Technology in Language Teaching

Nowadays use of technology help us to communicate easily and faster than in the past. So, we need to make use of it to achieve our goals. Almost all population use cellphones, laptops, computers, etc. these tools could help us to learn a new language, even how to play a guitar, how to cook or anything that we want. But I´m going to talk about learning a new language, using technology and some benefits about it.

>>> Interaction between teachers and students
Technology helps all the participants in the learning to keep in touch. Some teachers provide some information by e-mail, or using platforms online to practice. It´s very helpful for students when they have doubts because they can use internet or ask directly to their teachers about it.

>>> Develop of skills
As learners we know that not everybody learn in the same way like us. There are audio-visual leraners, audio learners, visual learners, people who learn by writing, people who need to speak to understand, and so on. All these kind of learners are different so, teachers need to have in mind in order to help them. Use of techonology benefits to learners because they can interact with different exercices, like audios, readings, games, etc. Use of technology is an advantage to teachers and learners because the attention is focus on the learning language and the materials for students.

 >>>Apps
There are many apps that everybody can download and start to use it in order to learn a new language. Exist free apps and you don´t need to pay for it, so you can improve the level of your target language. The important point about use an app to learn a language is that you should be a constant person, determined and motivated to achieve your goals.

    Here there are some examples to help you to improve your level of language. These can use it for teachers and learners:

- Lyrics songs: To improve your pronuntiation and stress.
- Movies and series: To acquire vocabulary, structures, idioms and slangs.
- Records: To improve fluency speech and self-assessment.

A brief history of Language Teaching

Changes in the language teaching methods throughout history have reflected recognition of changes in the kind of proficiency learners need, such as move toward oral proficiency rather than reading comprehension as the goal of language study.

It has been estimated that some 60% of today´s population is multilingual. To say that throughout history foreign language learning has always been an important practical concern.

The grammar translation method was in fact first known in the United States as the Prussian Method.

The goal is to learn a language in order to benefit from mental discipline and intellectual development, is a way of studying a language analysis of its grammar rules. Reading and writing are the mayor focus, vocabulary selection is based on the reading texts used, and words are taught through bilingual word lists, dictionary and memorization.

The sentence is the basic unit of teaching and language practice to translating sentences into and out of the target language, and it is this focus on the sentence that is a distinctive feature of the method, the accuracy is emphasized, the grammat is taught deductively, and the student´s native language is the medium of instruction.

To conclude, the Language Teaching  methods had changed even though until now is not a specific method to teach a language. That´s because the methods used before had some weak points. However, all these methods have been used for a long time and were usefull for people in the past. Nowadays, these methods are complemented with new ones, that´s because people change and all around us change too.

Diana Escalante
Mónica Aimé

Bibliography:

Howatt, A. P. R. 1984.  A History of English Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

WHO I AM?

Hi everyone! I´m Aime Almighty and I´m studying ELT. I love animals, my favorite animals are the dogs and the lion. I have two male dogs, their names are Blue and Peter. They are 10 years old.
     One of my favorite hobbies is cook. I usually make desserts like cookies, cakes, pies and things like that. I think I´m good, until now nobody is dead.
I like so much watching movies, series and cartoons. I love it!

Thanks for your comments and have a nice day! =)