On-line materials as one of the best Teacher Development sources

Annotation: The article is focused on one of the best Teacher Developmentsources- on-line materialswhich can easily contact colleagues and peers all around the world in a cheap, convenient and efficient way. Every experienced teacher makes sure that on-line materials are helpful to all students, and be prepared to provide extra materials, but most of all, be approachable to help students of all backgrounds find and make use of the material they really need

Ключевые слова: коммуникация, лексика, грамматические правила, правильное произношение, WWW для ресурсов, конференций и обмен идеями, материал, связанный с языком.

Keywords: communication, vocabulary, grammatical rules, correct pronunciation, WWW for resources, conferences, and exchange of ideas, language-related material.

English has become the main language of world communication, thus the number of its learners is increasing rapidly. Individuals learn English for some reasons and aims. Some people need English for their work, some for travelling, some are interested in the culture of English-speaking countries, and there is a large group of learners that have to study English as a part of their school curriculum. The process of English language learning comprises of acquiring vocabulary, grammatical rules, correct pronunciation, etc. This thesis concentrates chiefly on teaching and learning English grammarthrough on-line applications.

It is often the case that ESL teachers, especially those teaching in non- English speaking countries, have little opportunities for their own professional development as it is likely for them to feel a sense of isolation and remoteness from the real action in the disciplines. With the existence and use of computer network teachers of languages can easily contact colleagues and peers all around the world in a cheap, convenient and efficient way. Higgins has presented differentopinions about the potential of the WWW as a resource for the teaching and learning of ESL. He has explored the effects that the use of the WWW in a classroom setting might have on the role of the teacher. As Higgins further explains:

The teacher explores the WWW for resources, evaluates and selects potentially useful sites and then stores and categorizes them for later retrieval and utilize by the students. In storing and categorizing the resources the teacher is establishing a frame through which the students can enter the WWW.

By the same token, Sokolik has suggested top ten spots of important links or connections for ESL teachers and students. She asserts that these sites are excellent in that they have valuable language-related material; student writing samples and sample syllabi; weather information with meteorological stations worldwide; information on applied linguistics and ESL programs.

Internet is changing the many paradigms related to education. For teacher development, the growth of electronic journals, conferences, and exchange of ideas with other teachers is continual and numerous. Kitao shows how ESL teachers can develop professionally and keep up with trends in the teaching of English as a second language by suggesting a series of links they have collected for teachers and students. Electronic newsletters and journals blogs and apps are good sources of information about teaching materials and about what is happening in the field.

You can obtain lesson plans, teaching materials, and lessons, access to dictionaries, thesauruses, encyclopedias, and other reference materials on the Internet.

For those who desire to do research and write academic papers, the Internet is a plausible place to go. There are massive resources for language teachers available on the Web to help them with writing such as article reviews, grammar handbooks, writer’s handbooks, dictionaries, APA and MLA style sheets. For example, there is an extensive literature review designed to be an online resource to aid teachers and researchers seek information on computer technology and its applications in second language teaching. It consists primarily of journal articles' summaries, along with a limited number of books' summaries. This ESL and bilingual bibliography offers a collection of extended article summaries drawn from the performance and portfolio assessment literature of the past decade. One of the best ways to be up to date about any field is being subscribed to a discussion “List.” As Gavin states, “By subscribing to E-mail lists concerned with second language teaching teachers can participate in and initiate ‘discussions’ relevant to their professional concerns”. There are all kinds of attention-grabbing and sometimes, controversial discussions and topics of interest to anyone. If a teacher wants to know about a teaching technique, syllabi or simply wants suggestions about doing something, he or she will receive many replies from colleagues around the world. There is a clear spirit of collaboration, cooperation and exchange without boundaries of time, space, and geography. Several benefits of using e-mail and the WWW for professional development deal with teaching materials and ideas, meeting and sharing with other colleagues, downloading all sorts of information, and lesson planning.

As new technologies such as the Internet become available for teaching and learning, a different kind of classroom will definitely develop. This environment [new technologies] has lead our children to learn differently than we did years ago. Today’s children grow up in a multi-media environment of hi-tech. That is why a different type of approach in dealing with this generation of emerging ‘hi-tech’ students in the near future is required. Cyberspace is probably the richest source of creative, diverse, empowering and democratizing communication ever to connect people across the globe.

Empowering students to accept responsibility for their own learning is a critical factor in the student’s intellectual development and an improvement in their quality of life. The use of technology is about “empowering the learner and encouraging students to leave behind the notion that learning means rote memorization. It is about exploration and the realization that there are multiple pathways to knowledge”.

The autonomous learning process allows the student to be an effective information user and to apply that knowledge in diverse situations. For Ward and Davis, the Internet is becoming a means to allow students to become self-directed.

Digital libraries will revolutionize how students, faculty, researchers, and citizens access and use information. Warschauer found that student empowerment is one of the pivotal factors affecting positively students’ attitude towards use of computers. In other words, student empowerment positively affected such aspects as “enhancing personal power, overcoming isolation, and making it less threatening to contact people”. To support these ideas even further, Warschauer found that “computer learning networks do have a potential to empower students, when they are used appropriately”. Students should learn to use the computers, rather than feel used by them. Warschauer examined three aspects of empowerment in their study: student autonomy (a shift in authority from teacher to student); equality (computer networking as democratizing effect); and learning skills (critical learning). Teachers should strive for developing strategies to help students use the Internet as a more effective tool, fostering student-student communication.

By using the resources on the Internet via the different web sites students who need extra practice in mastering English structures will have a place open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. ESL teachers can be more flexible in adapting to the various situations in the classroom and can pay closer attention to individual students’ problems. However, learning languages with the Internet will definitely present challenges. Sometimes it will require skills that teachers and students do not have initially. This demands preliminary work by the teachers in determining which tools are available at their institution and are best suited for their purposes.

This study shed light on important online issues that will guide ESL teachers to better use and integrate this new Internet technology into traditional grammar classes in particular and in all the other language skills in general.

It was widely expressed that asynchronous communication can provide more convenience for participants, potential for more contact, more control for students, and the necessity to communicate in writing. The fact that computer-mediated communication increases social distance might encourage shy students to communicate and ask questions without embarrassment, as well as encourage discussion of ideas. It also enriches our experience as teachers, allowing us to communicate easily with thousands of people.

Reference:

1. Armstrong K, Yetter-Vassote C. Transforming teaching through technology. – Foreign Language Annals, 27(4), 2004. – pp. 475-486.
2. Gavin D. The Internet and the Language Classroom. – Cambridge, CambridgeUniversity Press. 2007. – p. 95.
3. Higgins J. The computer and grammar teaching. – New York, Longman. 2008. – pp. 31-45.
4. Warschauer M., Kern R. Network-based language teaching: Concepts and practice. – Cambridge, CambridgeUniversity Press. 2000. – pp. 139-143.