Learning a foreign language in the 21th century, require of the constant use of technology to help new learners memorize and understand basic grammar and vocabulary. Spanish is not the exception. The use of the Internet with the apparition of all different websites, blogs, and multimedia is an invaluable tool to develop knowledge and abilities to learn Spanish in a quite way. The simple and productive technology the use of books and tapes is a methodology that many teacher around the work used for many year with excellent results in the learning process. Both resources, develop in students learning skills that make the process of learning easy and compressible. However, the beginning of a cybernetic era constituted a radical change in educational methodology. The apparition of these new tactics facilitate additional environment for teachers and students and create opportunities for both parts in a classroom to teach and learn Spanish language.
According to McCormick(2007) " high- quality software is now valued for supplementary instruction. It provides good practice, allows for instant feedback, serves as an effective tool for review, allows students to control the rate of presentation, and can enable highly individualized teaching". Students using new software as vocabulary blogs have opportunity to develop knowledge and abilities speaking Spanish.In my classroom, I used the computer to run a software in Spanish class, in the software I have conversation, video, listening and speaking activities. I also used power point, when I observed another teachers I believe that I was a super teacher using technology because they used only books and boards to instructed, but reading new material I have discovered that I was far awayfrom technology.
As Richarson have noted (2009) "The immersion in technology has neurological effects and years of computer use creates children that "Thinking differently" from us. They develop hypertext minds". This opinion makes the difference between old and new educational system. Also, change the point of view about how a teacher can help students grow up in knowledge and how students process and apply new ideas. Active teachers that have ten to twelve years of experience need training and easy access to use multimedia teaching a foreign language. In McCormick words(2007) " Many books, magazines, and computer programs are available to provide inservice education to help educators stay abreast of the explosion of new developments in computer uses and technology".As Spanish teacher, I can integrate all multimedia resources and apply it in the teaching process to help my students reinforce knowledge of many standards include in the curriculum . In addition, technology gives to me opportunity to interact with other colleagues in my professional daily activities.
References:
Richarson ,Will.(2009).Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools in Classrooms. Corwin Press. California.7
McCormick, Sandra. (2007). Instructing Students Who Have Literacy Problems. Pearson Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, Columbus, Ohio. 216-217
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Ruben, I was struck by the same comment as you: the one about "hypertext minds" Richardson, 2009). While it certainly affects the way our students approach learning, do you think it could actually be advantageous in some ways? When we use computer hyperlinks, we move from one thing that interests us to another. Might students also move from one interesting idea to another, rather than assuming that they are "done" with the learning for the day? I can imagine the interests of foreign language students leading them from one vocabulary word to the next. As a very simple example, if they can say "cat" and "dog," many will also want to know how to say "horse" and "cow." If they have just learned something about culture, such as traditional foods eaten at Christmas, they might also want to know about typical Christmas observances.
ReplyDeleteRichardson, W. (2009. Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press