BENEFITS OF USING TECHNOLOGY IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

   - BENEFITS OF USING TECHNOLOGY IN LANGUAGE TEACHING -

   

   Firstly, I would like to say that using technology is inevitable in the 21st century because you can see some sort of useful technological tools everywhere. Day by day, new smartphones, tablets and computers are invented. When you wake up one day morning, you hear that a new brand smartphone is already in sale. With those kind of astonishing improvements, we are never shocked anymore. As I remember, we only had a phone at our home in the past, Right now, everyone has his / her private mobile phone. Even my grandmother has a new brand mobile phone and she is really good at using it. If she creates a Facebook account soon, I will not be shocked as when she starts using her smartphone, you should see this blissfulness on her face. 

   

   Even if this is a good thing so as to benefit from technology itself, it has lots of disadvantages as well. For example; we do not prefer talking face to face anymore. When my mother wants to say something, she just writes to me on Whatsapp or Messenger. What is more, despite the fact that we think that technology makes us sociable, we are getting unsociable and this is the reality itself because our human relations are getting down, down and low just because of technology.

   Besides all these things that I have just talked about, if we look at technology both in education and language teaching, we can see an " uptrend " which is getting popular day by day. In the past, teachers were able to use only blackboards and their course books in class and I call those years, traditional years. As years go by, new devices have come to our classrooms and those technological devices make our classrooms more colorful and interesting. How did those super amazing devices start coming to our classrooms? It's thanks to " developing technology " which has some advantages and disadvantages. In this case, I want to focus on technology with its positive and negative sides. 

   If we look at its benefits, we can count lots of things. For example; technology is both interesting and motivating in language teaching. Using different kind texts, graphics, videos and pictures make your language class unordinary and interesting. Also, using those things above excite your pupils and your pupils will start to be curious about them. For me, one of the best things is that technology promotes independent learning but what is exactly meant by saying " independent learning " ? As Holec (1981) says, independent learning can be thought of as " the ability to take charge of one's learning ". Namely, a student can learn whatever he / she wants thanks to the power of technology. He / she can reach the information immediately and learn how to reach a data or an info during this process. This does not mean working on your own without any supervision or guidance on long term projects, though. Except for those things, students have fun and we can see a change, a variation here. Also, students are more eager to learn and they can stay focused longer during the lessons. In this case, students are not bored. 

   With the help of technology, lessons can be personalized and directed outside the course book as teachers use authentic language materials and students obtain an opportunity of facing those authentic things such as " calendars, newspapers, phone messages, videos & DVDs, E-books, ATM screens, magazines, movies, television programs etc ". As you see, there are so many things and such a modern technology in the classroom allows students to improve abilities needed in their workplaces. Students' critical thinking and research features improve and you know these two abilities are really essential in the 21st century.

   On the other hand, I want to focus on technology's disadvantages in language teaching as well. For example; there could appear technical problems in class and this effects the classroom environment in a negative way. Also, some students can be advanced and some can be slow in class. As a result of this, they may not keep up with one another. For students, there may not be appropriate materials in class. Especially, there are those kind of classrooms in the east of Turkey. When you start working as a teacher, you can see that internet speed is slow. Student profile is also important because imagine that you are a teacher of a mixed classroom. In this mixed classroom, there may not be some students who can understand and speak Turkish language. There are lots of examples of that in the eastern part of Turkey or there may be some students who are lack of IT skills. In this case, all these things have to be taken into account.

   Finally, we understand that technology has a crucial place in language teaching. In the developing world, keeping up with other countries is needful. If we want to achieve this, we should take advantage of technology and start utilizing it from the first step of education. 

HÜSEYİN CAN YÜREKLİ

ELT 3 / B