ELTWeekly Vol. 4 Issue 47
ELTWeekly Vol. 4 Issue#47 | November 19, 2012 | ISSN 0975-3036 Video: How to Teach Listening Skills in the ESL Classroom Article: ‘Shopping Mysterious Items in an Unfamiliar Language’ by Rolf…
ELTWeekly Vol. 4 Issue#47 | November 19, 2012 | ISSN 0975-3036 Video: How to Teach Listening Skills in the ESL Classroom Article: ‘Shopping Mysterious Items in an Unfamiliar Language’ by Rolf…
Today the researchers and philosophers are emphasizing the need for all learners to master what they call “21st century skills”. These skills are central to another goal for learners in the technology-filled lives they may face: media, technological, and information literacy and being able to choose, interact with, and produce technology-based media. So, this study aims to tell us how well to use computers or in other words technology in second and foreign language instruction; because the power of the machine lies in how well it gets used and integrated into the daily classroom activities. And also tells us about the most useful technological tools for teaching language skills in EFL classes. I tried to find out the answers to these research questions by the use of technology-based teaching methods for about one month in a high school and also I had an interview with an English teacher to get her opinions, too. It should be mentioned that in this study some factors such as gender, background knowledge, etc were not taken into account. Besides these the results of the study revealed that EFL teachers who use technology mostly in teaching English are more successful than those who use the traditional methods which aren't technology-based ones. So in order to succeed teachers should use many types of computer technologies in schools.
Prior to inviting foreign-language learners to engage in traditional communicative activities, i.e. tasks that require them to move around in the classroom and ask their classmates specific questions, teachers usually pre-teach the new vocabulary. Common teaching techniques used include mime, pictures, and translation of foreign-language words into the learners’ mother tongue. The meaning of new words are sometimes prompted by using carefully designed sentences that help learners make correct inferences and by encouraging them to look for cognate words that may exist in the foreign language and their mother tongue. Furthermore, learners may be asked to use dictionaries (whether physical or online versions) to find out what the new words mean. (For more examples of ways to pre-teach vocabulary, see Nation 2008.)