Instructional Technology

Teaching and Learning Through Technology

Instructional Technology refers not only to the computers and projectors many use in their classrooms, but also any kind of technology that educators use in their research or teaching.
English Instructional Technology has changed a novice teachers’ thought that it gave some mode to teach in different way. In this case, the teacher can be used technology in process of teaching and learning. In learning of EIT, the novice teacher have gotten some knowledge, for example, how to use technology in classroom activity, some E-Tools, Qummin's quadrants, relationship instructional technology and instructional media, and also some knowledge about media and technology which can be used in teaching and learning process.


Moreover, not only study about technology, EIT also study about educational technology. Educational technology and e-learning can occur in or out of the classroom. It can be self-paced, asynchronous learning or may be instructor-led, synchronous learning. It is suited to distance learning and in conjunction with face-to-face teaching, which is termed blended learning. Educational technology is used by learners and educators in homes, schools (both K-12 and higher education), businesses, and other settings.

Therefore, EIT has given some the advantages and disadvantages for students and teachers in the classroom. The advantages of EIT, such as to cultivate students' interest in study, creates a context for language teaching, to improve teaching effect, to improve interaction between teacher and student, to promote students' communication capacity, etc. Meanwhile, the disadvantages of EIT, such as the restriction of students' thinking potential, loss speaking communication, major means replaced by the assisting one, etc. However, the usage of technology in classroom activity can give negative effect for students, for example, some students are lazy to write some materials that they learn or they enjoy to use the technology for play a game in learning activity, but it also can give positive effect to students, for example, some students who don’t know to use technology in their activity, especially in learning activity, they can to know how to use technology or how to use media from the technology, etc. The novice teacher can use E-tools as media for teaching. The E-tools which usually used by teachers are e-mail, discussion board, listservs, instant messaging, VoIP, etc.

In conclusion, as a novice teacher should be able to use technology as a media in process of teaching and learning well. There are many kinds of technology that can be used in teaching and learning process. The novice teacher can be used some material and media to teach through technology.

The Importance of Using Authentic Materials in TEFL.

The Importance of Using Authentic Materials in TEFL.

Authentic materials material used in the TEFL‏‎ classroom which was originally created for native speakers of English. The use of authentic materials in TEFL classroom is what many teachers involved in foreign language teaching have discussed.  It also allows the teacher to create the content of the lesson more specifically to your class needs and interests. Authentic materials, on the other hand, are real in the sense that they are not created for students as the target audience but for native speakers. Most of the teachers throughout the world agree that authentic texts or materials are beneficial to the language learning process, but what is less agreed is when authentic materials should be introduced and how they should be used in an EFL classroom. There are some advantages and disadvantages to use authentic materials in TEFL.
 

The main advantages of using authentic materials are (Philips and Shettlesworth 1978; Clarke 1989; Peacock 1997, cited in Richards, 2001):
1)    It has a positive effect on learner motivation.
One of the main points of the advantages of using authentic material is to give motivation to the students for study. They can consider which the authentic materials is easy or not, but authentic material is easy to find out, and to use for students’ native speakers to learn.
2)    It provides authentic cultural information.
The next points, it gives to students some information which relate with culture. It means that the material provides cultural information, but the information is authentic and appropriate with real life not manipulated or make false.
3)    It provides exposure to real language.
Then, the authentic materials uses real language to helps students understand the materials and they can feel enjoy to learn the subject what they are learning. Students also enjoy and interest to learn if the subject contains of real language. In this points, the authentic materials provides exposure to real language.
4)    It relates more closely to learners ' needs.
After that, learners’ needs are important for teacher to use authentic materials in their materials. The authentic materials appropriate with learners’ needs, it is closely to learners’ needs. Students have some need to learn, automatically they want to easy to understand the material that they are learning. So, authentic materials can give ease for student to learn.
5)    It supports a more creative approach to teaching.
Last, authentic materials is able to give chance for teachers to create some materials to teaching. It also can support the material of teacher that teacher have created to teach.
 

On the other hand, the obvious advantages of using authentic materials, of course, is that by using authentic materials teacher present students with actual everyday language, just as it appears in real life. There are a lot of authentic materials like reading, newspapers, literature, video, TV, surveys, guest speakers, cultural quizzes / tests, role plays / dramatizations, songs, anecdotes, travel brochures, menus, catalogues, real estate pamphlets, phone books, CDs, the Internet, illustrations and so on.
 

Martinez (2002) mentions that authentic materials may be too culturally biased and too many structures are mixed, causing lower levels have a hard time decoding the texts. Richards (2001, p. 253) points out that alongside with these disadvantages of authentic material :

1.    Authentic materials often contain difficult language,

2.    Unneeded vocabulary items, and

3.    Complex language structures, which causes a burden for the teacher in lower-level classes.

The advantages and disadvantage of authentic material comes from real-life context. Authentic materials usually use by the teacher to teach for non-native speakers’ students, for instance, the use of authentic texts in classrooms. The teacher can use text to teach their students. Their students’ here is nonnative speakers. The use of authentic texts in classrooms is important as it performs a lot of functions:

•    Widening and reinforcement of language knowledge;

•    Language material training;

•    Development of abilities in oral speech;

•    Development of abilities in written speech.

Working with texts, a teacher can use the following exercises:

1.    Pre-reading (aimed at title work, contents prediction, grammar and vocabulary work);

2.    While-reading (aimed at general perception, identification of interesting parts for a reader, meaningful parts selection);

3.    Post-reading (aimed at comprehension check, text interpretation, abilities to find specific information);

4.    Exercises aimed at the production of a personal utterance (aimed at the development of oral and written abilities) .

In conclusion, authentic materials is some materials comes from real life context and it uses by teacher to teach non-native speakers. Authentic materials enable learners to interact with the real language and content rather than the form. Learners feel that they are learning a target language as it is used outside the classroom. Considering this, it may not be wrong to say that at any level authentic materials should be used to complete the gap between the competency and performance of the language learners, which is a common problem among the nonnative speakers. This requires the language patterns being put into practice in real life situations. Used thoughtfully, authentic material provides a very good way to keep the class interest up, provide your students with language and usage very specifically tailored to their needs, and importantly, authentic material can bring a new level of interest to the class.