The Role Of ICT In Teaching ESL

The Role Of ICT In Teaching ESLThe association of ICT and face in last few long time had made rapid changes in the stand foration of curriculum in various aspects. Practitioners, theorists and researchers have started to pay serious attention to the challenges of the stark naked engine room and these challenges and opportunities that new technology presents have resulted incline instructors into a new dimension.There are different issues related to the relationship of ICT and position which consists of complex implications for schoolroom teaching and initial teacher education. Student teachers who play a vital role in delivering ESL have wide range of experiences and level of expertise in ICT. My aim is to en adequate to(p) educatee teachers to be aware of these important issues and have the skills, knowledge and critical understanding to respond teaching of position through ICT.Initially, I perform analysis of the changing nature of ESL in the light of current technology advancement. Then, explore the interpretations of the role of ICT in teaching English, the provision made by ICT in college and policy and classroom practice in the area of the curriculum.Changing nature of ESL at presentRecent years have seen a move from the predominance of the printed test to vary sites for textual production, including web-based environments, mobile phones and reckoners games. Screen based texts are characterized by varied and densely interrelation multimodal communication with an increasing emphasis on visual aspects of texts, such(prenominal) as layout use of font and images and the incorporation of sound, animation and hyperlinks. Digital technology has in any case made it easier to experiment the text production and to communicate rapidly with a range of familiar and unfamiliar audiences.ESL teachers have to consider how to teach lyric poem literacy and technological skills so that learners can make effective use of ICT. When teachers develop and go thro ugh an electronic literacy approach, they must address a number of querysHow should ESL teachers make the best use of new online opportunities to maximize language occupy and practice while also helping assimilators develop computer-based communication and literacy skills?What strategies for communicating and ne tworking should students be taught?What goals should language teacher aim for and what kinds of online projects could students melt elaborate out to accomplish those goals?Which are the most crucial electronic resources and tools that teachers should learn about so that they can teach them to their students?How can teachers encourage students to become autonomous learners who can continue to learn how to communicate, conduct research and present their ideas effectively using information communication technology beyond the confines of the class or semester? (cited in Shetzer Warschauer, 2000, 171-172)The purpose of this study was to explore the use of the earnings in v ocational high-school English encyclopedism environments in a specific socio-cultural context including in the physical world and in cyberspace. The results of the in-depth study aim to cast off light on the combinations of English language and ICT that can both enhance vocational high-school students technological competence as well as facilitate English language acquisition and applications in an authentic situation.Research questionsSpecific questions explored in the study include the following Can students learn the functions of the lucre via the English language andSignificantly improve their English e-talk on the Internet? What are the benefits or difficulties with the use of Information Communication Technology in the teaching of English as a Second Language? What are the perceptions of both teacher and students regarding the use of the Internet in the class? What are the issues and challenges that arise in the integration of the Internet in English learning contexts? Can students feel comfortable communicating in English on the Internet? Can the design of the Internet and English class improve their language proficiency and grammatical usage?The setting for the studyThe research study was conducted at a vocational high school________________ The running was named Internet and English its major objective was to help vocational high school students learn English in a natural setting with the service of ICT.This course used various methods to facilitate students Internet usage by way of English writing. A ______-hour on-line lecture plus a computer session was held on Tuesdays in a computer lab where ______ Personal data processors were set-up and networked. In the lab the teacher lectured on some introductory aspects of the Internet and its functions and at the same time demonstrated its uses and gave students opportunities for practice using English and exploring the Internet. In addition to the weekly lecture and computer session, the after-class activities and assigned tasks were postulate of each student. To carry out the after-class projects and assignments, the students therefore needed to connect to the Internet and search for the required materials in response to the teachers weekly questions and, meanwhile, they were required to use English to communicate with the teachers as well as with the some other classmates.Although ICT facilities and support were limited in the vocational school studied, the English teacher wanted to overcome the barrier by the inclusion body of some outside-campus network resources in his class. A course syllabus, updated announcements, handouts, profiles of the teacher and the students, and class presentations, pictures and recommended relevant web resources were all converged in colourful words on the website. contents of the projectEnglish was the main language used throughout class activities, which included English website information collection, topic-centred discussion, on-line com munication, and email exchange.the course used 4 major tools-the World-wide web, Newsgroups, Chat-rooms, and email to cultivate students network accessibility and language expressions/utterances so that the course was given primarily in quaternary segments. First, for the World-wide web section, Project A self introduction and Project B website recommendation were their assigned tasks. Second, in the Newsgroup section, the teacher asked students to subscribe to the newsgroups they were interested in and then used the chat courier to post articles and questions and required students to either answer the questions or discuss the given topics in English. Third, in the Chat section, the students were allowed to freely e-talk about whatever interested them in the chat room in chat messanger. Through the different presentation formats of online tutoring, online discussion, and online debate, they were given different objectives each time.Finally, in the email section, students learned the basic commands by using Outlook and basic ideas about email user interface design and the system setup and some key functions (POP setup, web-mail, filtering, and so on).ParticipantsThe participants in this study were ______ students ____22 femalesand _____7 male students plus the_______ young male teacher. To take the elective courseInternet and English, certain prerequisites were required. For instance, the studentsneeded to have previously taken Introduction to Computer Science andApplications of Computer Science, which were the first-year and second-yearcourses.AssessmentFor this course students were assessed as follows 20% for class participation, 20%for homework exercises, 30% for the combined score on the 1st and 2nd midterm tests, and 30% for the final exam. Projects A and B were counted as the scores ofthe 1st midterm. The quality as well as the measurement of each students specific onlineutterances their portfolio was used as students 2nd midterm scores. The Chat performance in the chat messanger was used for the final exam grades. The Final examconsisted of an article on the topic How do I perceive Internet and English students were instructed to talk about the current semester only and to include tripletseparate my impression of this class what I have learned from this course and mysuggestions .MethodologyThe study employed both qualitative and quantitative methods. The researcher useda multi-method approach to document and evaluate the process of integration of theInternet in the English learning settings, including the collection of their electronicdata from chats, discussions, dialogues and email exchanges on the Internet,observations of their online classroom activities, formal and informal interviewswith the instructor. A post-class questionnaire was administered to the participantsat the end of this class. In addition, a student who had a special need for remedialinstruction had actively interacted with the English teacher via ema il communicationthroughout most of semester. The students email exchanges with the teacher wereused as a case study. information collectionData poised for the studies included authentic email messages, questionnaires,classroom observations, formal and informal interviews, and student logs.Descriptive statistical information was provided for cross-referencing. The studywas conducted in a natural learning setting. None of the student subjects were awareof being observed and analysed during the data collection procedures.Overall results of the use of ICT in the classThe teacher used an open-ended question to solicit student overall responses to theuse of information communication technology in the class. This question was, Doyou think Internet and English can real improve your English? declaim me why. Moststudents thought the Internet was an interesting and useful tool in their Internet andEnglish class (Table 1).Table 1. Data from the open-ended questionPositive reactions (19 out of 23 82.16%) Negative reactions 3 out of 23 (13%)Being able to practice typing 5 not liking the Internet 1 encyclopaedism more English 4 Too much vocabulary resulting inBeing more motivated in learning new vocabulary 4 learning pressure 1Being able to learn more about computers 4 The fast-paced enrolment of the class 1Communicating with others using emails and makingfriends from other countries 4Looking for information on the Internet and enhancingreading comprehension by materials on the Internet 3Meeting people 2Talking on line 1Being able to correct mistakes instantly 1The Tell me why self-report data were used for further analysis. The positiveperception of Internet use could stem from two sources. First, due to the convenientaccess provided by the Internet, students were able to make foreign friends. Second,in the process of navigating the webpages, the chances of directly reading Englishand learning new vocabulary, sentence patterns, and grammatical patterns increased.Mo reover, the immediacy of the online tutoring enabled the teacher to correct theirmistakes quickly. The other advantages include the acquisition of relevantOnline discourse data analysisThe data for quantitative analysis were gathered from the Chat function inchatmessanger, which generally meant dynamic in online tutoring and onlinedebates. Also, the data from both the midterm exam and final exam in the firstsemester were collected for analysis. In online tutoring and online debate, not everystudent wrote down his or her responses. Although five students were completelysilent, the other 24 students had at least one sentence (here one sentence means anutterance with a goal or a question mark at the end) in the online chatting.However, in online debate, which discussed the interesting topic of having a girlfriend or a male child friend, the volume of discourse obviously increased by an averageof six sentences, and that was five times as many as the very first time, when theywere requ ired to talk about a right teacher. Most students, who had already e-talked the first time, were more likely to write more than the second time. As for the2nd midterm exam and final exam, since the written records were used for studentsgrades, every student was mandated to express his or her opinions in order to gainpoints. Eventually the volume of the discourse resulted in an average ofapproximately 15 sentences in final exam. This was two and half times as many asin the midterm exam.When addressing the reasons for the increase in students discourse volume, theresearcher found that students gradual increasing familiarity with the computercommands and the digital environment contributed to the increased number of theirexpressions. Moreover, the topics for discussion which appeared to be interesting,controversial or ample in readily available online information also resulted in anincrease in the number of sentences.Non-online discourse data analysis based on two projectsIn addition to the online data, non-online data were collected from Project A andProject B for analysis. For Project A, in order to encourage students to begin theirEnglish writing, the English teacher purposefully used self-introduction as anintroductory and familiar topic. Thus each student was asked to use English tointroduce himself/herself. For Project B, each student had to browse the Englishresources on the Internet and then recommended some websites as their favouritesand to give reasons for their recommendation. Consequently, the average number ofsentences produced in Project A was eight, and this was about four times as many asthe number produced for Project B. Further analysis of the in-depth data revealedthat Project A was a self-introduction and there were several basic items that thestudents could always include in their written presentations, such as blood type, signof Zodiac, and favourite sports. On the other hand, Project B asked students torecommend a web site that they foun d interesting. This topic was of wide scope andmore challenging than Project A.Student perceptions of the use of ICT in English learningIn order to understand students perception of learning English by using the Internetand the impact of the Internet on English learning as well, a questionnaire wasadministered to the students shortly before the end of the first semester in order tocollect their demographic information and their responses to the use of the Internetin this English class. The questionnaire was composed of three parts personal dataexperience in using a network computer and ten 5-point-Likert-scale questions. Ageneral question was given at the beginning of the questionnaire and 10 morecorresponding statements followed with choices. A total of 26 questionnaires out of29 were collected and used for analysis. The statistical results of this questionnaireare presented below (Table 5).QuestionaireWhat do you think might be the reasons that the Internet could facilitate Englis h learning?(1-Totally Disagree 2-Strongly Disagree 3-Agree 4-Strongly Agree and 5Totally Agree)Statements 1 2 3 4 5 Rank1. The teacher interacted with students on the 0 3.8% 57.7% 15.4% 23.1% 1Internet so that I feel less pressured in class. 3.8% 94.2%2. I can learn new vocabulary, sentence patterns, 0 19.2% 57.7% 15.4% 7.7% 8and grammar on the Internet. 19.2% 81.8%3. Anonymous communication makes me less afraid 3.8% 3.8% 42.3% 15.4% 34.6% 2of making mistakes in English chatting. 7.6% 92.4%4. I could learn good English sentences from others. 3.8% 3.8% 30.8% 38.5% 23.1% 27.6% 92.4%5. I dont need to speak English in front of my 7.7% 26.9% 26.9% 34.6% 3.8% 9classmates. Instead, typing in front of the 34.6% 65.4%computer screen reduces my stress.6. Learning English wont be that boring since I 3.8% 7.7% 38.5% 15.4% 34.6% 5could find some intriguing English information 11.5% 88.5%on the Internet quickly7. I could improve my English response speed since 7.7% 26.9% 30.8% 30.8% 3.8% 10online chatting in English requires instantly 34.6% 63.8%answering in English.8. I could make key/pen pals in foreign countries 3.8% 3.8% 23.1% 30.8% 38.5% 2and practice English writing. 7.6% 92.4%9. I could often practice English since English is 0 11.5% 26.9% 38.5% 23.1% 5the common language on the Internet. 11.5% 88.5%10. I could freely practice English because I could 3.8% 11.5% 34.6% 26.9% 23.1% 7build up my little virtual world on the 15.3% 84.7%computer screen.