The Essential Use Of Technology To Teach English Language.

Oscar Gómez
Teacher

Before starting, I would like you to ask yourself: What is technology? ...what comes to your mind, I am sure that you could give me infinite definitions or that we cannot think of how to explain it, and it is because the technology itself is difficult to classify since it is a very broad concept. we know that the first technological revolution occurred around 10,000 years ago, in the Neolithic, when humans went from being nomads to sedentary, developing the first agricultural techniques. The Ancient Age (3,000 BC - 5th century AD).

As we can see in the picture technology started thousand year ago. But in this blog im going to talk about how essential is technology in our daily life, but especially im going to focus it in the use of technology to teach English Language especially in Guatemala or any where you teach English as a second Language, but before that i will give you a brief and short introduction of  how essential is technology in our life. 

AN OVERVIEW OF THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN OUR DAILY LIFE

Currently technology is part of our lives. Everywhere we can see technology, but it is an essential tool that we often do not use correctly. Technology is defined as a science or knowledge for solving problems in a lot of fields of everyday life, from entertainment to work, but a very important field to implement technology in the life of a human is in Education.

In teaching of a new knowledge is not an exception. The technology movement has been implemented in education as well as other professional jobs. For new teachers, technology is considered a necessity for the learning environment. When teachers effectively integrate technology into subject areas, teachers grow into roles of adviser, content expert, and coach. Technology helps make teaching and learning more meaningful and fun. Students are also able to collaborate with their own classmates through technological applications. 

Virtual lesson plans, grading software and online assessments can help teachers save a lot time. This valuable time can be used for working with students who are struggling. What is more, having virtual learning environments in schools enhances collaboration and knowledge sharing between teachers. 

It is possibly the most obvious benefit of technology is the access of information. When old-school teachers were students, they had to spend hours in the library looking for the information they needed. Today, technology integration makes everything different and simpler. Students can easily access newspapers, scientific articles, studies, and any other type of content online. And the teachers have the facility to find resources for create a class. We have a world into our computers, phones, IPad, tablets, televisions and other technological tools; we can find any information per seconds without a lot of work. 

Giving students tools to actively participate in their learning ensures that the responsibility for learning is not just on teachers. Thanks to technology, students can play a bigger part in their own learning than they might realize. So implementing technology in the teaching-learning process should not be an option but a requirement. 

IMPORTANCE OF SPEAKING ENGLISH IN GUATEMALA

Guatemala is in a low position in learning English, revealed a study by the English company Education First (EF).

Guatemala occupies position 53, Costa Rica 38 and El Salvador 63. The company did not include Nicaragua or Honduras because they did not meet the minimum of 400 online surveys. 

For Kristhal Galdámez, commercial consultant for Manpower, "an improvement in the level of English is linked to an increase in wages", so the State "should invest more in the training of this language, since it is key to development economic of the country ”.

He added that English gives access to a better education and the possibility of a better job. "Our job opportunities will multiply as soon as we master the language and will provide advantages when promoting or accessing another job," said Galdámez. Click here.

INFORMATION OBTAINED FROM A SEMINAR INVESTIGATION REGARDING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN QUETZALTENANGO GUATEMALA

But before getting involved in the information obtained from the research, I have had as a personal experience during my life as an English Language teacher in different educational establishments, and I have realized that students have little interest, and doesn't want to learn a second language such as  English Language, in second the same students say that why learn English, and they will not use it in their life, and if they learn it, who will speak with them, and worse if as a teacher we keep using traditional classes, less interest they show to learning the English language, so I have given myself the task of looking at other methods and using technology to make the classes more dynamic and entertaining, since nowadays it is technology that is the order of the day and mostly in the young students, and by using these media or applications the students show a greater interest, since they use the medium that they like, and from that way, they are learning a second language such as the English language.

BORED TRADITIONAL CLASSES EXAMPLE

And here we can see one of the many ways how we can use technology in our classroom, and also we can see how we capt students attention, and how all the students want to participate at the same time, and because technology offers thousand apps, where we can use it  to increase the learning level between students. And because they compete with each other, and that helps them to demand themselves and increase their level of learning. 

Now that we know about the importance of technology in our daily life, and especially in education, I am going to move to Guatemala especially in the teaching of a second language such as the English language, since currently speaking English now is not any more a  luxury, but a necessity and a requirement to apply for a job and to aspire to a better standard of living.

HERE WE CAN SEE THE INFORMATION OBTAIN IN A SCHOOL IN QUETZALTENANGO

Of 120 students surveyed, 32% said they would not like to use the technology in the process of teaching and learning English, and 68% would like the technology to be implemented in the teaching and learning process of a new language (English).

72 % of students answered, that it is necessary to have access to technology to learn a second language, because currently there are many pages of websites and applications that provide help and facilitates to understand a second language much better. On the other hand, 28 % argue that it is not necessary to involve technology to learn a new language, because information can be obtained without the use of technology, saying that there are also school and academies that teach a second language.

68% of the students answered that they use technology in the learning of English, and it has facilitated the learning process, and the other 32% has not used the technology in learning English language, so it has not facilitated the process. 

STUDENT ANSWERING A SURVEY.

The Students of the Middle School Parracana Cantel Quetzaltenango.

SOME OF THE SURVEY DONE TO THE TEACHERS

100% of the teachers responded that they think get benefits to using technology in teaching a second language. 

22 % of the teachers answered that the school have Access to technology. Meanwhile 78 % of the teachers responded that the school don’t have access to technology.  

100 %  of the teachers responded that they believe that the Access to technology is necessary to teach a second language (English).

SEMINARIANS

The group of seminarians who did the investigation about the essential use of technology in the teaching English Language,  as a second language, in the Middle School Parracana Cantel Quetzaltenango, project that took two month and half.

TECHNOLOGY BEYOND LIMITS

Obviously, technology is not to be used in place of effective teaching, but interactive tasks, text-to-speech conversion and online tutorials allow students to translate on-the-go. Independent learning, with access to relevant teaching material for support. It means more practice and therefore more confidence to push perceived limitations. Students are given the courage to try books beyond their current reading level.

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CONCLUSIONS 

1.    The use of technology in the teaching-learning process of the English language is important to achieve that the student develops critical thinking and gets access to learning materials.

2.    We also need to unhook “Traditional Pedagogy” of the English language teaching and connecting it with the current didactics that includes technology.

3.    We have access to different kinds of tools and the use of them, helps to teach in an organized, active and interesting way.