CALL for speaking class- week 6

Computers, as we have concluded are tools that prepare users for real-world. The articles for this week describes the use of computers as a tool for motivate and improve the speaking skill. Those articles explains that CALL help to improve pronunciation, due to, they have multimedia products which incorporate relatively natural speech, that help students to know native accents and recognize sounds. Others include an electronic dictionary.

Something that I really like from this article was that it promote the advantages of CALL, among which are a motivating and interactive environment for learners, it’s offers a private workspace in which students can experiment physiologically threatening in a classroom  or real communication situation, which is interesting. In addition, they contain a lot information to support contextualize interaction. Also, many CALL materials can offer spontaneous feedback.  And the best for me, computers enhance the interaction between the user and the target language content by putting learners in touch with native speakers  of the language, also with many resource free from restriction time and distance.

However, everything have two point of view, CALL can’t give real and verbal interaction with the target langue, they can just, create a model or prototype, we can see that, in some of the software in which the voice of the speaker it’s with a mechanically quality which is difficult to understand. Also something that I don’t like is that many of the resource are not completely reliable. Once again, I concluded that teachers need to be careful with the tools that they use to teach, I think that we can use computers, but also, we have teach as the old technique, Teacher-student as it was in the past. we can use all the resources as we can, but we don't have to forget that our prority is the learning of our students.

Critical thinking and technology- week 5

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing and evaluating information acquired by observation. The article for this week talks about how technology can help to the development of critical thinking and how we (as teachers) can help students to be active intellectually.

 The process of learning is describing as a something nature, humans beings learn through the capacity that God give them to think and reason, to take advantage from this ability, we need to teach them the logics of our disciplines and not just dictate information to them.

Something that calls me attention was that the article mentioned is that “we should do less telling and more acting” for that technology provides many different ways to engage our students through learning, due to, the different personalities, we have to consider the kind of learner that we have, some students like visual information, to them we can use pictures, diagrams, charts and films. Others prefer auditory for them we can use podcasts, videos and others things and like those, there are others more, we have different ways to perceive knowledge.

Something that I really like is that the article presented proposal to use of computer in the classroom as a way of rich the acquisition of knowledge, Due to, it gives us more materials to improve the environment of our students.also it help us to give them the chance of take control of their own process of learning by looking for they own materials and resources. we can decide between, the way in which we want to teach, we can decide what kind of resources we want to use, but we need to look for the best way to  help our students.  

The use of Internet in English Language Teaching- week 4

Internet is defined as a global computer network providing a variety of information and communications facilities. Internet had becomes in one of the more useful technological advances, nowadays, it takes an important place in the learning process.

Internet had replaced books in almost a complete way, due to many of the information that can be finding there. The article discuss about the internet integration in English language teaching (ELT) giving many ideas of the use of internet as a good resource of learning, between those, are web-based projects , chat to develop oral communication skills, blogs in the process of writing, etc.

In addition, it mentioned the internet as a tutor, due to, that there are numerous sites offer lessons on English language usage such as grammar and vocabulary, teachers might assign your students to present on a column of their choice to the class. Also, internet is mentioned as a tool which could be used for engagement and interactive students by stimulate creativity and foster communication and collaboration.  

On the other hand, something that calls me attention was, that the article mention about a research that concluded the technology beneficial impact on linguistics outcomes is slight and inconclusive, and through the time the web sites could be obsolete. That’s meaning that they might not be reliable. In my point of view, as an student of teaching English, you can find a lot of resources of information that could help you, but you can’t be completely sure about them. Teachers need to look for the better help for their work, but also the better help for the process of learning of their students. 

The impact of technology in the classroom-week 3

As we already know the process of education had been changing. At the very beginning, students were sitting in a classroom in front of a board, and a teacher was stand up, writing on the board or reading a lesson, but since the science had been advancing, it had been taking place in the classrooms. The articles presented the influence that technology has to teach and learn a foreign language.

The article explained a little research project of a course of 5 weeks in which teachers implemented technological resources. Something that calls me attention was the objective of use strategies to help understanding, and also to exposure students to the cultures, where the target language is spoken. I think that it really help to develop the ear.

  

In addition, Some of the materials were: online submissions and consultations on line, instead of paper based submission, seminars-participatory (student focused) instead of lectures-teacher focused, materials in digital format, instead of materials in a large booklet, also implemented podcast  like ESL pod and songs (stories or dialogs of native speakers and American songs),  and others things. That had good results, for teachers an easy way to teach and get materials and for students, a more communicative learning.

However, it mentioned that the use of computers may negatively affect the teaching of other academic skills such as witting and argumentation. That is something that I want to remember from this article because I think that it give us two different points of view of the use of technology. I think that technology is a great resource that had change the way in we teach and learn, due to that, we had to be careful with this, because, as it’s true technology help to develop some skills but also could affect in a wrong way others skills.