Vol. 4 Issue 47 – Research Paper: 'The Use of Technology in Teaching English as a Foreign Language in Secondary Schools of Iran' by Dr. Fatemeh Alipanahi

** This paper is submitted by Dr. Fatemeh Alipanahi, Assistant Professor of Islamic Azad University, Zanjan Branch (Fall 2012).

Abstract

Today the researchers and philosophers are emphasizing the need for all learners to master what they call “21st century skills”. These skills are central to another goal for learners in the technology-filled lives they may face: media, technological, and information literacy and being able to choose, interact with, and produce technology-based media. So, this study aims to tell us how well to use computers or in other words technology in second and foreign language instruction; because the power of the machine lies in how well it gets used and integrated into the daily classroom activities. And also tells us about the most useful technological tools for teaching language skills in EFL classes. I tried to find out the answers to these research questions by the use of technology-based teaching methods for about one month in a high school and also I had an interview with an English teacher to get her opinions, too. It should be mentioned that in this study some factors such as gender, background knowledge, etc were not taken into account. Besides these the results of the study revealed that EFL teachers who use technology mostly in teaching English are more successful than those who use the traditional methods which aren’t technology-based ones. So in order to succeed teachers should use many types of computer technologies in schools.

    Key words: technology, EFL teaching, secondary schools

Introduction

In  the  last  three  decades  there  have  been  great  changes  in the education landscape  in  the economically advanced  countries. For example,  increasing  access  to higher  education has  resulted  in  a diversification of  student populations  that  comes with  a wide  range  of  learning  styles  and  learning  needs which  are  rather  different from  the  traditional student populations. Some policy makers see digital technology as  a  tool  to  help manage  some  of  these  changes,  and  in  particular,  to  use  it  as  a transformative tool in teaching and learning (Crook & Light, 1999).

In order to help students to reach their full potential, teachers must consider learning goals – the personal goals that students have for language study. Within  any  classroom, students will have a variety of reasons for learning an additional language (and a variety of backgrounds,  abilities,  and  motivations  that  they  bring  to  the  task).  These reasons can range from simply desiring to read a text in its original language to passing a professional test in the foreign language. Throughout the education literature, researchers and philosophers are emphasizing the need for all learners to master what they call “21st century skills” (Egbert, 2005; Learning Point Associates, 2003). These include: 1-Knowledge acquisition, 2-Problem-solving, 3-Critical thinking, 4-Production, 5-Inquiry, 6-Communication, 7-Creative thinking.

These skills are central to another goal for learners in the technology-filled lives they may face: media, technological, and information literacy and being able to choose, interact with, and produce technology-based media. Scholars contend that, without these 21st century skills, our learners will not be prepared for their futures outside of our classrooms. More  and more  enterprises,  especially  foreign  invested  ones,  require  applicants  to have both adequate English proficiency as  is usually demonstrated by passing  the national  College  English  Tests  (CET-4  and/or  CET-6),  and  a  new  literacy  termed  “electronic literacy” (Shetzer, Warschauer, 2000). This mainly involves the ability to use computers and the Internet for on-line information search and electronic communication. The urgent need to prepare students for these future challenges has made it a priority to incorporate technology into university English teaching programs.  This kind of integrated teaching demands new ways of organizing the classroom. As  for  the  effects  on  students’  learning  performance,  those most  widely reported  include  facilitating  authentic  and  purposeful  communication,  improving  students’ awareness of readers and fostering  learners’ critical  thinking and problem-solving abilities(Warschauer et al., 2000).

In our country, realizing the urgent need to help students develop the new literacy skills, the educational system has started to integrate technology in our schools. However, this is not a very easy task because of lots of economical problems that we have. The high cost of hardware,  software,  connection  charges,  plus  technical  glitches  like  machine  breakdowns  and  slow  transmission speed makes  it difficult. The campaign is also slowed down by unfavorable educational factors, such as rigid curricula,  exam-oriented  teaching  approach,  and  teachers’  lack  of  training  in computer literacy  and  language  teaching

Literature review                                                                                                         

In Iran, a few similar researches have done among Iranian students one of which investigates the level of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) use in teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) and it explores the effect of EFL teachers’ personal and technology-related characteristics in ICT use in English classes. The results revealed that digital portable devices were used more than computer or network tools in English classes and teachers used technology most frequently in teaching oral skills. It was also found that ICT use correlated inversely with teachers’ age, years of teaching experience, and computer anxiety. (Rahimi, Yadollahi, 2011).

Statement of purpose                                                                                                 

This study aims to tell us how well to use computers or in other words technology in second and foreign language instruction; because the power of the machine lies in how well it gets used and integrated into the daily classroom activities. And also tells us about the most useful technological tools for teaching language skills in EFL classes.

Research questions

1) What are the most useful technological tools for teaching language skills in EFL classes in Iran?

2) How well to use computers or in other words technology in second and foreign language instruction?

Methodology           

Participants

The participants were 20 high school students. Ten of them were selected from a co-educational school that they were five male and five female students which I considered as a control group and ten of them were selected from girls’ school that were supposed as experimental group. All the participants were aged between 13-15 years old.

Procedures

For about one month I tried teaching dialogues and vocabulary to the experimental group by the use of certain software and bringing video projectors and laptop to the class. On the other hand, during this time I didn’t use any technological tools in teaching the same subjects to the control group (co-educational ones). Then the Participants were asked to be prepared for a final oral exam. The items covered whole book materials to compare the students’   competence in technology-based parts in both groups.

Interview

Besides these I asked one of my friend’s ideas about “The use of technology in teaching English as a foreign language in secondary schools of Iran”

“English is an international language. So, it is important that students all over the world become familiar with it. I think teaching English in Iran is not systematic. The textbooks are not up to date; we use the old-fashioned books that were written about 30 years ago, with some boring topics and unappealing pictures. Because of this, Iranian students are not able to speak English and use it in different situations even after they are graduated.

The teachers didn’t use any technologies in teaching English in the past. But in recent years, some teachers, especially young teachers, use simple or even modern technologies such as computers, smart boards, video projectors, etc. in their teaching process.

In my opinion young teachers are more creative than the old teachers who are in the last years of teaching, because they are energetic and they don’t afraid of changing the method of their teaching or using new devices in the classes.

Nevertheless, there are two major problems in teaching English in Iran. First of all, there aren’t enough modern and effective devices in the classes. Most of the Iranian schools, especially in small towns or in the villages, have just a chalkboard. They don’t even have a cassette player to use it for teaching.

The second problem is about the teachers. There are a few experienced teachers who are familiar with the new technologies. Sometimes we see that there is a computer or a video projector in the class, but the teacher doesn’t know how to use it. Besides, old teachers usually prefer to use traditional methods of teaching, like grammar-translation or audio-lingual method. They seldom tolerate any changes in teaching.

If we want our students to learn English as good and fluent the students of other countries, as   we should make the same situation in English classes, too. Each school should have a separate language class with the basic devices and technologies. The textbooks should be up to date and also attractive.

Our teachers should have mastery of English. They should be able to speak English fluently and use it in the class. Unfortunately, most of our English teachers teach English in Persian. These are the most important problems about teaching English in Iran. Using technology in the class helps students to understand the lesson better and be interested in learning English, but till the time that we as English teachers are accustomed to use traditional methods of teaching, we can’t expect our students to improve their foreign language knowledge.”

Results

The results indicated some improvement in learning speed of my experimental group. For instance, in one session I could teach them more vocabulary than before and also they could memorize the dialogues faster than before. Of course at first they were slow in perceiving dialogues because of low proficiency in listening skill but later they improved. The control group in comparison to experimental group didn’t make any improvement. And when two groups were tested in the final oral exam, experimental group did better on the parts which they were taught by the use of tools.

Conclusion

The results of the study revealed that EFL teachers who use technology mostly in teaching English are more successful than those who use the traditional methods which aren’t technology-based ones. So in order to succeed teachers should use many types of computer technologies such as word processing, software, compact disks, authoring tools and software, e-mail, chat, pen pals, mailing lists, discussion forums, videoconferencing, the World Wide Web, online courses and so on. Many research findings have shown that use of technology in L2 instruction has resulted in significant gains in achievement and positive attitudes towards learning and CALL. The results suggest that the effects of using hypermedia in instruction are positive when compared to the effects of traditional instruction. The results provide classroom teachers with accumulated research-based evidence for positive outcomes of using technology in instruction.

Create your own mailing list, discussion forum, newsgroup, or chat room. Sign up with an Online Course Management System. Give the students the course URL and class key, and have them enroll themselves. Explain one course component at a time. Start a thread in “Conferencing”. The first thread should require the students to introduce themselves. Write a paragraph about yourself and ask the students to write one about themselves. Encourage the students to write about something that they know or have experienced. Encourage the students to locate articles about certain themes. Set a time slot each day to respond to the students. Encourage the students to send e-mails to you and to their classmates. Do not highlight spelling and grammatical errors. Comment on students’ messages and allow them to comment on each other’s and on yours. Behave like a student. Do not react negatively if they critique you. Send group messages every now and then to keep the students interested. Encourage the students to post their own threads and websites.

Limitations 

In this study some factors such as gender, background knowledge, etc were not taken into account. Because of time limitation and small number of sample it is not logical to generalize the results. Besides, the recommendations and conclusion can be useful to be respected by English language teachers and students and anyone who wants to have an effective role in development of our country.

References

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2-Al-Jarf,  R.(2007).Teaching vocabulary to EFL college students online. CALL-EJ Online. Saudi Arabia: King Saud University,8,2.

3-Bordbar,F.(2010). English teachers’ attitudes toward computer-assisted language learning. International Journal of Language Studies (IJLS). Iran : Tarbiat Modares University ,4,3,27-54.

4-Farhady ,H. Hedayati, Hora.(2009). Annual review of applied linguistics. LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT POLICY IN IRAN.US: Cambridge University Press,29,132-141.

5-Gass,S, M.  Mackey, A.(2005).Second language research: methodology and design.London:Mahwah,New Jersey.

6-Laborda, J. G., & Royo, T. M. (2007). Book review: How to teach English with Technology (Gavin Dudeney & Nicky Hockly)

7-Scarcella, R.(2003). Academic English: A conceptual framework. Technical Reports, University of California Linguistic Minority Research Institute. California: university of California

8-Rahimi,M. Yadollahi,S.(2011). ICT Use in EFL Classes: A Focus on EFL Teachers’ Characteristics. World Journal of English Language .1,2.