Why Technology is important for Language teaching?

 

    Learning a language generally is a very complex and challenging process, and teaching it is even more challenging. However, with the passage of time and with the remarkable development that all different fields are witnessing, the field of education has witnessed significant developments and remarkable changes with the emergence of different schools of thoughts and movements to enhance the quality of teaching. One of the changes is the introduction of technology and the usage of digital tools in teaching and in language teaching specifically. As time passes, it became a widespread belief that technology-based instruction can immensely contribute to the enhancement of education’s quality, considering that digital tools facilitate and improve the teaching process and outcomes (Altun, 2015). In addition, 

             "the integration of ICT in classroom needs serious consideration in order to increase the competency of the country’s education system. This will help in increasing the world ranking of the national education and produce the better future work force. In order to enhance the use of ICT in classroom, the government needs to improve and change the teachers’ belief about the integration of ICT in classroom. As the teachers’ role is the key role in making any of the new policy to be implemented efficiently and successfully. The changes that is taking place is driven by advanced technology and communication devices that should be available to students wherever they are either at school or home. In addition , the needs for teachers to be literate and have good skills and knowledge in using ICT to improve their teaching methods and approach is desired to promote effective learning as well as to meet the demand of the 21st century teaching skills." (Ghavifekr & Rosdy, 2015).

    However, the importance of integrating technology with education Should NOT mean that traditional teaching is less important, valid, useful or even helpful! It simply means that using all the resources that technology can provide would help to facilitate and support the traditional teaching methods. Hence, we encourage the INTEGRATION of technology into education, and NOT to REPLACE teachers with digital tools no matter how important they could be. That is to say, we support the enhancement of teaching quality through using digital tools, but we don't support to fully depend on them.

        "Some teachers may possess the improper concept that they would totally apply multimedia technology in their teaching. It is also believed that the more utilization of multimedia technology, the better class atmosphere may grow, the more actively the students get involved in class participation, the more easily the material access to the students. Apparently, the students show some interest in leaning, but actually, they feel like looking on. In practice, the more unconscious attention the students pay. The more interference of teaching information during transmission, the less the students take from the language materials. It is impossible to effectively train the students’ language expression in class time. It is clear that in spite of advantages of application of multimedia technology, it assists in teaching. During practical teaching, it is part of a complete teaching procedure. In practice, if multimedia technology would be properly implemented in English teaching, the students could make full use of English speaking and listening materials and develop their overall capacities, which is the objective for us to introduce multimedia technology to modern teaching thus, this leads to systematic training on students’ listening, speaking, reading and writing, makes teachers’ instructions come into great play, help the student gain basic knowledge as well as language training at classes, improves their expression ability in English and lays a fundamental basis for their English communication" (Shyamlee & Phil, 2012).

References:

• Ghavifekr, S., & Rosdy, W. A. W. (2015). Teaching and learning with technology: Effectiveness of ICT integration in schools. International Journal of Research in Education and Science, 1(2), 175-191. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1105224.pdf 

• Altun, M. (2015). The Integration of Technology into Foreign Language Teaching. International Journal on New Trends in Education and Their Implications, 6(1), 22-27. Retrieved from http://www.ijonte.org/FileUpload/ks63207/File/03a.altun.pdf 

• Shyamlee, S. D., & Phil, M. (2012). Use of technology in English language teaching and learning: An analysis. In International Conference on Language, Medias and Culture, 33 (1),  150-156.