachers can send to the students questions such as

multiple choices, true or false, or short answer questions. Teaching language with technology

helps the students to fluent in their skills (Dale, 2014).

Podcasts

Learners use podcasts for improving their comprehension. It is especially useful in

practicing speaking skill. There are many podcast tailored for English language learners.

Even students can create their own podcast and get opportunities to practice their speaking

skills. They can make presentations and reports by using a computer and microphone. Video

podcasts are useful and helpful option for students, and they can have their own YouTube

channels (Zakhreuski, n.d.).

According to Gates (2017), there are seven great podcasts for English language

teachers. They are the TEFL show, TEFL training institute, TEFL commute, the TEFLogogy

podcast, tea with Bill Van Patten (BVP), language fuel, and I will teach you a language.

Some of them are dealing with the broader fields of second language acquisition and

language teacher education when others are only for teaching English. In this 21st century,

most of the people can create a sounding podcast for language teachers. Smartphone,

dictaphone or USB microphone are needed.

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Digital Field Trips

Digital field trip is a technology-mediated educational tour. That tool is really

effective for language classroom because it is less costly, safe, far researching, and saving

time (Arntsen, 2017). Most of the students prefer to learn the language from the practical

experience although field trips are not always the choice for the tough school budgets.

Through digital field trips, students can get new information like a real life. Furthermore,

young learners can improve their vocabulary by fun virtual trips in 4-H Virtual Farm and

older learners can learn about the government on sites like Inside the White House

(Zakhreuski, n.d.). Sherry (2015) says that virtual field trips are more suitable, less difficult,

and a good way to put culture and real language classroom.

Language teachers can introduce about the world to their students by using

technology. They can bring their students to virtual field trips through Google Culture

Institute and Google Street View. Students can read more about the cultural or historical

significance of the place by using the computer or phone. Through activity guide, students

can demonstrate and share what they have learned from their trip. They are also evaluated the

experience from the end of their field trip. “Technology can give use a taste of the world, but

we hope these trips inspire our students to stay hungry for the real thing in the future”

(Kauffman, 2017).

Infographics

Infographics is a graphic visual image that combines the data and icons to

communicate a specific message to a target audience. There are three kinds of infographics

such as static, interactive, and motion infographics. Static graphics are designed for digital or

print design. The information is complete for the viewer. The interactive graphics can be also

proposed web or print or both. It allows the viewers to participate and gives them deeper
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information that is requiring input degree. Lastly, motion infographic is designed for digital

media. It is presenting moving information and viewers’ interactions are not needed (Rigdon,

2013).

According to Cottrell (2016), infographics are authentic materials which for beginner

classes. They help the students to familiar with visual ways. In addition, they provide the

learners to know that the learner resources are not the only conversation. He describes five

ways to use infographics in language class. The first way is to support for providing

comprehensible input. It is the earliest stage and asks the student s to response actively. Venn

diagram or other comparison is the second way to use infographics. The third way is specific

question with a graphic organizer. It helps the students on their goals. Springboard for polling

class opinions is the fourth way to use infographics. It supports the students to compare their

exercise and ideas with their classmates. The final way is springboard for students to show

what they’ve learned.

Technology Issues

As language teachers, they need to aware of technology issues as much as technology

is exciting. There are many technological issues such as cognitive/information overload,

technical support, teachers’ technical competency, digital divide, rapid, technological change,

evaluation of quality tech resources, copyright, privacy, and safety, etc. (Blake et al. 2009).

Training

As Kaushal (2013) observes, using technology requires students to learn additional

skills that in the long term are useful for career development, but in the short term, learning

those additional skills can prove frustrating for the students as they want to only focus on the
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foreign language. Students as well as teachers have to be intentionally trained how to use

technology (Blake, 2009).

As a teacher we face with different challenges in teaching. In using technology, it

does not work when we really need it. Sometimes teachers and learners are too depending on

technology. When their electronic dictionaries are broken, they do not know how to find the

unknown words from the dictionary book. Some students try to take advance to use the

technology for their personal things instead of school works. Especially when they bring their

mobile phone, they like to take a picture, text with their friends and watching movies in class.

Then, some students are tempted to take the other materials. So teachers need to recognize

their role to guide or interpret the way in teaching. Teachers should get the teacher training in

the use of new technologies (Blake, 2009). Moreover, teachers and students have

responsibility to take care and use it wisely with their technologies. Before the teachers let the

students use the technology, they should announce the rules to follow first. For example, the

class teachers or subject teachers need to keep their phone during class time if we ask the

students to bring and use their mobile for their assignment. So we can prevent from losing

materials and using personal things in class. At that situation, we need to work with students

and their parents also.

Copyright and Plagiarism

Copyright is a significant way to think about language technology usage. The

information and materials are easy to copy with a click of the mouse through online. The

major difficulty is concerns about plagiarism and cheating (Blake, 2009). Although the

internet and resources, such as Turnitin.com can help detect and discourage plagiarism and

cheating, plagiarism and cheating is greatly facilitated by the internet and easily accessible

materials. Even without the challenge of cheating, technology can lead to overdependence in
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technologies, such as electronic dictionaries, for intermediate learners rather than working

towards achieving fluency and automaticity. Finally, we need to train our students that not all

information on the internet is accurate or complete. Not all information on the internet is

created equal. They need to learn to evaluate it carefully and find reliable sources through

training.

Finance

Technology plays an important role in advancing the availability of higher education

for student. However, the school is facing some technology challenges for education. The

school budget is limited that it can hardly provide new technology. Additionally, although

most of the students have access to computers and the internet, a few do not. Therefore,

technology is an added expense as they need to purchase a laptop and ensure that they

purchase internet with fast enough bandwidth. Furthermore, the gadgets and computers are

always upgrading and which its application must be updated to work properly. When this

problem arises, schools often have no budget to cope up the changes. However, these two

phenomena will only be lessened when the school set aside budgets for upgrade and

maintenance (Ramadhana, 2013).

Conclusion

Using digital media might be a challenge for the 21st generation of teachers. Teachers

can get technology’s power and be possible for language learning by using social media for

developing accessible tools and apps. So teachers should create language classroom for the

web generation rather important, occupying and manageable. Technology is changing the

way we interact and learn. It is a powerful educational tool that can be used to motivate and

provide students with greater language input and output, but teachers should use it

deliberately and consciously with careful planning as it does come with some challenges and
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does not solve all language teaching problems. Finally, both language teachers and learners

need to aware the issues of technology as they embrace technology.

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References

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Modern Language Journal, 98(Focus Issue), 822-835
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Dale, J. (2014). Teaching languages with technology: tools that help students become fluent.
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Gates, D. (2017). 7 must-listen podcasts for English language teachers. Retrieved from
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Kauffman, K. (2017). Foreign language virtual field trips: A travel guide for beginners.
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