Identifying Our Approaches to Language Learning Technologies: Improving Professional Development
The mid-to-late 1990s was an exciting time for those concerned with incorporating new technology into their teaching of English as a Second or Foreign Language (ESL/EFL). Commonly referred to as Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), or sometimes with the broader term Technology-Enhanced Language Learning (TELL), the field took huge leaps forward during these years.
The expansion of CALL to the classroom
One central way that order was brought to the field of CALL, was by a push for technology to be introduced into the language classroom and evaluated according to Second Language Acquisition (SLA) principles that were known to create effective learning environments.
Warschauer (1998) suggests that researchers working in the field of language technology approach their work from very different positions. Warschauer identifies the three positions as (1) determinist, (2) instrumental, and (3) critical.
Therefore, instructors have 3 main objectives when conducting professional development activities for ESL/EFL teachers in the area of CALL:
1. To present positive experiences with spotlighted technologies (both familiar and novel) to foster imagination and innovation in using them to teach a language.
2. To provide rich experiences and knowledge of SIA principle-driven uses of technologies to teach a language.
3. To foster critical consideration of both obvious and subtle sociocultural culture of learners, teachers, and the community.
Principle-based reading: there are several written options such as books or online postings when it comes to implementing technology in the classroom. It helps for autonomous learning as well as grouped.
Technology petting zoo: it requires the access to a lab computer in order to make use of several types of technologies that will be useful for language instruction such as resources (dictionaries and synonym finders), creation tools (Prezi), Widgets (special apps), Hardware (mini voice recorders and digital cameras).
Engaging reading: teachers find several readings in which technology affects the sociocultural environment, so they think critically about the influence of technology seen from a cultural perspective.
From passive to participant active thinker: a learner-centered approach to materials development.
Although English teaching materials come from many places, the dominant sources are countries where English is a native or an official second language.Materials from these English-speaking countries do not reflect the learning styles or the cultural values of EFL students who use them and, as a result, the students’ motivation surfer and they become reluctant to interact in class and share opinions or ideas.
According to Alptekin (2002, 58), “learning a foreign language becomes a kind of enculturation, where one acquires new cultural frames of reference and a new world view, reflecting those of the target language culture and its speakers.”
Humanistic psychology emphasizes the psychological and sociological realities of people; in relation to language teaching, it recognizes learning as a process that includes more than just the language itself. According to Tomlinson (2003, 13), humanizing materials means adding “activities which help to make the language learning process a more effective experience,” and finding “ways of helping the learners to connect what is in the book to what is in their minds.”
Tomlinson (2003) offers four constructs for developing humanized materials that involve students in the learning process and get them to speak more in English.
1.Utilizing multidisciplinary teams
2.Adopting a text-driven approach
3.Incorporating literature
4.Introducing informal discourse features
Employing critical thinking
The ability to distinguish between facts and opinions, judgments and inferences, and objective and subjective impressions. Critical thinking is a vital feature for the improvement of teaching and learning. Marshall and Rowland (1998, 34) describe how critical thinking produces “joy, release, relief, and exhilaration as we break through to new ways of looking at our personal, work and political worlds.”
Learner autonomy is defining as the ability to take charge of one´s own learning.
A strategy for making students participate in class is to incorporate a variety of Englishes into the teaching material. Most of the English language in use today is by non-native speakers, and the number of people speaking it as an FL or an SL has surpassed the number of its native speakers.
The use of English should not be governed by the phonological, linguistic, or cultural ´chauvinism´ of native-speakers.
Images by: Denia Hernández
