DEVELOPING LEARNERS’ AUTONOMY WITH ICTS

María José López Aguirre
Week 2: Effectiveness of the Integration of ICT Tools and Activities to Foster Awareness as the First Stage to Reach Learning Autonomy
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The reading for this week provide interesting information about the integration of ICTs to foster autonomous behavior in the learning process. My initial impression of this article was excellent I really agree with the idea that teachers should engage students with activities to promote self-evaluation and self-monitoring to help them get to know themselves as learners. Something I learned from this article and that every teacher should know was the fact that when using appropriate activities and including technology in the classroom, teachers can contribute to increase learners’ motivation, autonomy and thinking skills in a significant way, but it also requires more time, guidance and effort when teaching to them.

Something that made me want to read more about was the importance of computer assisted language learning (CALL) to help teachers anticipate learners’ needs; for example, assessing learners in order to identify their learning styles and discover what is relevant for them. In addition, CALL offers a great variety of available resources in order to cover learners’ interest and preferences. In that way, they are able to react on their practices and management of technologies and sources. It is important to acknowledge that the role of the teacher becomes critical in order to offer support, accompaniment and preparation to receive new knowledge.

My favorite quote from the article was “The more autonomous a learner becomes, the more likely he or she is to achieve high language proficient”. Finally, I think that it is important for students to develop their learning autonomy, so that they are going to easily enhance their learning process in order to reach their setting goals.

LEARNING WITH CALL

María José López Aguirre
Week 1: Computer and Language Learning: an Overview.
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This week reading presented useful and interesting information about Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL). CALL embraces a wide range of information and communication technology applications and approaches to teaching and learning process.
The article “Computers and Language Learning” explains the three paradigms in which CALL was divided throughout the years (behavioristic, communicative, and Integrative). The most important stage that caught my attention is the Integrative CALL, a combination of task, project and content-based approaches to integrate students in an authentic context in which they would learn to develop various skills (speaking, listening, writing, and reading) using technology as the main tool into their learning process.
A belief of mine that was changed was having the teacher as the most important language source of knowledge in the classroom. However, something that surprised me from this article was seeing the teacher as a facilitator of learning that offer information in multiple media. The current philosophy of CALL emphasizes on student-centered approaches. Teachers training stimulates learners to use multimedia and other resources effectively allowing them interpret and classify their knowledge using their own organizing schemes.
The quote I want to remember from the article was “Activities that encourage students to explore and be creators of language rather than passive recipients of it further the idea of the learner as an active participant in learning” (Brown, 1991). It confirmed my belief that students retain more information, considered as relevant knowledge, by manipulating language data in an autonomous way using a variety of computer software programs.

EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM

Hello, readers! My name is Maria Jose Lopez and I am currently studying teaching English in Don Bosco University. During this semester I will be posting my reflections regarding to some articles about Instructional Technology in Education.So, I hope you enjoy them, and that this reading logs can be useful to you.Feel free to comment and ask questions.