ІI Международная научно-практическая конференция
«Наука и образование без границ – 2011»
Сроки
проведения: 07-15.12.2011
Филологические науки/Методика
преподавания языка и литературы
V. Ishchenko (PhD, Associate
Professor), V. Artiukh(PhD, Associate Professor)
Poltava University of
Economics and Trade, Ukraine
Integration of Information
Technology in Teaching English for Specific Purposes
The incorporation of technology into teaching and research is one of the
most important challenges for education today. It is time to move beyond the
walls of our classrooms to join forces with other institutions and societies to
revitalize education. The present paper focuses on the use of technology in
teaching learning process that will greatly contribute to meeting student needs
for learning anywhere, anytime.
Computer-assisted language
learning (CALL) is generally defined as "the search for and study of applications of
the computer in language teaching and learning". CALL embraces a wide
range of ICT applications and approaches to teaching and learning foreign
languages, from the "traditional" drill-and-practice programs that
characterized CALL in the 1960s and 1970s to more recent manifestations of
CALL, e.g. as used in a virtual
learning environment and Web-based distance learning. It also extends to the
use of corpora and concordances, interactive
whiteboards, Computer-mediated communication (CMC), language learning in virtual worlds and
Mobile-assisted language learning (MALL).
The current philosophy of CALL
puts a strong emphasis on student-centered materials that allow learners to
work on their own. Such materials may be structured or unstructured, but they
normally embody two important features: interactive learning and individualized
learning. CALL is essentially a tool that helps teachers to facilitate the
language learning process. It can be used to reinforce what has been already
been learned in the classroom or as a remedial tool to help learners who
require additional support.
According to several authors
the use of CALL (Computer Aided Language Learning) should be integrated within
the rest of the language teaching syllabus, so that this type of instruction
becomes an efficient complement for the enrichment of learning and teaching. In
agreement with this view, in our institution Information Technology (IT) is
used as a part of practical sessions, and integrated within the ESP syllabus.
The aim is that those contents practiced via new technologies are an integral
part of the syllabus through the use of three principal tools: 1)
Interactive multimedia language courses; 2) Listening comprehension exercises; 3)
The World Wide Web. Use is made of previously selected websites on the basis of
their linguistic and content interest relevance. Therefore, along the line of
task-based learning and the importance of formation as opposed to the mere
delivery of information, it is possible to analyze the application of
Information Technologies to Language Teaching, in order to design and develop
learning tasks which effectively help the student in the process of
self-learning a foreign language.
Multimedia and hypertextual
formats when delivering information bring about two decisive aspects in the improvement of the learning-teaching process: a
learner-centered approach, and the importance of the process (as opposed to the
mere product) of learning. Actually, as it was pointed out learning is
considered as a journey, rather than a mere destination.
The practical framework which
gives rise to the didactic experience presented here has several benefits. The
benefits for students are as follows: a) they learn how to do things with the
Internet, a tool which is already basic in their lives, and will be even more
so in their professional world; b) they will practice the foreign language in
contexts which have been labeled as relevant by their content teachers. The benefits
for ESP teachers are: a) they will find their teaching tasks and materials
justified, thus increasing motivation to use them in a meaningful way for
communication; b) they will certainly learn from their colleagues. And finally
the benefits for the institution include: a) more integration; b) better
quality teaching; c) better prepared students.
The use of the new IT to the
teaching of languages for specific purposes, which we encourage, should involve
three major didactic characteristics which are crucial in ESP:
1) It is learner-centered, because it focuses
on specific learning needs, and also because it is able to take the students’
opinions and views into account.
2) It is teacher-centered, because the views
of both kinds of teachers are considered and implemented, thus enriching the
limited technical knowledge of language teachers (and similarly, the limited
linguistic knowledge of content teachers).
3) It is content-based, and thus the tasks
and materials are more generally meaningful and relevant to the students’
specific field of study. In addition, the language syllabus is made more
pertinent to the rest of the curriculum.
Thus,
the influence of IT in education cannot be underestimated. It is rightly said,
‘an able teacher needs to find ways and means to improve his/her teaching
techniques – using IT is one of them.’ Educational Innovations certainly do not
come about automatically. They have to be invented, planned, initiated and
implemented in a way that will make educational practices more adequately
geared to the changing objectives of instruction and make them more consistent
with changing standards of instruction.
References
1. Allan J. (1999), The
online learning handbook in developing and using web based learning. Oxford
press.