[ELTWeekly Volume 6, Issue 19 | August 18, 2014 | ISSN 0975-3036]
This article has been submitted for publication by Professor (Dr) Shibu Simon, National Defence Academy (Pune).
Relevance of English in ICT Age
As the world is in transition, so is English language itself taking new forms. English has changed substantially in the 1500 years of its use, reflecting patterns of contact with other languages and the changing communication needs of its people. Today, English is considered a global language since it is mainly used for communication in the cyber world. With computers playing a major role in ELT today, the future of English in ICT age is a matter of debate.
Graddol in his book The Future of English identifies significant global trends in Economics, Technology and Culture which may affect the learning and use of English internationally in the 21st century (2). The book takes stock of the present, apparently unassailable position of English in the world and asks whether the status of English can be expected to remain unchanged during the coming decades of unprecedented social and economic global change. It also explores the impact on English of developments in ‘Communications Technology’ with English widely regarded as having assumed the status of a global language now.
To many economists, cultural theorists and political scientists, the ‘new world order’ in the 21st century will represent a significant discontinuity with previous centuries (Graddol 3). The ‘Internet’ and related ‘Information Technologies’ may upset the traditional patterns of communication upon which institutional and national cultures have been built. We have entered a period in which (English) language will play a more central role than ever before in economics, political and cultural life.
Teeler and Gray remark (1-2) that because of its origin in the US, most of the communication via internet takes place in English in spite of, or perhaps due to, the multilingual nature of its uses. Researchers suggest that this will change once the Internet becomes more popular, but for the moment English is the common language. This is what makes it such a perfect tool for English Language Teaching (ELT). Everywhere it (English) is at the leading edge of technological and scientific development, new thinking in education, economics and management, new literatures and entertainment genres. These give rise to new vocabularies, grammatical forms and ways of speaking and writing. The language will grow in usage and variety, yet simultaneously will diminish in its relative global importance. We may find the hegemony1 of English replaced by an oligarchy2 of languages, including Spanish and Chinese. To put in economic terms, the size of the global market for the English language may increase in absolute terms, but its market share will probably fall (Graddol 2-3).
Commentators vary greatly in their attitude towards and expectations of global English. At one extreme, there is an unproblematic assumption that the world will eventually speak English and that this will facilitate the cultural and economic dominance of native speaking countries (for example UK and US). Such a view is challenged, however, by the growing assertiveness of countries adopting English as a second language (for example India) and through which they now express their own values, identities, and create their own intellectual prosperity and export goods and services to other countries (Graddol, English: History, Diversity and Change 3). Crystal in this context observes (138-139):
The future of English will be more complex, more demanding of understanding and more challenging for native speakers and second language users of English. There has never been a language so widely spread or spoken by so many people as English. There are therefore no precedents to help us to see what happens to a language when it achieves genuine world status.
The press release for the launch of the ‘Global Report’ of British Council’s English 2000 Project3 summarises the position of English today (2):
Worldwide, there are over 1,400 million people living in countries where English has official status. One out of five of world’s population speaks English to some level of competence. Demand from the other four fifths is increasing. English is the main language of books, newspapers, airports, international business and academic conferences, science and technology, diplomacy, sports, pop music and advertising.
Scope of ICT in ELT
The acronym ICT has been in vogue among academic researchers since 1980s, but it became popular after it was used in a report to the UK Government by Dennis Stevenson in 1997 and in the ‘Revised National Curriculum for England, Wales and Northern Ireland’ in 2000 (“ICT in Education”/web). Since then there have been numerous developments in the perception and practice of IT in Education including the addition of ‘communication’ to the acronym. To Loveless, “Today, ICT lies at the heart of policy making in education” (The Role of ICT 37). And this change in attitude forms the basis of her fully updated second edition titled The Role of ICT (2003) as well as her other book ICT, Pedagogy and the Curriculum (2001).
In the third part of Loveless and Viv Ellis’ book ‘ICT, Pedagogy and the Curriculum’, Ellis examines “the role ICT plays in challenging the construction of three subjects such as English, Mathematics and Science represented as ‘holy trinity’ or core curriculum of UK” and it reveals the importance of English in the curriculum world over by applying ICT in it. Ellis uses the metaphor of ‘analogue clock’ and ‘digital display’ to consider the challenges and opportunities presented to a language (English) and literature curriculum by digital technologies and emphasises the need for continuity with traditions of expressive development and critical literacy. To her (Loveless and Ellis, Editors’ Introduction 5-6).
The penetration of ICT in culture, pedagogy and curriculum will provoke a variety of images of teachers, learners and knowledge… We believe that the interactions between learners, teachers and knowledge will be far more complex, engaging and unpredictable in an ICT age.
A beneficial fallout of the ITES (Information Technology Enabled Services) boom which is sweeping Indian Industry is that new technologies are increasingly being used in the nation’s classrooms. It is painfully apparent that post-independent Indian Education system has failed to provide qualitative and meaningful education to every child born after the nation’s ‘midnight tryst with destiny’. But within the grove of the academia and the drawing rooms of the intelligentsia, there’s rising expectation that the new wonder Information Technology (IT) may succeed where our system has failed (Shuchi, “Efficient Technology Usage in Classrooms” 40).
Sagar in his book Digital Technology in Education discusses how ICT can create new, open-learning environments and its instrumental role in shifting the emphasis from a teacher-centred to a learner-centred environment. According to him, “Today’s challenge in Education is to define the best use of ICT for improving the quality of teaching and learning, sharing knowledge and information, introducing a higher degree of flexibility in response to societal needs” (9). As far as Indian education is concerned, if the current practice of inappropriate use of educational technology continues, within the next decade, there will be a wide-spread disillusionment with school/college managements unable to justify the enormous price-tag that accompanies unproductive technology solutions. So it is the need of the hour to utilise ICT fully in the field of Education and ELT.
Notes
1 Hegemony: Historically, it stands for leadership, especially by one state in a group of states. In this context, it refers to a situation in which English is the only leading language in the world in spite of Chinese and Spanish fast developing as threats to the hegemony of English.
2 Oligarchy: It is a form of Government in which a small group of people holds all the power.
3 English 2000 Project: It is an initiative by the British Council which seeks to forecast future users of English world-wide to help develop new means of teaching and learning English.
Works Cited and References
British Council. English 2000 Project: English in the World: The English 2000 Global Report. London: British Council, 2000. Web. 17 Oct. 2008.
Bruner, Jerome S. The Process of Education. Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 1960. Google Book Search. Web. 12 March. 2009.
– – -. Toward a Theory of Instruction. Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 1966. Web. 15 May. 2010. <http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/constructivist.html>.
Course Book of Class XI Part I English. SCERT Trivandrum: 2005.
Crystal, David. English as a Global Language. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997.
Dale, E. Audio-Visual Methods in Teaching. New York: Dryden Press, 1946. Web. 12 March. 2009.
“Definition of ICT”. Web. 12 August. 2008. <http://www.techterms.com /definition/ict. >
Drisscoll, M. P. Psychology of Learning for Instruction. 3rd ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2005. Web. 29 April. 2009.
Duffy, T.M., and D. H. Jonassen, ed. Constructivism and the Technology of Instruction: A Conversation. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992. Web. 15 May. 2009.
Ertmer, P.A., and Newby T. J. “Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism: Comparing Critical Features from an Instructional Design Perspective.” Performance Improvement Quarterly 6.4 (1993): 50 – 72. Web. 18 May. 2009.
Galbraith, J.K. The New Industrial State. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967. Web. 24 March. 2009.
Glassersfeld, Von E. “An Introduction to Radical Constructivism.” The Invented Reality. Ed. Watswick. Newyork: WW Norton, 1984. 17 – 40. Web. 12 May. 2009.
Graddol, David. The Future of English. London: British Council, 2000.
– – – . English: History, Diversity and Change. London: Routledge Open University, 1996. Web. 3 July. 2009.
Hooper, S., and L. P. Rielber. “Teaching with Technology.” Ed. A. C. Ornstein, Teaching: Theory into Practice. Needham Heights MA: Allyn and Bacon. 1998, 154 -170. Web. 7 Nov. 2009.
“Infocommunnications”. Google Search. Web. 24 Sept. 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infocommunications.
“ Information Technology” File modified on 5 March. 2008. Microsoft Word file’. Web. 10 March. 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information-technology.>.
Information Technology: An Info Guide. Osmania University: Hyderabad, 2000.
Information and Communication Technology. File modified on 5 March 2008. Microsoft Word file. Web. 8 Aug. 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information and communication technology>.
Januszewski, Alan, and Michael Molenda. Educational Technology. Newyork: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2008.
Krashen, S. Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1982. Web. 19 May. 2010.
Loveless, Avrill. The Role of IT. London: International, 1995. Google Book Search. Web. 3 Dec. 2008.
– – – . The Role of ICT. London: International, 2003. Google Book Search. Web. 3 Dec. 2008.
Loveless, Avrill, and Viv Ellis. ICT, Pedagogy and the Curriculum. London: Routledge, 2001.
McLuhan, M., Q. Fiore. The Medium is the Message. New York: Bantum Books, 1967. Web. 23 April. 2009.
NCF (National Curriculum Framework 2005): Position Paper of National Focus Group on Educational Technology. NCERT, Dec. 2006.
Paužaitė, Živilė, and Kęstutis, Kriščiūnas. “The Concepts of Information and Knowledge Societies: Affinities and Distinctions”. European Integration Studies. 2007. No 1. Web. 14 Sept. 2009. <http://www.ktu.lt/lt/mokslas/zurnalai/eis/01/Pauzaite_Krisciunas_2007_50-56p.pdf>
Prasad, Janardan, and Vijay Kumari Kaushik. Advanced Educational Technology. New Delhi: Kanishka, 2006.
Sagar, Krishna. Digital Technology in Education. Delhi: Authors, 2005.
S.B (Sourcebook for Higher Secondary Teachers Class XI Part I- English), SCERT, Tvm. 2005.
Schumacher, E. F. “Technology with a Human Face.” Small is Beautiful: Economics, 1973.
Shuchi, Grover. “Efficient Technology Usage in Classrooms.” Education World. June (2007): 22 – 40.
Sivarajan, K, K., Shanavas, and Baby Suman Aboobacker. Information and Communication Technology and Communicative English. 2nd ed. Calicut University: Premier Press, Calicut. 2007.
Skinner, B. F. “The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching”. Harvard
Educational Review 24 (1954): 86 – 97. Google Book Search. Web. 13 May. 2009.
Smith, David Gordan, and Eric Baber. Teaching English with Information Technology. London: Modern, 2005.
Stevenson, Dennis. “ICT in Education”. Google Book Search. Web. 19 Sept. 2008. <http://rubble.ultralab.angl;ia.ac.uk/Stevenson/ ICTUKIndex. html
Teeler, Dede, and Peta Gray. How to Use the Internet in ELT. Ed. Jeremy Harmer. New Delhi: Dorling, 2000.
Terhart, E. “Constructivism and Teaching: A New Paradigm in General Didactics?” Journal of Curriculum Studies 35.1 (2003): 25 – 44. Google Book Search. Web. 12 March. 2009.
Websites
en.wikipedia.org
rubble.ultralab.angl; ia.ac.uk
www.google.com/book
www.instructionaldesign.org
www.ktu.lt
www.nertec.org.
www.techterms.com