My reflections

Reflection 1  

Second Language Acquisition has many angles. Technology is one of them. It is becoming a powerful one in this age. Every day there are new devices and tools in our society. Our students have access to them easily. They use them for entertainment, communication, and for educational purposes. They use them more than teachers guess. They live in a different reality than we had when we were young. Consequently, our students of this century have different skills.

Many studies have tried to find out how different resources can be used to help learners to acquire the second language easier. Technology is contributing greatly in this purpose. It is allowing students to study in and out of the classroom effectively. Obviously, being in a place where the target language is spoken would be the most appropriate one to learn the language easier and faster, but most of the English learners cannot have this opportunity. Therefore, the technology becomes a way of accessing to native speaking environment.

Nevertheless, having different technological tools is not enough to learn English, how helpful they are going to be depends on the way we use them. There are many advantages of using the technology when we are studying a language or any other topic. The students can study according to their time, they decide where to study, and prepare a proper atmosphere. Therefore, it is less stressful. It is also important to take into account that each tool develops different skills. Some of them are more suitable for a sill or skills than others. Besides that, our students have chance to interact with people from other countries.

Therefore, we cannot avoid using the technological tools in our schools. Their use is necessary if we want to provide our students opportunities to experience new realities in our society. Their use will be even greater and varied in the future.

Teachers need to learn as much as they can about using the different technological tools. As Robert Blake says “technology will  not replace teachers in the future, but rather teachers who use technology will probably replace teachers who do not” (Blake, 14). In our country most of our students have cell phones and other devices, we can use them in many different ways, for example, to watch videos, chat, twitter, blogs, etc.

To me the information I read is very meaningful because this makes me to think that we as teachers need to update as other professionals. We have to change the way we taught in the past, there are many interactive ways of teaching through technology. We have to change our minds regarding the classroom, our students can also learn outside of it using technology.

Little by little I am introducing the use of technology in my classes. I allow my students use internet to look for grammar examples, watch TED talk videos, interchange messages, etc. I really hope to learn more about all the technological tools to apply with my students. I also wish that all the schools in our country take advantage of them. I know that it is not easy because many of our teachers grew up in a different age, but each day more teachers are more conscious about their usefulness. 

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Reflection paper 2

We are living a new age. This age is different to what we lived in our childhood. Now kids use different technological devices everywhere and anytime. They use them for different purposes: communication, entertainment, education, etc. But most of them use for the first two reasons. Many parents complain that their children are using those devices too much, especially the cell phones. They think that many kids do not want to share their time with them, they are more isolated. Many people even believe that one of the reasons that people are not practicing the moral values is because of technology. Nevertheless, we know that it is difficult to stop the use of technological devices in our society, they are already part of our everyday lives. So what can we do? Reading the articles recommended for this week I found one by Harry Samuels “20th century Humanism and 21^st century technology” that caught my attention. I think that this author analyses very well how 20th century humanism and 21^st century technology can match successfully. Teachers have to continue talking, promoting and practicing the humanism aspects in our schools and taking advantage of the technological devices.

On the other hand, one of the great tools to be used in teaching and language learning is online digital games. We know that kids like to play all the time, they enjoy the game, they do not get tired or bored. Teachers always complain that students do not want to pay attention because they only want to play. Now we can take advantage of games in teaching English using the technological tools. There are many different games, we only have to choose the proper ones for our lessons. I think that this would help students to improve their skills in English and they would be more engaged and motivated. However, this also requires that teachers plan their activities to get better outcomes. One of the good aspects, in my opinion, is kids can play in and out the class. They may begin it in class and complete it at home. Next day in class teacher can feedback what they did. We would have more active classes. Kids would be working in pairs or groups. This would also help them to build good relationships and improve their communication. We need to keep in mind that using games we can get both objectives: Teaching English and form our students with values.

Finally, we know that to take advantage of the technological tools we need access to internet. However, many of our schools do not have it, especially in rural and indigenous areas. Little by little the government is trying to provide the internet access to those areas but it will take time to be fully developed. Nevertheless, we can also have blended or flipping classroom. Besides that, authentic and semi authentic materials can be used to replace those tools. We can use radio and TV programs, CD players, newspapers, magazines in English, etc. Teachers can record them and produce them in class. There are many ways that teachers can help their students to improve their English skills. In my opinion what we need is that our teachers be willing to change their minds, be updated, and find ways to improve our schools environments.