Technology and Skills development

Reading the texts proposed this week was a pleasure for me. They caught my attention so much that I printed them, so that I could underline, circle, put lots of stars and exclamation points. They sound so familiar to me because there is so much I believe expressed in these articles.

I have been interested in teacher training for some time. When I entered my master’s degree course, my research was about the changing aspect in teachers’ beliefs, after they start teaching. Human beings are in constant change, but what makes us change for real. We know that we do not change because another person tells you to do so. Sometimes examples may help, but a person only changes if he/she really decides to. This is similar to the use of technology, or computer assisted language learning (CALL) nowadays. As far as I have seen, there is still a lot of resistance on the use of these tools. I would say that in part it is because teachers are not yet prepared to use technology themselves. But there is another point I would like to comment. I think that we, teachers, are still afraid of having our knowledge confronted by our students, especially in an environment of teaching English as a foreign language. I imagine years ago, when teachers started using tape recorders of video in their classes. How many of them probably avoided that because they were afraid their students would have access to other sources of language. Comparison would be inevitable.

But how can we avoid that? How can we have more and more teachers working towards our main objective, which is to make our students learn? One of the best ways, for me, is through information. I intend to share these articles with my colleagues. I am sure that it can generate waves within my school. If we can give a step at a time, I am sure we can have more and more successful experiences. One cannot deny that technology is part of our everyday lives. Not using it for the benefit of teaching and learning is leaving a blank space, and spaces can be fulfilled by anything.

I hope that the following weeks keep bringing me even more “mind-boiling” issues. (Thanks Andreja for sharing this with me!...)

Marcia