The role of communication technologies in English teaching.
Education in the XXI century is totally different from the education our parents had, since they used books to do their homework. Nowadays we use a variety of modern devices that make our lives comfortable, secure and even faster than ever. Maybe if we were living in those years we would be dying of boredom because of the slowness of books. Therefore, in this essay I will write about the role of the technologies when teaching English, first about our parent`s experience, in other words education of English if twenty five years ago. Then you will read about the education we receive now according to teaching with technology, the computer age, and finally to summarize this essay, you will find conclusions about it.
The twenty five years ago English education was totally different from the education we are given now. Our parents did not use computers to communicate with speakers of English as we do, maybe because those were too expensive, and possibly to educate with only one computer was too difficult, or maybe because they did not know how to use them. They only had the opportunity to go to a library and look up for some English books, spending hours and hours reading, or just looking if something was useful for them, and I know that because I have my mom’s experience, she always tell me that I am a lazy, because I do not want to search information on the web because the computer works slow, and starts by telling me that to find some information she had to walk several streets to get the nearest library and then sit for many hours just to find an English or some other book.
Education and technology are changing fast, I said so because the education I received is not the same education that actual students receive, because when I was studding at school I had the opportunity to use computers and to taste a library, but now students just use computers or cell phones, because the role of technology had risen a level that I can not even imagine, for example the Ipod 4 if that is the word, Skype etc. But continuing with the advanced technology that students use I can say that now cell phones bring internet with them or at least we have to opportunity to hire that service. That is why teachers should be capacitated to manage internet and those devises to teach English and to lead students communicate with native speakers of English or just to manage internet to use a software of English or maybe to create or look for worksheets.
To conclude this essay I have to say that the communication technologies are very useful to teach and learn English because with internet we save time to learn more, we can look for information easier than looking for books on a library as our parent did. Although we are in a better time in which we can do things faster, we feel laziness to look them for on the web and that cause our parents feel bad because they lived a more difficult time totally different from ours.
Sandra Sánchez
