WEEK 3:

The importance of combining technological and educational resources in ESL classrooms.

Based on the article: Integrating CALL into the classroom: the role of podcasting in an ESL listening strategies course by Anne O’bryan and Volker Hegelheimer.

Podcasts help to promote an integral learning when it comes to learning languages. Now that the technology has advanced, listening areas and oral areas have been improved with the combination of postcast and language teaching.

In the past, listening areas were reinforced with the use of cassettes, but nowadays access to the internet and technological resources allowed the use of podcasts to become more common due to the diversity and novelty of the materials they offered. However, upon the emergence of this training process, it became evident that most teachers lacked and still lack technological knowledge, which consequently prevented them from renewing their knowledge and implementing new forms of study in the classroom. On the other hand, most of the educational centers in our country still do not have the necessary resources to integrate the use of new technologies to their learning methods, which definitely does not provide good results.

To conclude, in the future we have the task of updating ourselves and creating our own interactive materials, sharing our knowledge and resources with our colleagues, it does not matter if our educational center has the resources or not, we are already part of a generation that has grown hand in hand with technology, so we have no excuses not to integrate new forms of study in our classroom.

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Rate: 5

WEEK 2 

The effectiveness of ICT Tools in teaching English.

Based on the article: Effectiveness of the Integration of ICT Tools and Activities to Foster Awareness as the First Stage to Reach Learning Autonomy by Andrea Ariza y Mario Suarez.

Nowadays, ICT Tools favor the learning of the English language greatly, since not only do they develop linguistic skills in the students but they also guide them through their experience, contributing not only to their development and to the mastery of the English Language, also it gives them a true knowledge of themselves, that is why the role of teachers is fundamental to discover and recognize the strengths and weaknesses that students have inside and outside the classroom.

On the other hand, it is very interesting to know that to achieve a successful learning of the English Language through ICT Tools, the learning strategies that a teacher uses and the meta-cognition processes that are taken into account at the time of teaching encourage in the student the ability to learn to learn to build truly meaningful learning.

To conclude, the use of ICT's will undoubtedly help students to be independent and work on making their own decisions, they will be able to recognize the tools that best adapt to their learning style and what their preferences are, making them more autonomous and helping them to improve in other aspects of daily life.

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Rate: 5

WEEK 1: TEACHING AND LEARNING FROM TECHNOLOGY

Computers and language learning: an overview argument by Mark Warschauer and Deborah Heale.

Rate: 4

Over the years, computers have played a very important role in the lives of people; this evolution is noticeable and necessary for human being progress, the easy use of computers created confidentiality and comfort in the users, motivating them to discover and develop new ways of learning.

Reading, writing, researching and communicating in real time with others synchronously or asynchronously with just one click became easier, also knowing other languages and cultures is no longer a taboo; this allowed that in the educational field the teacher became a facilitator of learning and not just in a knowledge holder, students are constantly updating, so teachers have been forced to update themselves to get new information.

Creation of programs for teaching languages has become indispensable, in our country the knowledge of a second language is almost indisputable to acquire a job, studying languages online people can save time and money, but it can not cover physical and emotional aspects in the student’s life.

To conclude, as future teachers we have the challenge of creating a fusion between education and technology because world is leaving us clear that electronic literacy is only a reality that takes giant steps. Artificial intelligence is just giving us freedom and suggestions to teach in a new way to our students.

Thank you for reading!