Technology, ELT and Literature Teaching
by Nikhil Joshi, Lecturer in ‘Language & Communication Skills’, I.T. Dept., G H Patel College of Engineering & Technology, Vallabh Vidyanagar-388120.
Teaching language and teaching literature both are the areas where many things we may find interconnected. Many a times literature can be a source of teaching and learning in Language area or vice versa language study material can help learners of literature to interpret various things in literature.
Mainly teaching of literature has been a classroom talk only and so far as teaching of language is concerned, now a day various experimental tools are being used for teaching and learning in language area. For example, 21st century teachers are aware of web technology and they have launched blog initiatives. They have started using various websites inside the classroom and classroom has expanded beyond the four walls and has peeped into windows through which one can have site seeing around the world what new things are going on. This paper focuses on how various techno forms can help us in teaching of language and literature.
Using blogs teachers can create their own learner community all around the world. Creating a webpage can serve lot of things for a teacher and a learner. Boundaries of a classroom have vanished and the term ‘beyond textbook’ has been in vogue. Of course going beyond textbook opens up new horizons in the era of globalization because today even the learner community is not content only with what teachers do write on black board and rather they are more interested in what teachers do give them to look into windows, means to go through some websites, to watch some video clips, to listen to a song to learn something.
Thus using techno forms may create one’s own classroom as per one’s own wish and perhaps this is what today’s learner is seeking for. In present scenario, it has become prerequisite that learner should be having learner centered view of entire teaching-learning process and moreover he needs to have ‘new age feel’ at every step of learning and all these requirements can be fulfilled only through integration of technology in teaching-learning.
Introduction:
English education began in India during the British rule in India. It is the result of gradual evolution. Today it has become the integrated part of education in India. During the British rule in India, in 1793, William Wilberforce, the famous British philanthropist proposed to take the responsibility of education of Indian people but it was rejected by the East India Company. After few years again in 1813, when the Company’s charter was renewed, that a clause was inserted requiring the Governor-General to devote not less than 100,000 rupees annually to the education of Indians. This clause laid the foundation of English education in India. But at that point of time money was spent mainly on translation of some English works into Sanskrit and Arabic language and some new publication of English books was also encouraged. Later, finally, with the minutes of Macaulay in February, 1835, the western education in India through the medium of English was advocated. Even after the independence, in India, it remained an issue of controversy whether to continue with English education in India or not because along with Gndhiji many other leaders were against the English education in India and Pandit Nehru and many more were favoring the English education in India. Ultimately, in 1950, on 26th January, with the commencement of Indian constitution, it was unanimously decided that English should continue as the official language for fifteen years. And then after even today India is continuing with English education and Indians are able to communicate all around the world through English. If we look at ELT scene in Gujarat especially, even in that case it has remained controversial since the very beginning, since the formation of Gujarat state itself.
ELT Scene in Gujarat:
‘The state of Gujarat came into existence in 1960. Before that it was part of Bombay state. English was introduced at that time from grade 5 but after the formation of Gujarat state, state government felt that teaching of English in Gujarati medium from grade 5 was a great waste. Adequate number of trained teachers of English was not easily available. It was decided by the state government to introduce English teaching from grade 8. the purpose behind this was that by introducing English teaching from grade 8 less number of English teachers would be required. But this decision was not accepted easily by the people and this demand of introducing English teaching from grade 5 was fulfilled by some private schools without expecting government grant against it. Finally, in 1975, government of Gujarat declared English teaching from group 6. Even today English has remained as a compulsory subject only in grade 8-9.’ (Purani, Sinde and Kapadia, 1997)
Learner Factors:
The factor of motivation for learning plays a vital role in learning process on the part of the learners and generally the learners are exposed to text books which do not attract them and ultimately it leads them to withdraw their interest in learning. Prahsnat Mishra says:
‘Learning of mother tongue is an unconscious process. Children learn it from the environment around them. Exposure which takes place in a living, meaningful situation continuously helps the learners internalizing their mother tongue naturally, spontaneously and with ease. But the same children face many difficulties in the learning of a second language…According to Prof. R. P. Bhatnagar, “It is not recognized by students and teachers alike that language is a ‘skill’ subject and that a skill is best acquired by practicing and exercising it and not by being lectured to.” (Bhatnagar R. P. 1993. ‘English Language Teaching in India: The Untold Story’. Vikram Journal of English Studies. Vol.1. July 1993.Ujjain.Awantika Prakashan.) Learning language involves learning its skills-reading, writing, listening and speaking, a student needs some material…many text books fail miserably in creating interest among students. These text books are uninteresting and completely fail in motivating young learners as the lessons and the contents used in them are not related to the culture and environment of the rural learners.’ (Mishra Prashant. 2008. p10-11)
Here are few suggestions by Gajendra S. Chauhan and Binod Misra on what we should do while dealing with ELT:
1- Support the inclusion of local cultural component in teaching of English.
2- Learning must be need based.
3- Success of any program depends on willingness. If the students are
motivated the task of language learning would be easy and entertaining.
4- Classroom environment is an important criterion for language learning.
5- The teacher should instill confidence in the students so that they can
express themselves without inhibition. The teacher should plan more
innovative classroom activities.
6- with his limited resources, the teacher should try some innovation with his
teaching material and methodology, so that he may become more
acceptable and creative among the learners.
7- Course content is another major aspect that plays a remarkable part in
inculcating communication skills among youngsters.
(Chauhan Gajendra S. and Mishra Binod. 2008. p66)
Technology in ELT:
Through out the years since independence in India, ELT has grown up by various means and latest additions have always been inserted in teaching-learning of English in India. As per the era’s demand, today in India, we can surely say that no less improvement has been done in ELT compared to any other field of teaching. Generally language teaching and language learning is to be defined as oral-aural process and apart from that at the most text books were expected to be the helping hand to the earners and the teachers as well. But gone is that time, and in today’s scenario that is not the case with ELT in India. Technology has entered into this area and has helped tremendously to both the learners and the teachers of English. Today’s education has not remained only on the black board and in the text books but it has removed all the boundaries of the classroom teaching-learning and with the help of technology one can teach and learn efficiently and perhaps more effectively. To cite few references here, let’s have a look what goes on:
‘After all our relationship with language is very much like what students experience when learning with technology-working in spaces unbounded by rules and amenable to adaptation and creativity…the teacher who adapt technology for English language teaching as a second language are really benefited. The students I have seen using it really enjoy it and are learning a lot of the academic words they need. Their vocabulary is enriched and they become fluent in English speaking. The audio-visual aids make the classroom environment live and interesting to the students. They can learn English by the direct method and in a very natural way.’ (Dixit Pushpa, 2009, p19)
Thus, technology helps by creating learner’s autonomy and thus indirectly it also provides an opportunity to create a live environment for learning with ease. These days knowledge has arrived at your finger tips just because of technology. Learner can have not only course modules but also course-certificate at home through technology. Various online courses are available today for which learners can enroll staying home and they can have the certificate even from foreign universities at home. So this is possible just because of the use of technology in teaching-learning. ELT in terms of Engineering education and many other disciplines like Medical, Management, Tourism etc. has become a part of soft skills for the learners. Let’s have a look what Majumdar says for ELT in Engineering:
‘Engineers in past were mainly concerned with the technical aspects of engineering commonly known as ‘hard engineering’. Times and roles of engineers have changed and a paradigm shift is perceived. Though formation of technical skills remains the nucleus of any course content, the shift involves a movement towards ‘soft engineering’. (Mujumdar Aarti, 2009, p21)
These days teachers have initiated with their personal websites and blogs and through that they are sharing their teaching all around the world with the help of web technology. Through this, they may have learners from all around the world; they can come to know about needs, views and feedback of learners and experts around the world. So because of the world has become a global village where with little efforts we can share information with another person at any corner in the world; every place is just one click away on the screen of your computer. For ELT, many websites are just waiting to be clicked by the teachers and learners. Apart from that we have been using variety of techno-forms like CD ROMs, Interactive Software, Digital Language Lab, Mobile Technology and many more which have already been inseparable component of teaching-learning in today’s age and so needs no further explanation here.
For instance, there is one site englishmandir.com which gives you the facility of receiving 5 new words every day on your mobile free of cost. The only thing required is to register your cell number with this site.
(At the end of this paper a list of useful websites is attached which would be helpful to the teachers and learners of English language and literature as well.)
Technology in Teaching-Learning of Literature:
Literature teaching generally has remained up to the limits of classroom discussion and classroom interpretations by the teachers most of the time. But the new age classroom needs to go beyond that. An enthusiastic teacher can search for some movies based on literary work and can use that movie in the classroom to arouse the interest of the learners in the literature by screening of such movies. Studies in Psychology also say that the thing being watched remains for a longer time in memory of the person who watches compared to the person who just listens to it. Various encyclopedia of literature are available these days in the form of CD which can be used in the classroom. For instance, encyclopedia on Shakespeare is now easily available in the market so the use of such materials should highly be encouraged in the literature class. This kind of encyclopedia provides the detailed information about literature in the digital form along with appropriate audio-visuals. Many websites are available which offer online forums for discussion on various issues in literature studies.
Promote Online Tasks:
Being a teacher, we must encourage our learners to use technology more and more taking care of one thing and that is promoting use of technology and avoiding abuse of technology. We can give some vocabulary tasks to find out the meanings of the words on websites and not from the dictionary only. We can give them an assignment- project to gather information from internet on some specific topic. We can give them some questions to find out the answers from the websites. It is also possible to assign them a web designing or blog designing task. We can encourage them for e-publishing, by encouraging them to write on some current affairs kind of things for online publication through blogging.
Useful websites:
MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) is hosted by the California State University Center for Distributed Learning and offers a growing collection of online teaching resources from around the world. While anyone can view the online collection, membership (available for free upon registration) gives users rights to post new resources and to comment on existing ones. The focus is on university-level teaching, but many of the resources could be used at the secondary level as well.
EduHound is maintained by T.H.E. Journal (Technological Horizons in Education) and provides a useful classification and listing of a broad range of educational sites. Teacher-related topics such as standards and assessment and educational software are included. T.H.E. Journal is available online and also by free subscription.
EdHelper.com provides links to a large number of online lesson plans organized by subject. It also includes on its entry page a useful set of links to recent articles on education-related subjects.
EDSITEMENT: The Best of the Humanities on the Web is sponsored by the National Endowment of the Humanities and includes an excellent array of NEH websites under the categories of Art and Culture, Literature and Language Arts , Foreign Language, and History and Social Studies.
http://www.britishcouncil.org/arts-literature.htm
http://www.britishcouncil.org/arts-literature-creativereading-eltereading.htm
Learn & Earn:
The greatest feature of today’s age is ‘online earning’. Some workaholic teachers can also search for some options to earn money online using their teaching skills but it requires a little of techno-skills at the same time. Lots of websites are providing this opportunity of online learning and online earning as well. Learners can enroll on such sites for their interest in learning in specific area and can have guidance of experts from any corner of the world through web technology. At the same time, teachers can also go beyond the classroom for maximizing their earnings with the help of such websites which are willing to have services of the expert teachers and in return paying handsome amount for their services through web tools. For example to name one or two: ‘wiziq’ and ‘tutorvista’ are the sites where you can grab this opportunity. Sitting at your place, you can teach the students waiting for you at any place in the world and you can add some amount in your annual income. Isn’t it interesting?
Reform Required:
In the field of education, these days various reforms are taking place and through that teachers’ skills are getting upgraded but even after that so far as English teachers are concerned, it is believed that they are not expected to do anything with technology and they should be focused only on language teaching through various techniques, approaches and methods already suggested by the linguistics. This is totally unfair belief and English teachers themselves do need to come up with new technologies in their teaching. What National Knowledge Commission says in this regard is as following:
‘The current curriculum should be modified to provide greater flexibility, interdisciplinary perspective and choice of electives. The focus in the teaching/learning process should be on integrating skills such as problem solving and logical reasoning, process orientation, learning ability, English communication and programming fundamentals. Industry participation to discuss real life case studies should be encouraged. Laboratory courses must be revamped to develop a healthy attitude towards experimental work. Environment must be created to encourage students to participate in co-curricular activities.’ (Pitroda Sam, 2008, NKC web)
Conclusion:
To sum with this paper, we can surely say that use of technology really helps by various means in education. But unfortunately especially English teacher community needs to come out of the illusion that they are supposed to deal with text books and blackboard to educate their learners because new age learner is no more attracted to such conventional teaching. Today’s learner is more likely to favor the teacher who uses techno-forms in his teaching. So it becomes essential to master at least few of the new techniques of teaching along with technology in the classroom and outside the classroom too. Every teacher should have at least his website or blog where he can keep in touch with his learners through some online uploaded information. Teachers can also give some online assignments to the learners because that is also very much required to motivate learners to use such technology elements in their day-to-day life.
Following is a list of useful websites to share with academicians: (hope this would add into the use of web technology for teaching-learning.)
References:
Books:
1- Aslam Mohammad. 2003. Teaching of English. Foundation Books: New Delhi.
2- Purani T. J., Kapadia S. T. and Sinde G. B. 1997. English Language Teaching-Methods & Approaches. Anada Book Depot: Ahmedabad.
Journals:
3- Dixit Pushpa. (2009) Use of Technology in English Language Learning. Technology in ELT (Vol.1, Issue-1, Jan.2009. 16-19)
4- Mujumdar Aarti R. (2009) The changing Paradigm: Developing Learner Autonomy Through Technology. Technology in ELT (Vol.1, Issue-1, Jan.2009. 20-25)
5- Mishra Prashant. (2008) English Language Teaching in India: Issues, Challenges and Strategies in the Rural Context. ELT Quarterly (vol.7, No.1-2, Sept.2008. 10-14)
6- Chauhan Gajendra S. and Mishra Binod. (2008) Teaching English in Rural India: Looking Beyond the English Text Book. ELT Quarterly (Vol.7, No.1-2, Sept. 2008. 63-68)
Websites:
7- Pitroda Sam, National Knowledge Commission’s website #http://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/recommendations/engineer.asp
8- http://www.amityfoundation.org/page.php?page=112#literature
9- http://www.camden.rutgers.edu/~wood/edwebsites.htm
11- http://www.literacy.uconn.edu/adlthome.htm
13- http://www.springerlink.com/content/l3552t223698k605/
14- http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ctitext2/publish/occas/eurolit/porter.html
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