The Use of Information Technology in
TEFL: How to Encourage Students to Use IT as Self-Access Facility
Azwar
Abbas
The first is mass information
technology. It means that the students can access the information easily and
cheaply, for example, English newspaper or magazine, TV program, or radio
program. In this case, a teacher can use such information technologies to
developed student’ speaking, writing, and reading skill, e.g., by asking the
student to listen an English news and to write it on a piece of paper. And the
second is private information technology. It means that the technology is easy
to get but “expensive” for the student or the institutions that are in medium
to lover financial level. In addition, this kind of information technology may
be called as “expensive” information technology, for instance, computer
program, e-mail, or internet program.
Nowadays, computer is
everywhere. Computer program has been so much developed including English
program, e.g. scrambled words to develop students’ vocabulary mastery. And both
teachers and student can easily find internet depot (Warnet).
Only staying at home or in the office, an English teacher can conduct
learning-teaching process, e.g. by asking the student to open or explore
his/her e-mail or website. They can also explore many English internet
programs including all language skill activities. From here, there are some
probabilities for the students to improve their mastery in (1) listening, (2)
speaking, (3) writing, and (4) reading. Unfortunately, nowadays, only both the
students and the institutions that have more finance have comely used this
information technology, not by both the students and the institutions that have
less finance. Therefore, this fact will open the teachers’ eyes to develop
appropriate techniques based on such condition.
The
effectiveness of the use of above information technologies depends on how the
teachers choose appropriate information technology for the students based on
the condition they have and how the teachers give assignments to support the
students’ English skills. Therefore, it is nonsense if a teaches asks the
students to explore English programs while they go not have enough money to do
that, and of course, it is better to ask them, for example, to watch English TV
programs related to the given materials. In another word, the appropriateness
of choosing information technology and assignment will be very useful in
improving the positive output of Teaching English as Foreign language (TEFL)
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Abbas, A. (2002, March). The use of information
technology in TEFL: How to encourage students to use IT as self-access facility.
Paper presented at the national conference on Autonomy,
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