Materials and digital technologies.
Technology has always been used in language classrooms , e.g language laboratory.
With the rapid development of technology, teachers are exposed to an enormous choice of digital resources. Some teachers feel overwhelmed and find it hard to keep up with and make a use out of it, some use it just to entertain learners and feel up the lessons and some make out the most of it, creating blending learning environment, using multimodality to achieve the best possible outcomes of using technology, use synchronous and asynchronous learning.
Digital media has become a part of our life, we use it to keep in touch with our friends and family, use it for business but it doesn’t necessarily mean that our learners interested in using technology if it doesn’t facilitate or aid the learning , or hasn’t got any practical input.
Before creating, selecting or using digital technologies it’s important to think of pedagogical considerations:
– why do we have to use this material?
-how does it facilitate and supplement the curriculum?
-Is it engaging?
-What multimodality and learning time( synchronous/asynchronous) does it offer?
-Does it meet learners’ needs and expectations?
-Is it motivating?
If digital materials are designed using main principles for material designing and bearing pedagogical considerations in mind, they can tick off all the boxes for a successful language learning.
The chart below was proposed by Kervin, L and Derewianka,B (in Tomlinson 2011:329) on how our learners can benefit from using digital technologies for acquiring a language, and how different technologies can contribute to different kind of learning(synchronous and asynchronous).
Using videos in the classrooms can help learners not only improve their learning skills but also boost their vocabulary, help with speaking and writing skills.
One of my online students found listening quite challenging and demotivating. At our lessons, we started using different short videos with subtitles in order to eliminate the anxiety and negativity and it did work. I started to see the benefits of it and as it can be time-consuming to come up with personally designed material each time, I started to look for a digital program for Russian-speaking students offering to practice and improving their listening and vocabulary skills by watching videos, and came across :https://puzzle-english.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMOcpwAhTZk
It’s not the best program but it uses multimodality and my students find it quite useful, in particular, watching videos with double subtitles(English-Russian). It has got a virtual dictionary, which allows you to input new vocabulary from the video or an exercise and it can be used on your phone(you have to download an App created by this company) in a way of different games using that vocabulary. It not only contributes to their learning but also gives them a flexibility as both these programs can be used on mobile phones.
There are also different kind of programs helping with improving pronunciation, e.g GarageBand and most fascinating : interacting with non-human partners, for example, such programs as Jabberwacky. It allows a student to have an interactive learning by chatting on different topics ,have a transcript of their previous conversation, enabling them to have a track of their learning, helping with planning and etc.
Correctly designed digital technology offers four different learning environments( written/oral synchronous and asynchronous learning)multimodality, which can not only help with acquiring the language but also speed it up.
Bibliography:
Hazel, L. W. C. (2015) Materials design and pedagogy for technology-enhanced language learning.
International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching (IJCALLT) 5 (1): pp. 22-34. doi: 10.4018/IJCALLT.2015010102.
Kervin, L. & Derewianka, B. (2011) New technologies to support language learning. In: Tomlinson, B. (ed). Materials Development in Language Teaching. (2nd ed) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kiddle, T. (2013) Developing digital language learning materials. In: Tomlinson, B. (ed). Developing Materials for Language Teaching. (2nd ed) London: Bloomsbury.