Why technologies are important?

After reading this chapter, the idea which most impressed me is we need the high-tech teaching method because we do not have enough time!

As we all know, it will cost one a very long time to obtain the ability to use a second language to communicate with others fluently. The author here gave us a very clear picture by giving us statistic samples, "After years of experience in training field agents, the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) estimates that anywhere from 700 to 1,320 hours of full-time instruction are needed to reach a level of high fluency (Bialystok and Hakuta 1994,34)." 1,320 hours! That is a large number. However, most of the students could not even meet the lowest standard. For a college student in China, if she chooses Spanish as her major, that means she only has four years to finish most of her Spanish study, from the alphabet to the most complicated grammar (because let’s face it, there’s hardly anyone that would still keep learning his undergraduate major after finding a job). Although four years seem to be a long time, think carefully, is it really enough to master a foreign language?

Take me as an example. I started to learn English when I was in the 4^th Grade, 9 years old. We had English class almost everyday, and for each class that was 45 minutes. Moreover, my major in college was English, too. As a result, I had learnt English for 13 years when I graduated from the university. However, I still could not communicate well at that time. My first time talking with my American colleague from the U.S, it was like a nightmare. I stumbled a lot, and I almost could not finish a whole sentence for several times. And also, when I was a junior student in college, I started to learn French. I have learnt it for 2 years, and about 4 hours every week. However, I still could not express even a simple paragraph after that two years’ study. I consider these as very suitable examples to support the author’s finding.

Also, the author stated the problem from another way. He mentioned, “In all fairness, colleagues teaching languages such as Chinese or Japanese, with complex writing systems …These writing systems impose a steep learning curve above and beyond the normal challenges of achieving oral proficiency. All upper-division language courses critically involve advanced levels of literary proficiency, in addition to oral proficiency, which is not normally achieved by Japanese and Chinese children in their native countries until early adolescence. It is unreasonable to expect university language students to gain advanced literacy in just four, short years without active guidance from their professors. ” In order to gain language proficiency in a shorter time, the most effective way would be to go abroad for further study so that the students can live in the L2 language environment at the same time. “Practice makes perfect.” That is why most students’ L2 made great progress after coming back from another country. However, for most students, they “are unable or unwilling to take advantage of study abroad”. Only being taught in class is far less enough. If one could not experience the atmosphere in a country, and could not use it again and again in her daily life, it would be really difficult for her to turn the language into her own asset. That is why our high-tech teaching method has been introduced in the education field.

According to the author, “there are three important technological platforms that provide tools to assist language learning, in order of increasing interactivity: the web, CD-ROM or hypermedia application, and network-based communication (i.e., e-mail, electronic mailing list, user groups, MOOs, chat programs, blogs, and wikis). All the tools that are under these three categories play different roles in the technological teaching. They allow the students to contact the outside world without getting out of the gate of their own country. Not only do the audios and videos let the students know more about the standard pronunciation and intonation of the target language, but also they can help the students to get better understanding of the culture and the spirit of the country. And those could make great contribution to students’ L2 teaching and learning, because we all know that understanding the culture of one country can help people better understand the hiding meaning of the language.    

The world is becoming smaller and smaller. Since globalization has brought so many benefits to our life, why not combine it with the high technology and use them wisely?

Reference:

http://idiom.nystesol.org/articles/vol38-01.html

http://uniroma3.academia.edu/PatrickBoylan/Papers/451551/What_does_it_mean_to_learn_a_language_in_todays_world_What_role_can_present-day_computer_technology_play