By Gabriel Paniagua Ch.
Nowadays, Costa Rican students can learn English in many different ways since professors have access to new and more innovative technologies. For instance, teachers are not more stick to blackboards for teaching and presenting the subject matter to the learners because they can use new technological resources, as video projector and power point presentations. In fact, teacher can show the topic in very catching and interesting ways to the learners. The main problem that professors have to face is the lacking of technology in most of the national educational centers. As a result, good teachers have to be prepared to teach using technological resources, but also to teach without them.
The use of videos and audios in the class is a way to control the students’ and catch their attention. The use of the TV on classroom for watching videos is more common that some years ago, but showing videos from internet gives better results on learners’ learning process. Griffin states that, “teachers had effectively used video during the course of an academic year. And most teachers were using it frequently - on average, once per week.” Moreover, videos can mean a strong bound to the target language since professor can transmit accents and lots of vocabulary through them. Also, videos and audios are accurate for teaching English because students can learn from different social, political, and economical situations. As a result, they help to the professor to develop students’ pronunciation and listening skills.
The blackboard is one of the oldest means to teach and to show information, but it is still working in many educational centers despite its monotony it is very useful in the classroom. It is very criticized by the most and very appreciated by less. In fact, teachers have to learn how to manage boards in a correct way since they can be boring but ironically they are the most popular resource in elementary schools and high schools. It can be the best professor’s alley in the teaching process the only point is that he has to avoid to over using it.
Internet is becoming the most common tool in the English teaching-learning process because it is an interactive tool for teaching. Nowadays, it is very popular the distance education, people can get different kinds of degrees through internet. According to Moore and Kearsley (1996) “the fundamental concept of distance education is simple enough: Students an teacher are separated by distance and sometimes by time.” For this reason, this kind of education is useful for people who work and do not have enough time to go to the university’s campus. In fact, students can access to blogs and chats in order to get their classes. Moreover, videoconferences are used as ways to transmit important information to online learners. Internet is changing all the concept of teaching learning, but the main problem is that not all teachers and students have access to this tool.
Language labs are very useful to teach English but the main problem is that they are expensive. In fact, most of the schools use tape recorders for playing audios samples. It is sad because students cannot develop their listening skills in the way that it is supposed to be. Teachers have to be creative and develop alternatives ways in order to surpass this problem. For instance, professor can use karaoke during class, they can give to the learners the song’s lyric and play it using the tape recorder, in this way students can perform listening and speaking skills. Teachers have to find alternative and catching ways to teach listening skills.
PowerPoint presentations are a recent form in which teachers can present information to their students. They are easy to handle and create; the main problem with them is that students and professors need computers and video projector for presenting. If there is no power or the electronic devices get broken the process is interrupted. For this reason, teacher have to have a plan b, and it is recommendable that if he uses a technological resource in a plan a, applies a pre-technological resource in plan b, and vice versa. In this way teachers can overcome any problem during the leaning-teaching process.
Works Cited
Griffin, Lori. Using Video in the Classroom. Library Video Company. Retrieved from: http://www.libraryvideo.com/articles/article13.asp
Moore, M., & Kearsley, G. (1996) Distance Education: A Systems View. Wadsworth Publishing Company. USA. Retrieved from: isites.harvard.edu
