Using ICT to Help Students Learn and Use English

Nowadays, technology develops rapidly. It is available anywhere and for any purposes. It also provides some ease for teaching. Teachers have got some possibilities to make a good use of technology for their teaching. Therefore, I  want to share about an article which it is written by Sri Prihartini Yulia a teacher in SMP Negeri 3 Sleman Jogyakarta. She has tried some activities of using technology for learning with her students. Her point is that she is trying new ways of teaching. She hopes that those will make her students enjoy their learning and facilitate them to learn. For this reason she wants to share some of activities she did or she is still doing it and the activities work on her students. Here is the list of activities: 1. Using interactive software. When it has been installed in a language laboratory. The teacher needs to learn how to operate it and how can students learn using it. The teacher’s duty then, just introduce the way to operate it. Then decide the target students have to achieve when learning using it. While students work with it is just monitor. Finally check their achievements. 2. Asking students to explore the web to get source of learning. After letting students learn from the text models the teacher provides, the teacher asks her students to find similar models from the website. It is possible to be done after the teacher observe that there are some internet cafe surrounds. They have to download the texts and deconstruct them. 3. Asking students to submit their assignment via email The teacher could ask the students to learn how to make an email address, the teacher asks them to try to submit their assignments via email. The teacher asked her students to compose a text then submit it. Nowadays, most of students use a mobile phone equipped with camera. The teacher could ask them to make a video of themselves when they are producing monologue telling the way to do something. You can read more in http://hrd.apec.org/index.php/Teaching_Tip:_Using_ICT_to_Help_Students_Learn_and_Use_English

Benefits of ICT-enhanced foreign language teaching and learning

Nowadays, it is 21^st century education which the changing conceptions of learning and rapid technological advances have been accompanied by changes in language teaching and learning. Language classrooms are increasingly turning into blended learning environments that focus on active learning. The growing use of ICT in blended language learning environments has changed the face of language teaching and learning in a beneficial way. The main benefits of ICT to language learning are presented below by the perspectives of Jonassen et al. (1999) who define technology-enhanced meaningful learning as active, authentic and cooperative.

First and foremost, ICT–and the Internet in particular–provides language learners with the opportunity to use the language that they are learning in meaningful ways in authentic contexts. The Internet provides an easy and fast access to the use of current and authentic materials in the language being studied, which is motivating for the language learner. Such authentic materials include, for instance, online newspapers, webcasts, podcasts, newsroom video clips or even video sharing websites such as, say, YouTube. Where language teachers earlier searched and carried authentic materials like maps and train timetables to a classroom, they can now ask learners to access such information online, thus helping them learn with current and real-time materials.

A second important benefit derived from the use of ICT in a language classroom is based on the opportunities it affords for cooperation and collaboration with one’s peers. Language teachers all over the world are introducing myriads of ICT-enhanced language learning projects, including simulations, between their students and groups in other countries, thus widening the language learning perspective into that of learning about the cultural context of the language being used. Previously, students or classes would write letters or later even e-mails to each other. Today, using ICT they can ‘skype’ or chat online, where they can not only write to each other in real-time, but also see each other and speak to each other online. Students are thus able to write, read, speak, listen, and react to a conversation using ICT as part of the language learning process. They are motivated to communicate and collaborate with peers to produce common products, for instance, wikis. These beneficial ICT-enhanced language learning activities call for the teacher to organize and monitor them, although in a blended language learning class the overall role of the teacher has changed from the traditional authoritative role to that of a facilitator.

A third major benefit of the use of ICT in blended language learning classrooms is the opportunity that ICT-based tools give to language teachers so that they can tutor their learners more effectively. With the help of ICT-based tools and the constantly growing number of available educational resources language teachers are able to give individual and personalized guidance to the learners. The use of several media–audio, video, authentic contexts, and real-world experiences help language learners with different learning styles to assimilate the content according to their needs. In a blended learning environment that uses ICT tools, it is easier for the language teacher/tutor to use different approaches with students and accommodate different learning styles and the different needs of fast, slow, or handicapped language learners. 

You can read more in  http://webh01.ua.ac.be/odlac/guides/4b-GUIDES-INSTITUTIONS-EN.pdf

The Criteria for Effective Teaching of English to Young Learners

Hi,guys. Today I want to share about one of my writings. Actually, this is my final examination on Essay Writing-1 subject. I just want to share it because it is related with  some tips for English teachers who teach young learners. Enjoy it!

Nowadays, English has been introduced to the young learners starting from the early age in Indonesia. This can be seen from increasing number of schools which offer English classes at the elementary school level. Most people believe that the earlier children learn English, the better it will be. Teaching English for young learners should be well handled if it is to be successful. Teacher of English for young learners needs to have a good understanding of how students think and operate. Therefore, there are three ways to create the effective teaching of English to young learners such as: English teacher should know how children learn and how to facilitate children learning English as a foreign language.

It is necessary for English teacher to know how children learn from the world around them, so that teacher could provide conducive environment for children to learn English, and the effective teaching could be formed. There are a few important things that teacher should know about how children learn. Firstly, children learn from direct experiences. Children learn and create knowledge base from direct experiences: from what they can capture using their senses, and from what they experience directly. For example, rather than teaching them about their hobbies during the winter, it will be better if English teacher asks the children to talk about their hobbies during the rainy season because the children did not experience the winter season. Secondly, children learn from involving in physical activities. The research, led by Charles Hillman, a professor of kinesiology and community health and the director of the Neurocognitive Kinesiology Laboratory at Illinois, suggests that physical activity may increase students’ cognitive control – or ability to pay attention – and also result in better performance on academic achievement tests. For example, they will learn better if they do things in English such as creating posters with captions in English. Thirdly, children have short attention span. Children can only concentrate about 15 to 20 minutes on the topics that they are working on. Therefore, it will be better if English teacher uses various teaching techniques for shorter periods of time because it could avoid boredom to students. For example, there are various teaching techniques which can be used in the lesson for different periods of time such as quiet/noisy exercises and individual/pair work/group work/whole class activities. Therefore, English teacher of the young learners could create the effective way of teaching if he/she could build topics and contexts of learning that are relevant to the learners based on his/her knowledge about how children learn.

Besides knowing how children learn, English teacher should be able to do things to facilitate children learning English as a foreign language. In order to make the teaching-learning process runs well, the teacher should be able to prepare the educational facilities in the classroom. For example, the teacher could provide the room with functional reading and writing materials in English such as interesting pictures, photos, magazines, posters, and other visual media so that functionality of English is visible to the children in the classroom. Besides that, he/she can also give music, songs or audio stimuli for auditory learners and invite students to make physical movement (drawing and dancing) for kinesthetic learners. If the students’ learning environments are equipped with enough educational facilities, they will develop the English language skills well through different ways of learning such as auditory, visual and kinesthetic.

                                                                                        

In brief, English has been taught starting from the early age in Indonesia, especially in elementary schools, as the development of the world globalization which demands English skills for all people in the world. In teaching English to the young learners, English teacher should know about the criteria of effective teaching, so that he/she will make the students learn better and have a good comprehension of English as a foreign language. To create an effective teaching of English to the young learners, English teacher should not only know how children learn, but he also need to consider about providing adequate facilities in the classroom. As time goes by, we will have to wait and see how the way of teaching affects the development of English language on the young learners in Indonesia.

How Can Teacher Use Technology to Increase Learning in Foreign Language classrooms?

I will share about an article which talk about using technology to increase learning in foreign language classroom. Actually, the website which provide this article is talking about the American teacher who teach the students about foreign language. I think that we could apply these strategies to teach Indonesian students too because the main point is that this article is giving advice how the teacher could apply technology to increase learning in foreign language classroom. Enjoy the reading ! Students will learn better if they are provided with authentic situations, so that we need to integrate technology in teaching foreign language. Technology will help the teacher to provide authentic situations. There are some ways which we could apply in integrating technology with the teaching learning process : 

1. Online Research Tour 

The students can have a virtual tour by using technology. The students can go online and look at different pictures, or videos of the different cities. The students can "visit" a foreign country without leaving the classroom. students will know many things about the culture, the language, and many things related to the foreign country by using the online research tour. Besides that, the students are then aware of the global community around them. There are so many resources for the students to find online which is related with their  foreign language.  

2. Video Conferencing 

Video Conferencing is one of the most popular ideas in foreign language classrooms today. How could we do that? With the popularity of programs such as Skype, it is easy to connect students from different sides of the world. Using video conferencing is a way to connect language learners to native speakers. For example, the students can connect to people from America so that the students can learn the authentic speaking which is really spoken by the native speaker. Besides that, the students can also learn the culture of the native speaker from the native speaker that they connected to in the skype. 

3. Video Recording

Through the use of video the students can hear themselves speaking the language, and hear their mistakes and the mistakes of their peers. This is an invaluable experience for learning about themselves, and their strengths and their weaknesses. Also it creates a safe atmosphere for working in a group. By watching the video after they have recorded it, the material will be reviewed another time. Using video also creates a creative output for students who have strengths in that area. This leads to more motivation for the students to learn. For example, we could ask the students to form a group, then we will ask them to speak while the another member of the group will record the conversation, so that we could hear their mistakes from this video. 

4. Multimedia Storytelling

 If we just ask the students to read a story, it will not help the students to get the idea. We could ask the students to make a story telling. When a student takes material, reads it, and then turns around and retells the story they will have a greater understanding of the task. This idea incorporates reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills in the language. For example, we could ask the students to create a story telling about other culture of the foreign country, for example America, and make it into video. By giving this task, the students will be to find many information about another culture and become expert of  those information. We could ask the students to use “Movie Maker “ or  “Photo Story” program to create story telling. The students not only create the story and record themselves saying it, but they can add animations, sound effects, and background music. 

You can read more in http://fledtechnology.wikispaces.com/