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Advanced Technology Helps

Listening and Speaking Students’ Skill

Good news ... good news...

21st century forces us to be digital native person. It means that we have to master the technologies around us, for example mobile phone, computer, and or internet. The advancement of technology is also inseparable from language learning. In this journal, we will talk about how to utilize the technology into listening and speaking practice. The background why I write this journal is I got this topic from my last meeting in TLL (Technology Language Learning) class.

When I was in senior high school, my teacher had difficulties to provide us some variation in listening practice skills. He gave us listening skills just from a cassette which played by the tape. Of course we felt bored because we learned with same method all the time. Not just that, sometime the tape recorder or cassette used was not in a good condition. The impact was not really effective to develop our listening skills.

But, do not worry because along with the advancement of technology, especially internet, we can find many methods of listening through internet nowadays. Even, you can learn independently. Well, if you are looking for the sites that can help you to improve your listening skills, click here to find the listening sites.

Next is about speaking activities that helped by technology. Back to school context. I want to ask to you, what do you do when you have speaking practice? Yups, I know if you will answer ‘doing a conversation with your friends’... :)

You know guys; you can also find the sites from internet to practice speaking. This is some of ‘thousand’ sites that you can take the benefit:

a. eslfast.com

b. talkenglish.com

c. world-english.org

d. learnenglish.de

Hopefully, this journal can help you to improve your English. Through online learning like this, you can get the benefit that cannot get from offline learning. The benefits that you can get from online learning are you have opportunity to practice your English with native and you also have opportunity to learn the culture behind English. It’s joyful, what are you waiting for? :)

*) You also can practice your English in chat spot which provided in this blog..:)

Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL)

Picture 1 : Indonesian context

Picture 2 : Some western countries context.

For recent generation or digital native era the learning is not always just utilize white board and marker. In western facts (from researches) show us that the learning becomes more pleasure and effective when they integrated the mobile phone, iPod, MP3 player, and PDA. Besides, there is also CALL which more common in Indonesia recently. CALL is the utilization of a computer within language learning. In this journal we will talk a lot about what are the things that must be considered are its utilization and the CALL program design principles.

The considerations for the design of CALL programs there are 2 points that must be noticed. The first is pedagogy first and technology second. What does it mean? When the teacher brings computer to assist him/ her teaching, the teacher should not give much more attention on the technology rather than the knowledge he/ she give to students. The technology is important but it is not the first, the students need the technology but they need much more knowledge. So, the teacher must creative to perceive this issue. Second is computer interactivity vs. pedagogical interactivity. Almost same with earlier explanation, the computer is just a tool. It can be a tool for test or explain such topic. As the conclusion of the considerations, the first that must be paid attention is the students.

Source: Picture 3

There are 3 principles of CALL program design (for example blog); its content, visual, navigation, and multimedia. The content that is showed in computer monitor does not need in long passage. Based on research the long passage in computer will be not so effective for the reader. On the other hand, the text must be in interesting, accurate, and well organized style. If we see the visual side or the appearance, it is also important to be noticed. It seems all teachers agree if they do not want to be leaved by students because of computer monitor color hurt their eyes. To beautification our blog preference, we can add some multimedia link on that, and of course we provide easy navigation to maintenance the blog.

Finally, hopefully after you read this journal you can balance between the students’ need and the technology utilization in your class.

The New Generation Has Come

Source: Picture

It was very interesting when my friends and I learned more about digital native and digital immigrant. Digital native is for people who have known about the technology since they born. It’s mean that since they born the technology development was start to exist. Meanwhile for digital immigrant is for people who don’t. So, for those whom are digital immigrants, they have just started to learn in recent years.

Nowadays, the digital technology has influenced people much includes in their style of learning. How is it different from the time before digital era? Maybe when we compare together, we can find the basic one is between conventional learning and the learning which already enhanced ICT on it. It is very important for teachers or teacher candidates know about this different. They can use this knowledge apply it in the class, for example the teacher uses a video in his/ her class to grab students’ attention.

Source: Picture

In the second meeting of previous week, we were asked to discuss how to implement/ engage some of favorites websites based on digital native view. The websites are; google, facebook, blog, youtube, skype, and webquest. Each of that website has its strengths and weaknesses if we applied it into teaching, especially language learning.

My friends and I in the group had discussed about how to apply the youtube for language learning class. We believed that youtube can give many advantages for us; first, it provides a lot of video sources. Second, it provides contextually learning. Contextually learning means the students can watch and analyze the movie based on the real place and time. Third, either teacher or students can upload and download the video easily. We thought that this easy of access to share can encourage the students’ motivation toward language learning.

Somehow, google, facebook, blog, skype or webquest are also has secrets behind it which can encourage students’ inquire. For google, among or maybe all of us has known it well. The google is used to look for some data because it such likes a searching engine. In other side, facebook provides joyful learning by remembering how fenomenal facebook around us. In blog, people can share their thought completely. Skype offers their strength that is based on video practice. And the last is webquest which bring our students to explore about such topic. So, based on this explanation we can see if how influential digital development in learning and teaching.

There was some of my friends asked about how about the negative impact of those websites. According to us (especially my idea), it’s true if there is a key that should be hold by the teacher. So, to prevent the negative impacts, the teacher should have a capability to guide and direct them based on lesson plan we made. So, the students can not move around from the objective learning itself.

The Development of Technology and Its Application in Learning Process

Technology has been developed for many years, even in 3000 BC. It was started when ancient people drew signs in cave wall. After thousands year, finally we can enjoy the result of the technology development nowadays. for example of the technology development is self-phone, computer, LCD projector, etc. But, in this journal we will concern on computer apllication in language class.

Source: Picture

The usage of technology in education was started to use in 1960s. At that time people called it Behavioristic CALL -Computer Assistant Language- era. The language teaching was taught by grammar translation and audio-lingual ways. The teacher put much exposure on drills and practices to the students. Meanwhile, the role of the computer here is very important, because it was the guide for the students when they drilled their selves frequently. By the drills, the students were expected to be able to say the vocabularies and also express the expressions correctly –time and place-.

After Behavioristic CALL end at 1970s, the new era had come. It’s called Communicative CALL. At that time, the teachers believed that the students have good cognitive capability. So, the teacher taught language by utilized it, which was by communicative learning style. The learning process used computer to motivate the students. Here, the students did not learn the grammar explicitly, but the students were expected to learn the grammar by identifying the conversations they learned. As we can see here, the learning process was emphasized on the fluency of the students’ speaking skills. As the result, they could express some expression correctly though without knowing the grammar.

The next is Integrative CALL. It was started from 1990s until present. Here, the learning is not just live the students’ cognitive. But also, trains the students to learn wider in society. The language learning is not just for academic purpose, but it is also integrated to the other field –such as; job-. The computer has more important position in this era. So, the learning is designed more creatively, for example; utilize CD-Room, or internet-based learning. This design of learning also gives good effects for the students; the students become more independent and creative, they have many sources of learning, they can explore their language ability by practice the language directly, etc.

Nowadays, the technology has developed rapidly. It brings some advantages and the disadvantages if it is applied into language class. The advantages of technology can be analyzed briefly like; raises the students’ motivation, provides interactive learning, facilitates all of students’ needs and also brings students into global world. On the contrary, the disadvantages of technology are; it is expensive, the teachers and students must comprehend about the technology used, and the technology still needs improvements in some parts. So, although the learning become looks more joyful, fun, and meaningful, we still need teacher as real facilitator in a class.

Source:

Lai, Cheng. (2006). The advantages and disadvantages of computer technology in second language acquisition. National journal for publishing and mentoring doctoral student research, 3, 2-4.

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