(International Exchange
Center, Xi’an International University, 710077)
Abstract: As one of the important elements in foreign language teaching, the
applications of teaching resources are of great concern to teachers and
students. This paper analyzes the different types of teaching resources,
introduces some modern teaching concepts, and puts forward guidelines for
better utilization of teaching resources. A survey of online resources
application has revealed the barriers and the problems arising from online
education. This abstract suggests that the integration of online resources and
classroom teaching will make full use of teaching resources.
Key Words: teaching resources, barriers, integrative teaching, solutions.
Foreign language teaching in China keeps developing fast and millions of people are learning English either by attending training classes, distance education, or by taking the self-taught mode. As one of the essential elements in language learning, the application of teaching resources is of great importance both in generating rich language instructions and in meeting the demands for all levels and purposes of language learners.
Broadly speaking, teaching resources can
be anything that assists language teaching such as teachers, libraries,
textbooks, multimedia technology, learning environment and history of a
university. Specifically, teaching resources can be defined as “supporting
materials.” They include textbooks, other written texts, audio-visual aids,
realia, and computer assisted language learning (CALL) (H. D. Brown, 2003). The
varieties of teaching resources bring chances and challenges to both language
learning and language pedagogy. Quite often, researchers and teachers tend to
use modern technologies such as TV, satellite transmission, software, emails,
e-dictionaries, e-library, corpus, machine translation, computer aided
examinations, internet forum, multimedia rooms, information superhighways, and
distance education to assist language learning (Tian Guisen, 2002).
Some believe that new technology, computers in particular, will form a
new way of learning which will achieve amazing results compared to the
traditional classroom teaching and computers appear to hold great promise for
much more effective language teaching. The availability of the microcomputer in
the 1980s made the peak of this thought. Since then the field has lost some of
its impetus, becoming more of a specialist developmental area with its own
concerns rather than part of the main stream of language teaching (Keith
Johnson, 2001). Moreover, Judy F. Chen (1996) strongly argued that “CALL is not
a hammer and not every teaching problem is a nail!”
Through analysis of different types of
teaching resources, this paper intends to ascertain that the integrative use of
teaching resources can benefit linguistically and cognitively foreign language
learning. Textbook-based language teaching still holds its position whether in
classroom teaching or online education. The integration of teaching resources
depends much on the teaching plan, the involvement of teachers and students,
motivation and availability of technical knowledge, and support.
2. Teaching Resources
There is no single entry of “teaching
resources” but “teaching materials evaluation” in Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied Linguistics: A Handbook for Language
Teaching, -an up-to-date, systematic, and comprehensive reference guide to
the key concepts, ideas, movements, and trends of applied linguistics for
language teaching. This is to indicate that the term “teaching resources” is
not officially accepted in the circle of linguistic study. However, the rapid
development of computer technology has invented a lot of new media, which
provide students more authentic, real life resources to listen to, to read, and
to write. A clear definition of teaching resources will help readers understand
its content, scope, and significance in language learning.
“Material” describes whatever is formed
of tangible matter and may be used in opposition to spiritual, ideal, intangible; it may have suggestions of the mundane, crass, or grasping rather
than romantic and Utopia. (Webster’s
Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged,
1961. p. 1392)
“Resource” may refer to any asset or
means benefiting or assisting one, often to an additional, new, previously
unused, or reserve asset. (Webster’s
Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged,
1961. p. 1934)
From the definitions of “material” and
“resource”, it is understood that “resource” has a larger coverage than
“material”. To cope with modern technology, it is preferred to use teaching
resources in today’s linguistic study. Generally speaking, teaching resources
refer to any means assisting language teaching presented in the form of both
tangible and intangible matters by the application of the human brain and
modern technologies.
1) Textbooks
Textbooks are the most obvious and most
common forms of teaching resources for language instruction. The communicative
approach of language teaching initiated by Wilkins (1972, 1976) persuades a
novel language teaching objective, but never a novel method or technique.
Nonetheless, the pursuit of the novel objective provokes a language teaching
revolution. Thus, the design of textbooks has shifted to teach the language
needed to express and understand different kinds of functions, such as
requesting, describing, expressing likes and dislikes and to emphasize the
process of communication, such as using language appropriately in different
types of situations, using language to perform different kinds of tasks, and
using language for social interaction with other people (Jack Richards, 2000).
Therefore, most recently published textbooks are designed in a way with
necessary pictures, drawings, graphs, charts, signs, posts, and some even with
CD-ROM.
2) Other written texts
“Written texts” are any of a wide
variety of types of writing and speech, and those writings that when commonly
seen in daily life extend a range of possibilities such as labels, forms,
charts, essays, manuals, books, signs, schedules, calendars, advertisements,
menus, memos, notes, and reports.
3) Audio-visual aids
As a
stereotyped interactive technique in the language class, audio-visual aids are
mainly from two different resources: first, commercially produced and second,
created by teachers themselves. All in all, they include posters, charts,
magazine pictures; audio tapes with listening exercises, lectures, stories and
other authentic samples of native speakers texts; video tapes and films with
documentaries on special topics; slide shows with multimedia effect on certain
topics and more complex with hyperlink to web-sites.
4) Realia
Realia (in language teaching) can be in
the form of digital and actual objects and items from the target culture, which
are brought into the classroom as examples or aids and used to stimulate spoken
or written language production. It may include the objects such as food items,
cosmetics, tools, photographs, articles of clothing, and other material the
teacher brings to the class to add some significant reality (Brown, 2003,
Richards, 2000, Bryan Smith,1997). Realia illustrates vocabulary and structure
in the second language (Celce-Murcia & Hilles, 1988) and reveals the
similarities and differences between native and target cultures as well as
raises (multi-) cultural awareness. Realia can improve the quality and
availability of culturally based, authentic EFL materials (Smith, 1997).
5) Computer assisted language learning (CALL)
CALL is based on powerful multimedia
computers and the Internet that have brought texts, graphics, sound, animation
and video to be assessed on a computer at any time. Wide ranges of on-line
applications are already available for use in the foreign language class. They
include dictionaries and encyclopedias, links for teachers, chat-rooms, pronunciation
tutors, grammar and vocabulary quizzes, games and puzzles, and literary
extracts.
By efficiently using the Internet
resources, students can not only communicate with electronic pen friends, but
also join a chat-room and communicate on-line through E-mails. Moreover,
Students can work on their own, in groups of two or in larger teams, to write
an assignment, to work for a project writing, and to construct a home page for
his/her peer groups to publish their home work on the Internet. Apart from
that, tutorial programs, text-building programs, process writing, games and
simulations, and computer adaptive testing can be applied in classroom teaching
(Brown, 2003).
The integration of the above five types
of teaching resources forms the key part of modern language learning process.
The large input of foreign language in another social environment can help the
students learn the language more effectively.
Language learning is concerned with the
development of communication skills. Hence “instruction needs to point toward
all of its components: organizational, pragmatic, strategic, and psychomotor.”
(Brown, 2003) To do this, teachers shall understand some basic concepts to
supervise students to effectively use different types of resources for the need
of different levels of students.
1) Student-centered teaching
Influenced by the Communicative
Methodology (CM) contributed by Hymes (1970) and Halliday, the student-centered
teaching is becoming popular in foreign language teaching throughout the world.
CM emphasizes on teaching of appropriateness (teaching usage rather than use),
message-focus (the ability to understand and convey messages), real attempt to
simulate psychological processes, risk-taking skills, and free practice techniques
(Keith Johnson, 2001).
Guided by this teaching process, English
teachers in China can see changes contrasted to teacher-centered practice in
the past. Teachers and educators generally accept the theories on learners’
individual difference in second language learning. They are adopting techniques
that focus on learners’ needs, styles, and goals. The involvement of students
in classes becomes the key part of language teaching. So students are
encouraged to communicate in English both in class and after class. Teamwork,
group work, or strategic training are considered as providing chances for
students to contribute their ideas actively by a technique of brainstorming,
although those activities are under some control. Teachers in class facilitate
students’ creativity and innovation. Drill practice is discarded in class and
students usually have a large input of authentic and real language materials.
Much input and much output is the ideal results for language learning. To
reduce students’ psychological barriers in language learning, error correction
is replaced by error analysis.
The application of computers makes
students feel free to continue study because errors are usually unknown to the
learner. There is no public loss of face at errors on what teachers and
classmates may presume to be elementary language or skills assumed to be
already mastered. Skills and language work can be repeated endlessly until the
learner is satisfied with his/her own performance.
2) Interactive learning
D. Allwright (1984) in his article “ Why
Don’t Learners Learn What Teachers Teach? The Interaction Hypothesis” states
that what promotes the development of second/ foreign language proficiency is
the process of face-to-face linguistic interaction, not merely the encountering
of “input”. Henceforth, the actual interactive activities shall be organized
either in the classroom or computer room. When you speak, the listener receives
your message. In this process, you have received feedback from your listener
while you are producing meaningful sound.
Interactive learning within a multimedia
environment can take a variety of forms, choosing learning materials, using
reference resources, and checking comprehension of language input. Thus,
Internet teaching resources shall ensure that students have opportunities to
check, clarify, and confirm their understanding. (Paul Brett, 1995)
For online education, students can be
instructed to enter chat rooms to write messages to their pen pals or to have
oral communication or topic discussions with someone in the virtual world in
the target language. Moreover, students can take notes while they are listening
to online tutorial programs. And some of them can be asked to give a lecture on
a certain topic to his/her peer groups in the classroom. Or one student can
work as an instructor and another one can work as a receiver. The instructor
can then instruct the receiver to follow his/her instructions by understanding
the target language.
For classroom teaching, a significant
amount of pair work and group work can be organized by teachers to make sure
that students are receiving authentic language input in real world contexts and
producing language for genuine, meaningful communication. Teachers can also
perform classroom tasks in a way that can prepare students for actual language
use.
3) Task-based learning
Task is defined as “any structured
language-learning endeavor, which has a particular objective, appropriate
content, a specified working procedure, and a range of outcomes for those who
undertake the task.” (Michael Breen, 1987). In teaching practice, it involves
the aspects of goals, procedures, order, pacing, product, learning strategy,
assessment, participation, resources, and language.
The successful achievement of goals
depends much on types of tasks such as open-ended, structured, teacher-fronted,
small group and pair work, on learner factors such as roles, proficiency levels
and style, and on teacher roles and other variables.
4) Student Motivation
Through task-based learning, students
may have a sense of achievement, self-esteem, pride in solving the problem,
enjoyment of the class, being able to use the language as desired. This is
thought to be intrinsic motivation. On the other hand, there will be other
consequences of success on the task: prizes for doing well, getting the job of
one’s choice, a higher position, and gaining some certificate on a test score.
This is considered to be extrinsic motivation.
Usually intrinsic motivation is derived
from extrinsic pressures such as school curriculum, parental expectations,
society expectations, test and exams, moneymaking, and competition.
4. Guidelines of Teaching
Resources Application
1) Awareness of new tech and new approach
Students and teachers are all used to
textbooks, other written texts, audio-visual aids and realia, whereas, the
birth of CALL has created unimaginable benefits to language learning. The rapid
development of information technology substitutes almost all types of teaching
resources since students can read all types of authentic real texts, watch
movies, pictures and animations, and listen to the sound produced by the
multimedia technology. Students can communicate in the virtual world with their
partners by using the target language. Teachers must first understand clearly
the advantages and limitations of CALL before they start to facilitate students
to use teaching resources.
With the idea of a communicative
approach in mind, teachers have to know how to apply online resources to
classroom teaching and online learning. Different techniques have to be used
for different tasks to meet the needs of foreign language teaching and
learning. Appropriate proportion of time shall be carefully allocated to
different types of teaching resources.
2) Computer literacy and competence
It
is ridiculous that teachers and students can reach the goal of good teaching
and learning outcome without computer literacy and competence. Apart from basic
computer operations, teachers and students shall be able to use computers to
know where to find a pen pal, how to search for useful information, how to
organize group activities via Internet, and how to use certain techniques such
as emails, net meetings, and chat rooms.
3) Integration of different teaching resources
Classroom teaching shall closely work
together with online education. Students at different times for different
learning periods will get different ways of language input. For each task,
teachers shall be fully prepared to be familiar with textbooks and online
resources. At the same time, teachers shall have a clear idea of the objectives
of each task and then try every means to make the best choice and use of
teaching techniques. However, simply asking students to go to the computer room
and to surf on the Internet will not ensure a significant educational outcome.
4) Necessary technical support
Jaya
Kannan and Cynthia Macknish (2000) and Solange Moras (2001) have realized the
importance of technical support for online education. In Jaya Kannan’s case
study, all the students were from China, with a background in teacher-directed
learning with little exposure to computers. Moreover, these students became
anxious when they found out that their English language tutors could not help
them to solve the problems when they failed to retrieve information.
Some positive solutions are suggested to
cope with the frustration faced by the students when they are using the
Internet. Handouts, training sessions, basic computer operations, and simple
log-on procedures are necessities before students start their actual online education.
Students’ work groups and the availability of technical as well as English
language support are of great help to online students.
5) Authentic real world materials
The
compilation of textbooks is a long process. Quite often the material in the textbooks
is out-dated. To source authentic real world materials, it is better to prepare
something from Internet. The teacher’s job is to provide relevant web sites to
students completely exposing them to the up-dated, natural, and real materials
that are not invented for the purpose of language learning. Besides,
exploration of real world CD-ROMs such as films, stories and Encyclopaedia Britannica leads learners
to engage with such authentic language materials.
5. A Survey of online resources application
Three
issues of Newsletter published by the
Institute of Beiwai Online Education have been examined respectively on the
percentage of online resources application.
Table 1. Students’ Articles
|
Topics |
No. of
Ss |
% |
Topics |
No. of
Ss |
% |
|
Study
skills |
15 |
40.5 |
Online
resources |
3 |
8.1 |
|
Self-planning |
2 |
5.4 |
Audio-visual
aids |
1 |
2.7 |
|
How
well online education is |
16 |
43.2 |
Total
No. |
37 |
100 |
Table
2. Teachers’ Articles
|
Topics |
No. of Ts |
Topics |
No. of Ts |
|
Online
education research |
2 |
Timing
|
2 |
|
Homework
correction |
4 |
Online
resources |
2 |
Table
1 shows that 8.1% of students discussed online resources application. One
student commented that you could spend thirty (30) minutes before dinner and
download English material for reading. Another student mentioned how she used
multimedia texts, audio-visual aids, tutorial program, VOB, telephone, E-mail,
BBS, tapes, CD, CAI courseware, and VBI teaching news. This was the only
student who talked completely about the application of teaching resources.
There
were two teachers talking about online resources. One teacher said, “At
present, our teaching center seldom uses online resources. Sometimes, tutors
send messages to students. Sometimes, we take a look at students’ online
study.” “Supplementary reading materials and exercises need to be provided for
the teacher. To reduce the workload of teachers and to enrich teaching
experience, the share of tutoring material is of great concern to all tutors.”
Another
teacher wrote, “In the process of teaching, we are able to get all
requirements, notices from headquarters, to download tutoring materials, to
monitor students’ online study, and to send messages to students such as home
work, tutoring time and changes.”
All
the facts have proved that the application of online teaching resources is not
satisfactory.
There
is a danger to turn online chat shows into online teaching, as is vividly
described by Bruce Michael (2002):
One of the sad things
about ‘online’ chat shows is that there is no ‘face to face’ contact, and
therefore I cannot, nor can the students get, information from body language.
There are no smiles, although laughter is a form of body language. No one has
been stirred up to the point of anger. It’s good to get the audience and the
host ‘worked up’ about topics. We need a few more comments such as ‘nonsense’
and ‘rubbish’ thrown in to the conversations to liven up proceedings.
The other sad thing is the lack of personal
oral input from students in the ‘chat’ format. We have had roughly only 30-35%
of the chat audience participating in the ‘online’ show. The other 65-70% of
the audience are simply passive participants. …of course, at the end of the
show, I will always give my opinion.
6. Barriers in applications of teaching resources
The
barriers inhibiting the application of teaching resources can be classified in
the following common categories (1) strong impact of teacher-directed learning,
(2) technical limitations, (3)
active teacher involvement, and (4) acceptance of the technology.
1) Strong impact of teacher-directed learning
Online students were middle school graduates who
had gone through twelve years of teacher-directed learning; some of them had
never touched computers before they were enrolled as online students, some had
knowledge of basic skills of computer operations. At some stage, students
thought that online education was more lively and colorful and they had learned
a lot from it. However, this stage does not last long. Finally, they found out
that online texts are almost the repetition of their textbooks. Gradually, they
lost their interest in online learning. Once, they were ready at the computer
room, they opened ICQ, a famous Chinese chat room to have a chat in Chinese
instead of English with their peer groups.
Online
information access and retrieval become easy and available around the clock.
The regional boundary (walls around the campus and territory boundary),
behavior boundaries (e.g. inside and outside of classrooms) and psychological
boundaries (e.g. some people are reticent in real world but may be talkative in
virtual world) are completely broken and students enjoy more freedom to learn
on the Internet. (Gu Yuegou, 2003)
However,
with improvement of their computer skills and easy access to the Internet,
students began to explore other avenues like e-mail and web surfing. With
greater exposure, their interest would be widened and they would not always be
on task in the lab.
2) Technical limitations
This is largely related to the current
state of development of the Internet. Computers are not clever enough to be
truly interactive even they have brought surprising changes to human life. You
can hear voices and watch images but you cannot speak to them. As discussed
earlier, interactive communication can only be achieved in face-to-face
communication in the classroom.
Web site construction or technical
support is a great task for web administrators. Good cooperation is needed
between textbook designers and web administrators. Sometimes, you find that
there are rich teaching resources for some courses, but for other courses you will
get none.
3) Active teacher involvement
Teachers have to be familiar with
textbooks and online tutorial programs as well. They should try hard to change
students’ long-standing learning habit by guiding them to be self-dependent,
self-motivated, and self-planning. There is a higher requirement for language
teachers: they have to be experts both in English language teaching and
computer technology. Only in this way can they anticipate and offer the basic
support to help students, particularly at the early stages.
4) Acceptance of the technology
Many instructors do not understand how
to use the new technology and there is a natural tendency for people to refuse
it since their normal life order might be broken by the new technology.
Furthermore, little is known about integrating these new means of learning into
an overall plan (Kuang-wu Lee, 2000).
Following
are some complaints from students: difficulties of logging on, unclear voices
from the Internet, too much scrolling, too much text with lack of graphics, and
too many exercises. Obviously, they have an unusually higher expectation of the
new technology.
One
time, a tutor’s email address was given to students in writing class. Out of
expectations, none of the students responded to emailing their writings back.
Sometimes, students simply wanted to meet the requirements, then move to surf
the Internet.
Following
the principles of teaching resources application and the communicative teaching
approach, some strategies are introduced to overcome the barriers and
difficulties in regard to the application of teaching resources.
First,
a well-designed lesson plan must be ready before each class. This plan includes
objectives, context, online resources, textbook resources, audio-visual aids,
activities, tasks, class organization, language points, possible problems, and
homework. To prepare this plan, teachers must completely understand context of
the textbook and online teaching resources. Each class must be organized
appropriately so as to meet the requirements of communicative methodology as
discussed earlier.
Second,
teachers must become familiar with using the Internet and its various functions
such as e-mail. They must also learn how to use specific search tools in order
to access information, search for lesson plans, or material and ideas to
supplement their lessons.
Moreover,
language teachers must learn how to transfer files from Internet sites to their
own computer and vice versa. Obtaining information or literature on the
Internet, either through the Net itself, through books or by attending
workshops and courses will further assist this process. To avoid facing the
same difficulties or problems associated with the use of the Internet, teachers
can ask students to keep track of problems that arise during use. In essence,
language teachers must take the plunge and approach the Internet as a learning
experience themselves. The more enthusiastic and the more knowledgeable
language teachers are, the more successfully they can implement the Internet in
the language classroom.
Third, teachers must be more patient to train students to change their
learning habit. As is pointed out by Professor Gu Yueguo, online students must be qualified to
have the abilities of (1) self-management (including self-planning and
self-monitoring), (2) self-assessment, (3) self-adjustment, (4) independent
learning, (5) active information acquisition, (6) information filter, (7)
dealing with relations among work, study and family, (8) inter-personal, and
(9) seeking for help (Gu Yueguo, 2003).
Students must be given more time to learn by themselves while classroom
teaching shall strongly focus on problem solving. They shall be correctly
guided to use Internet resources.
Fourth,
technical support is necessary all of the time while students are operating
computers. Technicians must be available whenever there is a need. Teachers and
students are operators of computers but they are not technicians who can solve
technical problems such as slow access to the Internet, breakdown of computers
and digital transmission breakup.
In conclusion, new technology makes it possible to integrate different types of teaching resources, to let students study in a three-dimensional situation, and to learn foreign language more effectively. To make full use of teaching resources, teachers play important roles in seeking varieties of aids or resources to make classes more attractive and more effective. Teaching and learning will be re-enforced if there is a good integration between classroom teaching and online learning. For the language learner, the Internet offers a world of information available to students at the touch of a button. However, it must be recognized that online learning cannot replace the language classroom or the interaction between the language teacher and student. Online learning offers a vast amount of information and lends itself to communication possibilities that can greatly enhance the language learning experience.
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