E-LEARNING IN ENGLISH TEACHING
E-LEARNING IN ENGLISH TEACHING
A PAPER
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Thanks to God and we always pray to Allah
SWT who has given grace and His gift and merciful to us so we are able to
finish and complete the paper on time based on our lesson SEMINAR ON TEFL.
This paper contains information about E-LEARNING IN ENGLISH TEACHING as our focus material in the 5th semester at State
Islamic College Jurai Siwo Metro and it is as our examination.
We realize
that this paper is far from perfect, therefore criticism
and suggestions from all stakeholders that are built for the perfection we
always hope for it.
Finally,
we say thank you to all those who have participated in the preparation of this
paper from beginning to end. May Allah
always be pleased with all our efforts and it can be used for others.
Special
thanks to our beloved lecturer Ahmad Madkur, M. Pd who has teaches us in the fifth semester
and this paper is dedicated to him.
Metro, October 2015
The Writer
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of Study
In
this term, the writers discuss about E-learning in English Teaching. Before we
discuss about E-Learning in English Teaching, we have to know what the
definition of E-Learning itself. Aaccording
to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, electronic is having or using many
small parts, such as microchips, that
control and direct a small electric current. So, we can conclude that e-learning is any
process of learning that uses electronic
tools.[1]
In addition, Hallkett pointed out that E-learning
is a modern method in learning which provides learning opportunities to enhance
knowledge and skill through internet and computer networks and has turned the
nature of knowledge acquisition from teaching to learning.[2]
Furthermore, Amin states that E-Learning is a
method of learning which has taken form on the basis of application of
information technology and computer networks.[3]
And
than, The term “e-learning” originates from electronically-assisted learning,
or learning with and through the use of technologies. Other commonly used terms
include online learning, computer-assisted learning or ICT (information and
communication technology) in education. e-Learning incorporates both content
(curriculum) and instruction (pedagogy). Today E-Learning is dependent on
web-based education and computer networks. Today internet literacy is a
necessity as was computer literacy ten years ago.[4]
After
that, educational technology is affective use of tehecnological tools in
learning. As a concept, it corcerns an array of tools, such as media, machines
and networking hardware, as well as considering underlying theoretical
prespectives for their effective application.[5]
Also,
educational technology is not restricted to high technology. Nonetheless,
electronic-educational technology, also caled e-learning, has become an
important part of society today, comprising an extensive and delivery methods.
For example, m-learning emphasizes mobility, but is otherwise indistinguishable
in prrinciple from educational technology.[6]
Based on the explanation above, the
writers conclude that e-learning is learning facilitated by the use of digital tools and content to
improve studend understanding about lesson given by the teacher.
CHAPTER II
DISCUSSION
1. HISTORY OF E-LEARNING IN ENGLISH TEACHING
What factor or
factors causes a person to accept a new technology? Do these factors merely
depend on features of the technology itself? Do characteristics of people have
an impact on this acceptance? Regarding fast growth in computer use in
organizations, in recent decade's information technology has had relationships
with almost all aspects of our lives.[7]
a.
Past Trends in
Teaching English
Language teaching
in general and English Language Teaching (ELT) in particular has tremendously
changed over the centuries. When English entered in the curriculum of the students
as a compulsory subject, it was a challenge for the English language teachers
to teach to the foreign learners but they taught English as a ‘Know-ledge’
subject not as a ‘Skill’ subject because their main aim was to teach them to
pass the examinations only. So they adopted ‘Grammar-Translation Method’ in
which the teacher used to explain every word to students in the native language
to make them understand and learn English. Despite the fact that this method
ignores the development of oral proficiency of the learners, it is still
popular with majority teachers in the modified form. So many other methods were
also used such as bilingual method, direct method, audio-lingual method, the
structural approach and the situational teaching, communicative language
teaching etc. but no method was said to be a perfect method. Since then ELT
seems to be swinging like a pendulum between the extremes of method as language
teachers have ever been in search of better and more effective method of teaching. Moreover, the ELT trends that
were very popular in the past have vanished today and have been substituted by
innovative ELT methods.
b. Present Trends in Teaching English
The 21st century
confronts its citizenship with new choices, opportunities and challenges due to
the all-pervading technology into all spheres of life. In this era, the
educational institutions cannot remain mere venues for the transmission of a
prescribed set of information from teacher to student over a fixed period of
time rather the educational institutions must promote “learning to learn” i.e.
the acquisition of knowledge and skills that make possible continuous learning
over the lifetime. So it becomes the responsibility of the teachers to shape up
accordingly to meet the demands of the day.[8]
The need of the day
is to equip people with proficiency in the English language and this is possible
only with a proper blend of edification and e-learning tools (modern
technologies). Traditional teaching and learning paradigms have been shaken by
the impact of the integration of e-learning tools into educational practices. E-learning
is a diverse range of technological tools and systems that can be utilized by capable
and creative teachers to enhance teaching and learning situations. These are
used to make learning more interesting, motivating, stimulating and meaningful
to the students. These tools have been touted as potentially powerful enabling
tools for educational change and reform as they are making marked inroads into
the combination of digital technologies and English language learning.
2.
Challanges And Strategy
E-Lerning In Teaching English
A wide array of these challenges
and strategies can broadly be categorized in three areas: technical, administrative and academic or pedagogical.
a.
Technical
Challenges
There are several technical challenges that hamper the
teacher’ as well as students’ activities in an e-learning environment. “Lack
of basic technical skills” of both students and teachers alike came up as
the most frequently cited technical challenge.[9]
These are technical challenges in the school that apply
e-learning in teaching, An unexpected technical issue. For example, in a listening exam, the
student complain about a few seconds crash of an audio cassette. Some other challenges reported are “crashing
of system, fluctuation of electricity, slow internet, files corruption,
suitable programmes not being installed like graphics, animation or
media players, etc”. The writer suggested arranging extra classes or training
workshops for both students and teachers to get the maximum advantage of
e-learning.
b. Administrative Challenges
Administering an activity or an assessment which requires
technological infrastructure is another significant challenge identified by the
writers. “Lack of e-learning resources for all classrooms” and “lack
of full-time staff to monitor the electronic equipments” are the main
challenges cited in this regard. “limited in the availability of resources
to use e-learning”, which also makes it “hard to integrate e-learning
into curriculum”. As a strategy, the writers suggested that teachers “must
make sure an adequate amount of classroom and independent e-learning is
used in advance of an electronic-based assessment.[10]
c. Pedagogical or Academic
Challenges
The challenges of the above mentioned two categories,
i.e., technical and administrative, make the task of language pedagogy more
challenging. “teachers’ lack of knowledge to design language tasks with
technology and lack of confidence to use technology while teaching” came up
strongly as basic pedagogical challenges that need to be addressed to enhance e-learning
application in classroom-based language teaching. Teacher reported “spending
a substantial amount of time and effort restructuring web-based language
activities to adopt for online delivery for students with very limited
educational background and digital competencies”. This sometimes
goes at the expenses of focusing building the target language skills. The
subjects strongly recommended building the teacher and the student ICT (information and communication technologies)
skills and adding up the preparation of e-learning resources in order to facilitate
language educators in multitude of ways such as designing web-based language
activities, tailoring language tasks to suit module learning outcomes,
assessing students’ language skills electronically, etc.[11]
Another challenge reported is “the extent to which
quality e-contents can be developed and integrated into curriculum”.
The study found that though “technology can be integrated into any
curriculum to quite a depth”, this area is yet to be explored which
presents scope for future research. The participants recommended a
“blended form of learning” which equips traditional language teachers with a
variety of e-learning tools such as Discussion Boards, Classroom Response
System (CRS), Voting Pads, Moodle/Virtual Learning Environment, Blogs, etc.
Students only need, in a teacher’s words, “quite a bit of
encouragement to actually use these technological sophistications and teachers
need a bit of momentum built up on them before they become an integral part
of learning process”. The following graph shows percentage of responses.
3.
Use Of
E-Learning Tools Of In Teaching English
a. Internet
Internet is not
merely a source of authentic material in English but also a source of information
in the form of articles, courses, conferences and many more. The teacher can send
assignments to the students through e-mails and can also take online exams.
Parents can view their children's work online at any time. Students do not miss
their lessons as now they can see a web cam version online and get worksheets and
notes from electronic online whiteboards. Schools are linked in a network and
work on projects together and prepare materials online. Every school has got
its own website. Many software are also available on Internet that students can
use free of cost. Spelling Bee is one of those an internet resources which
helps the students to spell English words. The teacher can also choose the
level of difficulty that s/he wants to train to his/her students.[12]
b. Using YouTube
YouTube videos can
be used in an ELT classroom for various aspects of English as to enhance
vocabulary, accents, pronunciations, voice modulation and many more. The real advantage
of using YouTube in teaching English is that it offers authentic examples of everyday
English used by everyday people. The teacher can use it as a tool for improving
their Listening and Speaking, Reading and Writing skills. The teacher can
select a part of the movie appropriate to the level of the students and s/he
can show those movie clippings to the students. For the first time, s/he can
mute the volume and ask the students to watch the movie attentively. Later s/he
can ask the students to watch the movie once again and this time s/he can ask
the students to frame the dialogues of the movie clippings simultaneously. This
will improve their speaking skills. Another activity to enhance their speaking
skills can be: the teacher can show a selected part of the movie to the
students and further ask them to narrate the rest of the story of the movie or
the climax of the movie. This will add to their creativity as well as their
speech.[13]
The teacher can
also prepare worksheets on the movie clippings in advance and ask the students
to complete those worksheets while watching movies. This can prove a good
activity to enhance their listening and writing skills. The teacher can also
ask the students to write a paragraph related to the movie as: “If I were the
hero of the movie…………….” Or “What, according to you, should be the title of the
movie?” Listening skills can also be enhanced through YouTube as news headlines
are available to watch on YouTube. As the news is summarized very quickly (in
the first minute for the video below), the teacher can ask students to listen
to the news headlines and put those headlines in order (where they will have
the headlines on a handout).
c. Skype
Using Skype
provides unlimited possibilities for the teachers and students to collaborate
with each other anywhere in the world. It provides immense opportunities for
the students in a foreign language class to connect with classes in other
countries to practice their language skills. Through Skype the teachers can
provide mentoring or homework help to the learners. The Students can read,
present, or perform for other students and also collaborate with other students
on writing or research projects. They can also participate in professional development
activities within or outside the school district.[14]
d. Twitter
Twitter, a gift of
Technology, is a social networking application that could help in improving students’
English to a greater extent. As an online education technology tool, twitter’s
impact on engaging students in learning concepts is unlimited. The teacher can
use a dozen activities for using an online education technology tool to engage
students in classroom activities to develop a better understanding of concepts.
The teacher can select any genre for the story and begin the activity with a
story opener which is tweeted to the students for contribution to the story
line. Once all twitter network participants have contributed to the development
of the story line, the teacher can analyze their work. This involves editing,
story structure, creative writing, and proper use of grammar. The teacher can
ask the students to select a word of the week and tweet it around the network requesting
synonyms, homonyms, and antonyms of the word. Once all responses are received,
the teacher can check them for accuracy and develop a link of the difficult
words for strengthening the vocabulary of the students. The teacher can also
conduct Online Debates through Twitter. It can be done with the students of the
same classroom or the students of the different classrooms on the class twitter
network. Examples include “Pen is mightier than sword”, impact of fast food
restaurants on health issue, and many more.[15]
e. Smart-boards
Interactive
whiteboards are good replacements for traditional whiteboards or flipcharts as they
provide ways to show students everything which can be presented on a computer's
desktop (educational software, web sites, and others). SMART boards help
teachers use a student-centered approach to teach language arts. Language arts
teachers can use SMART Boards to improve reading and comprehension, and teach
grammar and writing. With a SMART Board, teachers can combine video, audio, Web
browsing and word processing to teach students interactively. The teacher can
use smart board to enhance students’ language skills in play way method. For
e.g. ‘Pictogram' (Draw a picture and guess the word) can be played. With
younger learners spelling races are very popular. Word games are an excellent
way of settling classes and revising vocabulary. S/he can use anagrams or
jumbled sentences for the Learners or s/he can also ask the synonyms or
antonyms or the lexis or collocation words.
The teacher can use
different colours when writing. For eg. While teaching grammar the teacher can
use the Blue colour pen for the nouns, the Yellow colour for the verbs, the Red
colour for the adjectives and the Green colour adverbs. For e.g.: The young
(Red Colour) boy (BLUE) jumped (Yellow Colour) from the tall (Red Colour) tree
(Blue Colour) quickly (Green Colour).
f. Mobile Phones
The use of mobile
phones as a learning tool has a wide variety of applications. The teacher can
ask the students to make a photo documentary using the camera function on their
mobile phones. The teacher can assign a theme for the documentary to the
students.[16]
After taking a sufficient number of photos, the students can upload the documentaries
prepared by them to websites such as Flicker and type narrative descriptions
for each picture to share with their teachers, classmates, family and friends.
Instead of taking out a dictionary, the students can simply use their
translator, and instead of trawling through books for a piece of literature, they
can find the book online books and be directed to a specific word.
g. Podcasting
Today the students
are listening to news clips, music, and video clips via the Web. They are no
longer watching movies at the theatre or on the TV, they are watching via
computers and hand held DVD players. The teacher can reach to these students in
one new way i.e. through podcasts. A podcast is a series of digital-media files
which are distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on
portable media players and computers. Utilizing podcasts in the classroom is
very easy. The teacher can download many free ESL podcasts on the Internet to
use in class. S/he can assign a podcast assignment for homework and form a discussion
on the topic the next day. The teacher can also assign a music podcast that introduces
students to the culture as well as how the language is often used creatively or
the news channels through which the student can also learn the use of
intonation and stress.[17]
h.
Blog
Blogging has become
increasingly popular, especially in the realm of education as they are a great
way to share information and generate discussion. Instead of text books and
traditional methods, many educators prefer using these new techniques to help
teach students and gain experience with various forms of social media. Setting
up a course blog doesn't have to be complicated. Educators can use a free
platform such as Blogspot, Wordpress, or Tumblr to host the blog. Nowadays,
blogs can also display photos and some people are using them with audio and
even video, The teacher should encourage the students to visit blog frequently.
S/he should respond to student posts quickly, writing a short comment related
to the content S/he should also ask questions about what the learner writes to
create stimulus for writing. Writing to the blog could be required, and it may
form part of the class assessment. Students should be encouraged to post their
writing homework on the blog instead of only giving it to the teacher.[18]
4. Advantages Of E-Learning In Teaching English
Some of the advantages of the use of VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) are indisputable and obvious. They
stem from the opportunities offered by this type of systems. The report
examines only the benefits for students, not for the teachers and for the
training organizations. The advantages of e-learning for foreign language
training can be considered in several aspects: general advantages of
e-learning, opportunities for collective work and development of communication
skills. As the first group can be assigned the following (Definitions of
e-learning, 2004):[19]
·
Student can study anywhere as long as there is access to
a computer with internet connection;
·
They can work at own pace;
·
User can accommodate different learning styles through
different activities;
·
Flexibility to join discussions any hour of the day;
·
E-learning is cost effective.
E-learning also offers individualized instruction, which print media,
cannot provide, and instructor-led courses allow clumsily and at great cost. In
conjunction with assessing needs, elearning can target specific needs. And by
using learning style tests, e-learning can locate and target individual
learning preferences. Additionally, synchronous e-learning is self-paced. Advanced
learners are allowed to speed through or bypass instruction that is redundant
while
novices slow their
own progress through content, eliminating frustration with themselves, their fellow
learners, and the course.
5. Disadvantages Of E-Learning In Teaching English
The disadvantages of e-learning training are represented from different
aspects by the authors. Some of them concern strategies for distance e-learning
without the use of traditional forms of lectures and practical exercises. In
this aspect can be mentioned the following shortcomings:[20]
·
Lack of personal community and connection (not for
blended learning);
·
Its a banking model of education (which is partially
inevitable);
·
Not necessary based on the best science regarding How
People Learn;
·
Tech, toys, and teaching over learning;
·
Focus on memorization over learning core competencies;
·
Better aligning of incentives of teachers and learners;
·
Downtime plus mobile as well as “play” are issues to
consider as well;
·
Underutilized talents and facilities;
·
No way to ground social networking and web 2.0 tools;
For the student, several disadvantages exist in the virtual classroom.
According to Burbles (2004) “hidden barriers to access” of a virtual classroom
to students; there are limitations of making an online course accessible to
all. Some communication tools may not suit some students; for example, the
streaming of audio cannot be heard by a hearing impaired student and thus this tool
is not accessible to all.[21]
CHAPTER III
CONCLUSION
As English has turned into a universal language, its presence and value in
the world has expanded enormously in the past decades. But if language teachers
teach as they taught earlier, then the required goals of learning English Language
may not be achieved in the present global scenario. In the past, no productive,
creative and constructive activity was given to the learners to develop the
four language skills. With the changing needs of the hour (time), technology is
developing day-by-day. We are living in the 21st century and it is the age of
technological advancement. Thus the recent trend in teaching English is the use
of modern technological tools as English language teaching has been affected a
lot with the availability of these tools.
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