Week 1: The use of technology in education.

By: Vanesa Paniagua

Article: Computers and language learning: an overview.

Rate: 3

The importance of technology in the education field it is increasingly apparent and for that reason CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) it is been frequently use to improve students’ language skills.

Technology facilitates and innovates the way of teaching, since there are many activities that can be used in a language class. For example, if the teachers want to focus on a specific skill, they can go and find a good activity to use with the students. Also, learning process can continue in the students’ home by practicing in certain websites. Moreover, we can say that technology is an important tool during the learning process, but teachers help will always be relevant and we cannot set aside the knowledge and feedback that a teacher can provide because it is necessary the teacher-students interaction.

For this reason, my favorite quote from the article was “It’s not so much the program. More what you do with it”. Chris Jones, 1986. I agree with this quote because there may be many good programs or activities to use during the learning process of a second language, but if it is not correctly been used will not work and for me is very important the teacher’s role and the creativity to adapt these technological programs to the class. To sum up, technology takes an important place in education but without teacher’s input and management, the purpose of using CALL will not be achieved.