The City Magazine

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the City

Digital Technologies for English Language Teaching

Today's era, technology is a very important thing. Almost all areas of life using technologies, such as in education, politics, economics, and more. In world trade, for example, sellers can sell their merchandise through the online shop. In the world of transportation, we can book train tickets, bus, plane through the online system. This has been clear that the technology makes people  easy in all fields. Therefore,  as a teacher, I suggest that we should take advantage of this situation that benefits technology can be a tool in the learning process, especially for English teachers.
Technology can be a great asset for teachers in ESL classes since it offers the authentic writing activities and resources on an endless grammar instruction, lesson plans, and other topics. This facility is balanced with the ability of teachers and students to use computers, tablets and other gadgets. It also can interact and motivate student activities and also make lessons more interesting and attractive. Teachers can use this application to support their teaching process.
1. Film and video,
2. Application in iPad,
3. Travel Sector Digital> or virtual field trips are guided through the exploration world wide web web page that organizes a collection of pre-screened, thematically based into structured online learning experience.
4. Podcasts> podcast is a form of digital media consisting of an episodic series of audio, video, digital radio, PDF or ePub files subscribed to and automatically downloaded through web syndication or streamed online to a computer or mobile device.
5. Pen Pal> are the people who regularly write to each other, especially through the mail.
6. Web Quests> A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all of the information that learners work with comes from the web. It can be made using a variety of programs, including a simple word processing document that includes a link to the website.
7. Game online,
8. Blogging,
9. Skype> Skype is an application that provides video chat and voice calling services.
and other sources

Instructions with Technologies for Middle School Classrooms

Technology is very much part of language learning throughout the world at all different levels. It is very useful to the primary sector as much as in adult education. In middle classroom, technologies are ideally placed to help teachers working with learners, and learners working independently, to do the necessary ‘languaging’ that makes their language development possible. By technology, students are able to go through a process of creating and re-creating text until it is fully comprehensible to others and is accurate. Students can also create a draft, show it to others and, based on feedback, can make changes to improve the text. The tools can also help students by showing that the spelling or grammar needs work, too. Technology makes this much easier, and makes it more likely that learners will engage with the editing process to produce the highest-quality text that they can. This writing can then be displayed for others to look at and comment on.

Another area that technology supports very effectively is project work. Getting learners to do work about topics that are of interest to them, or topics that are taught in other parts of the curriculum is a great way to improve their skills. Technology makes this possible wherever you are in the world. Teachers and learners can go online to read or listen to material about different areas of interest, and can then write or speak about what they have discovered, telling others in the class or other classes elsewhere in the world.

Online Social Media Applications for Language Teaching and Learning

Online Social Media Application in Language Teaching

Recently, the use of online social media application for language teaching and learning has increase rapidly. Social Media, the so-called Social Network as referred to in the relationship among users, are growing types of digital media. They emerge in various forms that bring people together as communities. The Social Media have played vital role for decades. The statistics show that about 20.6 million out of 66.7 million the Social Media has already been integrated into an informal education system.

Social media applications create a new community where teachers and students do not have to communicate by means of the traditional face-to-face classroom environment. The brand-new changing way of teaching-learning environment definitely brings many impacts. Obviously, in terms of language learning, online classrooms have a single most important benefit over the traditional ones: native instructors. Though grammatical rules and basic vocabulary can be learnt from a non-native speaker very well, for natural speaking skills, presence of a native instructor is a most valuable thing.

As real-life communication is largely different from what students see in books, the online space and real foreign people can actually do much for student’s language proficiency improvement. Constant availability of social and language networks, as well as their general efficiency, drive learners into their simple web interfaces where there’s always somebody waiting to meet a new friend. 

Personally, I have used facebook and edmodo as online media in learning. They are very useful, especially to submit and check students’ work when learning process can not conduct in face-to-face. By those online media, teacher can not only check students’ assignment but also give them feedback directly. They are really helpful.

Blended Learning

Blended Learning

Blended learning is a learning methodology that using the way e-learning is being combined with traditional classroom methods and independent study to create a new, integrative teaching methodology. In other words, blended learning is a learning method which mix the traditional and online method. It has three primary components:

• In-person classroom activities facilitated by a trained educator.
• Online learning materials, often including pre-recorded lectures.
• Structured independent study time guided by the material in the lectures and skills developed during the classroom experience.

In traditional education, teacher gives material by the way of a lecture, while in a blended learning model lectures can be videotaped ahead of time, so the student can watch on their own time. The classroom time is more likely to be for structured exercises that emphasize the application of the curriculum to solve problems or work through tasks.

In blended learning, teacher acts as facilitator while students are more active because they can control over time, place, path, or pace. The facilitator support students with the skills and knowledge required to make the most of the online material and independent study time, guiding students toward the most meaningful experience possible. Facilitators focus on four key areas:

• Development of online and offline course content.
• Facilitation of communication with and among students, including the pedagogy of communicating content online without the contextual clues students would get in person.
• Guiding the learning experience of individual students, and customizing material wherever possible to strengthen the learning experience.
• Assessment and grading, not unlike the expectations for teachers within the traditional framework.

Blended learning can be grouped into six models:

1.      Face-to-face driver

Here, teacher delivers most of the curriculum. A physical teacher employs online learning in a technology lab or the back of the classroom.

2.      Online lab

In a brick-and-mortar location, an online platform delivers the entire course. Often, students who participate in an online lab program also take traditional courses.

3.      Rotation

In learning process, when students are given a course, they rotate on a fixed schedule between self-paced online learning and sitting in a classroom with face-to-face teacher.

4.      Self-blend

Here, students independently choose to take remote online courses to support their school’s traditional curriculum.

5.      Flex

In small group session, teacher provides on-site, as-needed support through in-person tutoring. An online platform delivers most of the curriculum.

6.      Online driver

Students work remotely and face-to-face check-in are either available or mandatory.

There are some advantages of applying Blended Learning in classroom because it provides:

1.      Integrated system

2.      High-quality dynamic content

3.      Analytics

4.      Automation

5.      Application that enhance students’ motivation

Global Education Network

Globalization era in the 21st century requires people to connect globally. The most effective and efficient way to be connected with people around the world is using technology. Technology has important roles in all fields including economic, political, social, and even education. In education, technology which is applied correctly will be very helpful because of advances in technology provide opportunities for people lives in remote areas in order to obtain the information, knowledge, and well-connected with people around the world.

Technology has big contributions in education development through the global education system. New technologies provide ways to overcome the traditional barriers to global education and language learning. In global education system, teachers are using technology in their instruction to address global and multicultural education. Technology also can be instrumental in creating a global learning experiences because technology has the power to breakdown geographical, economical, language, and time-zone barriers. With technology, the learning process can be conducted everywhere, for example, we can gather around a screen in a small town and connect with a classroom in other city. It is quite effective and efficient. Moreover, a significant benefit to instant global communications is that students can improve their language skills through student-to-student conversations regardless of where they live. Therefore, teachers should technological literacy and creative in utilizing technological advances, in addition to supporting students' learning process, as well as to expand its relationship with people all over the world.