When I was a college student in Xi’an Foreign Language University in 1995, the audio-tape was the perfect medium for the audio-lingual method, which helps students perform the dreaded repetition drills.
I am so envious of nowadays language students because there are more kinds of technologies offer learners maximum opportunity to interact within meaning-rich contexts through which they construct and acquire competence in the language.
With the advent of networked multimedia computing and the Internet, language teachers throughout the world have been warming up to using computers in the language classroom. The audio-tape is non-Internet technology tools which is also very useful aids for the language student and teacher.
As an English teacher, we now seek not only to teach students the rules of grammar, but rather to help them gain apprenticeship into new discourse communities. This is accomplished through creating opportunities for authentic and meaningful interaction both within and outside the classroom, and providing students the tools for their own social, cultural, and linguistic exploration.
In sum, I think technology assists language teaching in class and different technology can provide different environment for different levels of students.
I also remember my experience with learning a foreign language as being more focused on drills than meaningful communication. I think having this experience made me more willing to embrace communicative language teaching and technologies that can promote interaction and dynamic learning. Maybe without our experience with the “dreaded” drills, we would be less aware of how important meaningful interaction and communication in a target language is. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a collge student, we listened to the radio (VOA and BBC) and the tape. Nowsdays, the new generations of English learners have so many choices. But some of them seem to be at a loss at what to do. Teachers' guide and help are important to make English learning effective. Your students are lucky to have you as their teacher.
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