Reflection on the use of ICT

My curiosity about the use of ICT:
“ICT usage in schools will foster the development of skills and attitudes and increase students’ learning abilities…” (Towndrow, 2007, p. 9). The use of ICT in language learning emphasizes student-centeredness. Therefore, in designing learning tasks integrated with ICT, teachers should always keep in mind that it is critical to provide learners with the opportunity to interact for negotiation of meaning. Good software may promote the learners’ performance, but how teachers design the tasks is critical to the success of the pedagogical practice with ICT. Then, my biggest curiosity about the use of ICT is how to integrate it in a learning task and what kind of activity is assessed as good CALL (computer-assisted language learning) activity.

A response to my curiosity offered by this class:
From Towndrow’s (2007) introduction to task design and task assessment, as well as from Chapelle’s (2001) evaluation criteria of CALL, I get the idea that when designing a task, the teachers should choose the task that is appropriate for particular learners in a particular context at a given time, and both teachers’ and learners’ roles should be taken into consideration all the time. Whether the incorporation of ICT into a particular lesson can add variety, interaction, flexibility and individuality is also important. In this process, whether it is the teachers’ responsibility or whether it is the learners’ freedom to decide when ICT is used and which tools are used may have different effect on the success of CALL classes. Also, during this process, whether the learners get predetermined and fixed learning support or flexible and contextual learning support from the teachers also influence the success of the tasks. What kind of learning outcomes are expected or whether the expected outcomes are obtained are also one of the evaluation criteria of the success of the tasks.

Argument for and against the use of ICT:
There are surely many supporting ideas for the positive effect of the use of ICT, like a way to motivate learners in language learning, or a way to provide learners with freedom to use language. The use of ICT can provide learners with vast learning resources and facilities and can offer learners multiply way to present the learning outcomes. All these advantages ensure a higher degree of learners’ independent learning. However, there is also a risk that language learning depends so much on the use of ICT. ICT should not constrain people’s creativity but should provide a resource of thinking. ICT should perform an assisting function rather than a mastering function. Some teachers are not capable of designing appropriate tasks. In implementing learning tasks, some learners may feel incompetent at using technology and feel more time-consuming than with traditional teacher-instruction method. Sometimes, when they are struggling to deal with the technology, they may ignore the focus of language learning.

Questions formulated based on the argument:
Inspired by the argument, at least two questions can be asked considering the design of ICT-based classes:
What kind of tasks should involve the use of ICT?
When should teachers incorporate ICT into their classes, in what way and to what extent?

Personal plan:
“The job of English language teachers in contemporary learning contexts is to assist each one of their learners to acquire the necessary language, communication skills and strategies needed to learn ‘with’ technology effectively.” (Towndrow, 2007, p. 31)
The goal of each class is critical for teachers to decide whether to incorporate ICT into learning tasks. If the goal of a task is to assist learners to develop some practical skills, like writing and speaking, which need more interaction and flexibility of learning, no fixed way of thinking is required, then the incorporation of ICT is kind of facilitating. Of course, in order to exert the function of ICT to the largest extent, it is desirable to train both the teachers and the learners how to use particular facilities or resources before the start of focusing on language development.

Although ICT can assist and facilitate language learning, it does not mean that language learning will not develop without the use of ICT. Overdependence on ICT will also bring negative effect on language learning. For this reason, teachers should carefully select the type and time for ICT application. Some teachers are fond of exposing various types of technology and information to learners, with little effort to explain how to combine the use of ICT with language focus, indulging the learners in an infertile action of self-struggling. In order to avoid this result, teachers should cautiously decide the time of using a new technology or introducing new information, with necessary explanation and purposeful goal of language outcomes.

The Place for Coursebooks/Textbooks in the “New Media Age”

Although the advent of new media age has weakened the influence of courbooks/textbooks, it is still necessary that coursebooks/textbooks play an important role in education, especially in courses for majors.

Compared with the online resources, information in textbooks is arranged in a more systematic order, which compact a large amount of fundamental knowledge into pages, presenting a clear line for students to follow or to recollect after absorbing this knowledge. In contrast, the new media age witnesses the vast amount of information pouring upon the students, which is easy to be collected but hard to be recollected from memory, especially when there are lots of hyperlinks extending the scopes of the required knowledge.

Another advantage of the coursebooks/textbooks is that the coursebooks/textbooks are convenient to be carried around and referred to whenever the learners are uncertainty about a particular point of knowledge, while the new media information is only available when particular devices are at hand. For example, if a learner wants to check out the definition of a term, he can either consult a printed coursebook or turn to a CD ROM. However, the only way for him to acquire the information on the CD ROM is to play it in a CD player. Then, what if no CD player is available at that particular moment? Similarly, most new media information is accessible only when the ICT devices are at work. The heavy dependence on these devices like computers, PDA, phone, or tablet PC, etc. decides that new media will never totally replace coursebooks/textbooks, in spite of its increasing popularity.

Moreover, although some digital dictionaries, digital grammarbooks, or media bank are beneficial to learners, it is undeniable that some online resources are not as reliable as expected. Since most learners are not professional enough to identify the misinformation and distinguish the good resources from the bad ones, coursebooks/textbooks on the other hand provide a solid and more reliable information owing to its having been checked, edited and revised times before being published. Additionally, some coursebooks/textbooks recommend considered and trustworthy reference books or online links, which serve as a guideline for learners to do autonomous study and avoid randomly surfing on line and wasting large amounts of time and energy for undesirable results.

To Use and Adapt DDL

Frankly, I am a strong advocator for data-driven learning (DDL) and I’m convinced that the integration of DDL materials and English language learning can greatly enhance the learners’ knowledge and empower the learners’ performance. In my experience of teaching and learning English in China, I’ve ever noticed and adapted DDL for my context in several practical ways, especially in teaching and learning of writing.

For example, Wikipedia, one of the largest reference Web sites, as a multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia, assembles abundant resources on concepts and terms. Wikipedia’s articles provide links to guide the user to related pages with additional information. When analyzing newspaper articles from the angle of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), I referred to Wikipedia in searching for the background information about the newspaper, establishing the standpoint of the particular newspaper so as to figure out what accounts for its tone of reporting. And because Wikipedia is an ongoing work, where older articles tend to be more comprehensive and balanced while newer articles continually updated, “with the creation or updating of articles on topical events within seconds, minutes or hours, rather than months or years for printed encyclopedias” (Wikipedia, n.d.), it is more convenient for users to access the latest information. In China, language learners can hardly find large numbers of genuine texts showing the most relevant information. For this reason, it is advisable for the language learners and teachers in my context to make good use of this website to do data driven learning.

Another significant feature of DDL is that it can provide vast model texts of different genres, especially on on-line writing laboratories, for example, Center for Independent Language Learning and Colorado State University Writing Center or some web-sites which present collections of texts, like Links 2 Love. These DDL materials can all provide language learners with worthwhile model texts to analyze and deconstruct genre, then imitate the writing.

Corpus, as a digital resource, offers more language scaffolding, especially for us EFL learners. “A corpus is nothing more nor less than a collection of texts input into a computer” (Fox, 1998, p. 25). And corpus linguistics is “the empirical study of language relying on computer-assisted techniques to analyze large, principled databases of naturally occurring language” (Susan, 2000, p. 548). “By studying concordance lines students will become more aware of language, and will note how particular words are used by native speakers,” and “there is certainly a likelihood that increased awareness will lead to increased proficiency” (Fox, 1998, p. 42). We Chinese EFL learners come from a totally different language background from those in western countries. English to us is quite unfamiliar. When we bear words by heart, we mostly use dictionaries to match them with Chinese equivalents, while mostly the usage of some words or expressions are not similar in the two cultures. This causes a great trouble to these learners. Corpus exposes us to the genuinely used language in certain contexts, which will definitely benefit us.

In all, DLL materials will contribute to language learning, and I will surely make and endeavor to take advantage of this treasure and try to adapt it for my learning and teaching.

References:
Center for Independent Language Learning. (n.d.). http://elc.polyu.edu.hk/CILL/writing.htm

Colorado State University Writing Center. (n.d.) http://writing.colostate.edu/learn.cfm

Fox, G. (1998). Using corpus data in the classroom. In Tomlinson, B. (ed.) Materials development in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Links 2 Love. (n.d.). http://www.links2love.com/love_letters.htm

Susan, C. (2000). Will corpus linguistics revolutionize grammar teaching in the 21st century? TESOL Quarterly, 34(3), 548-560

Wikipedia. (n.d.). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

Digital Age Shapes the Young People

Digital devices are popular with young people today and digital age affects the way young people think, act and grow.

Although China has just begun her steps to move forward the digital age, there are considerable examples to illustrate this point. For example, even kids of only 4 or 5 years old know how to use camera to record their daily details, which was quite unimaginable in the past years. My daughter, who is 9 years old, used the camera when we led her to the tiger park and she herself played the camera and recorded what she said like a hostess in the television station. This may account for the fact that in the past in contrast to today, only few kids were keen on becoming a host or a hostess, for they seldom had the chance to practice, which confined their imagination.

When my daughter's school calls for writing, she sometimes copies her writing with a thumb drive and takes it to her teacher, and sometimes prints the writing out. Her way of doing so makes her teacher pleased of offering her more opportunities to write, because she submits nicer copies. This increases her happiness in writing and also contributes to her confidence in studying.

Nowadays, most of the youngsters are fond of working with computers and internet to search for information and for communication. Because of the wide spread of ICT (information and communication technology), the youngsters seem more mature than their prior generations. They know what happens in the world everyday, they know how to get involved in social activities, they know the ways to solve problems all by themselves, and they know how to entertain themselves with vast resources of music, movies, or games. It seems that the whole generation of the young people is getting into the digital age.

However, it is also a fact that some of the youngsters are not quite familiar with IC technology. Some of them are from the poor villages of far distant countryside and have never seen a real computer in their life. While some have very strict parents, who are used to ordering them to study only from textbooks, because they are afraid of the kids’ being misled by some of the internet information. For the latter, in their years of growing up, they are always frustrated by the fact that all their fellow students are familiar with the new technology while they are not, feeling themselves an idiot, illiterate of the new technology.

Therefore, it seems that although digital age is coming, the whole society, especially educators should still find ways to shorten the distance between the literate young people and the illiterate ones, which may finally helps the construction of an ICT-literate society.

A Start

There must be a start for everything. It seemed to be a tough job for me to make a decision of setting up this blog. No website was satisfactory, no color or style of the template was to my pleasure, no title for this space was comfortable, and what's the most challenging, I have no habbit of writing down my feelings and displaying them to others.

However, everything has a beginning. I have to start the first step. So just name this space my sky and fly my words.