ICT in Education

The methodology used in the English classrooms has always been innovative and avant-garde compared with the methodology used to teach or learn other subjects at school. For some unknown reason New Technologies always managed to quickly find their way into the English language classroom. And this is no exception nowadays. This is what I found when I looked up "ICT" in the Wikipedia:
In the United Kingdom education system, information technology was formally integrated into the school curriculum when the National Curriculum was devised. It was quickly realised that the work covered was useful in all subjects. With the arrival of the Internet and the broadband connections to all schools, the application of IT knowledge, skills and understanding in all subjects became a reality. This change in emphasis has resulted in a change of name from Information Technology to Information and Communication Technology (ICT). ICT in Education can be understood as the application of digital equipment to all aspects of teaching and learning. It is present in almost all schools and is of growing influence.
The growth of use of Information and Communications Technology and its tools in the field of Education has seen tremendous growth in the recent past. Technology has entered the classroom in a big way to become part of the teaching and learning process. (Wikipedia)
The other day we were putting the emphasis on "learning a language" rather than teaching it. It is true that more and more we hear teachers telling their students to refer to the Internet to improve their English, but the students seem to get lost when they see the massive information they find there.
Today I’d like to be a bit more selective and have a look at some new devices that ICT has brought about which our students could make use of to improve their English without the need of a teacher around:

• Podcasts. It is so common nowadays to see all kinds of people walking about with their earphones listening to music, to the radio... or who knows what to. Podcasts are short oral texts -documentaries, lessons, discussions, recorded radio programmes, etc... that can be downloaded from different websites, saved on your computer -usually in mp3 format- and which you can listen to at any time and in any place at your convenience. Since we heard of Podcasts for the first time, our school has collected a few hundred items covering very different topics and many of our students have already made use of this powerful technology to improve their listening skills.

• Radio. Certainly there are hundreds of English speaking radio stations available on the net, but some of them are focussed on the teaching-learning of English and the content of their programmes is graded so as not discourage the learners who are not yet fluent in the language. A proper combination of authentic and real content with a pedagogical reflexion on the language used can result in a very appropriate device for improving your English. Again we are focussing on improving our listening skill, which by the way seems to be the poor sister, the Cinderella of the process of learning English. Have a go at Vaughan Radio.

• Blogs. Moving now to the possibility of improving our reading and writing skills we have the "blogs". A blog is a sort of interactive written forum -this that you are reading right now is a blog . You read an article like this one and you have the possibility to answer it, or write comments on it in the same website. Your comments will be read by someone else who might want to comment on it and so on. It is so easy to start your own blog or you can simply visit and enjoy other people’s blogs. Why not have a go and send us a comment on this article?

• E-mail. A quick and authentic way to keep in touch with other people is via e-mail. Two or three years ago I started using e-mails to communicate with my students in an authentic way. I give them announcements or instructions about their homework, I receive their compositions or essays, I send them suggestions or corrections of their work, or we simply communicate for fun. The idea is once again to use the language with a purpose, in a communicative way.

• VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). Just what we needed. After practising listening, reading and writing, the question is: Is there a cheap way to interact in English on the net? And the answer of course is "Yes, there is!" There are free programmes like Skype which offer you the possibility to get in touch verbally with other people via Internet simply using a microphone, earphones and of course a connection to the net. And it is all 100% free! Why don’t you have a go, it’s so easy!

I would be very happy to have some feedback on the use you make of these and other resources that you have found on the net to learn or improve your English.
Bye for now,

Luis Gómez Marfil

Teaching or Learning a Foreign Language?

One of the most interesting issues that has come up in the methodology of languages in the last few years is the distinction between teaching and learning. Until not very long ago it was believed that there was a strict correspondence between what we "taught" our students and what they actually "learnt". Nowadays we know that teaching and learning are two different processes which, although they run parallel, are not so interdependent as it was thought in the past. The thing is that the focus has shifted from teaching to learning and this new position has had and it is still having a great effect on how the whole process of language acquisition is now understood and of course on the classroom management itself.

Perhaps one of the most significant consequences of this new approach is the changing of the roles of teacher and student in the classroom. The activities in class tend to be more student-centered than they used to be and that involves a more active participation on the part of the student, whereas the teacher’s role has become more that of a facilitator or helper than the mere instructor that he used to be in the past times.

"The teacher can help, advise and teach; but only the learner can learn." (Keith Morrow). I like to use this quotation with my students. I think it points out the great responsibility that the student should have for their own process of learning. The teacher will certainly be present to help and advise but at the end of the day it is the student and only the student who has to do the job of "learning" the language.

Looking at it from this new point of view we must admit that the student has a lot more to say about how they understand, they live and they feel about their own learning process. Their interests, motivations, what kind of learners they are, at what pace they want to advance, etc... should be new variables to take into account in this new approach.
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If you feel like reading a bit more about student-centered learning, click here.

Welcome to our blog

I could hardly imagine it could be so easy to start my own blog. I really think this can be a new and motivating way to get my students to participate in a real on-line debate about their learning process.