Using Educational Social Network in Teaching English for EFL Students

The Current Issues towards the Use of ICT in English Language Teaching:

Using Educational Social Network in Teaching English for EFL Students

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INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, the use of Information and Computer Technology (ICT) is not a new thing anymore to people. People are already getting accustomed to use ICT in their daily life through their gadget and activities. The use of ICT could not be separated from people’s activities especially for students. Almost all students have their own gadgets. They use it for getting new information and knowing what happened outside their environment. They can access the information throughout the internet wherever they are, as long as their gadgets are connected to the internet signal.

Considering those facts above, the writer can say that there are some things appear in students’ daily life related to the use of ICT. The application of ICT in students’ daily activity can show their motivation and their attitude in sing it. Thus, this paper assignment will further talk and explain about the issues appear to students. Additionally, this paper assignment will also proposed some conclusion remarks based on the facts appeared in the field.

As we know that students differ in their motivation towards learning English and they display many different attitudes towards learning a language. A student that has negative attitudes towards learning English could be changed and turn those negative attitudes into positive ones and get a positive result. This will be further discussed below.

The fact that we can find at school is that the teacher sometimes cannot create a good media to overcome the situation above. As we know that computer-assisted language learning (CALL) allows the combination of different online resources through multiple hyperlinks, a feature common to most online searches and many offline utility. With the expansion of CALL, more questions have been raised. Issues of learning style, motivation, attitude, personality and some other factors have come to the fore with the use of computers. Students who see CALL as an important part of the course also have a high level of motivation and attitude in learning English.

In the learning process, students will show different attitudes and it will be different between one and each other. Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) can affect the students’ attitude in learning process. All the students agree that they are proficient in computers and they are integrated with them. This can be seen through the use of students’ gadget in their daily life. This statement is supported by the study conducted by Önsoy (2004) who also confirmed that there were differences between the learning process that using computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and the one that do not. In his thesis, he stated that students and teachers demonstrated positive attitudes towards the use of computers in daily tasks and in language instruction. However, the findings showed that there were statistically significant differences among the perceptions of students in terms of their levels. The findings also indicated that students and teachers believed that training was required and they believed that they needed training to learn and teach with computers.

ICT In Language Teaching (Some Questions and Answers)

 

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1. Explain the benefits of information and communication technology (ICT) in education? 

Answer: 

(1) developing technology provides a tremendous opportunity to develop education management and learning processes in schools, (2) specific student learning outcomes can be identified by the use of new technologies, and (3) ICT has tremendous potential to transform entire aspects of education in schools and use them to achieve learning goals.

2.  Describe the main obstacles faced in implementing ICT in schools? 

Answer: 

(1) The budget for early care of facilities are not available, (2) Training is usually too specific and not related to the needs in the field or a change of attitude, (3) unavailability of employees for routine maintenance and development, (4) the unavailability of qualified tecknisians and too expensive, (5) The material that is suitable for teaching is not available, and (6) poor working conditions of teachers in the field dictates that they can not devote time to develop teaching materials creatively.

3. Definition of ICT? 

Answer: 

Tinio defines ICT as a set of tools that are used to communicate and create, disseminate, store, and manage information.  including computers, Internet, broadcasting technologies (radio and television), and telephone. UNESCO (2004) defines that ICT is the technology used to communicate and create, manage and distribute information. General definition of ICT is a computer, internet, telephone, television, radio, and audiovisual equipment. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) includes two aspects, namely Information and Communications Technology. Information technology encompasses all matters relating to process, use as a tool, manipulation, and management information. Communication technology covers all matters relating to the use of tools to process and transfer data from one device to another.

4.  Explain the stages of ICT development program by the Plan of National Education Strategic fin the year 2005-2009?

 Answer: 

1) The first stage consists of (a) designing a network system that includes the Internet network, which connects schools with data centers and applications, besides that networks and the Internet as a means of communication and information media in schools, (b) to design and create the application of database, ( c) to design and create applications of education management in central, regional, and school (d) to design and create learning applications based Web, multimedia, and interactive.

2) The second phase includes (a) to implement the system at schools in Indonesia that covers the procurement of ICT facilities, infrastructure and training for technicians and teachers (b) to design and create learning applications.

3) The third and fourth stage is the stage of expanding the system implementation in schools.

5. Explain the role of ICT in School Management System?

Answer: 

application of ICT are very necessary in implementating of school management to be  more effective and efficient. Ruud (2005) pointed out that investment in ICT in schools which is then followed by the development of teacher and student competence in the field of ICT to improve the effectiveness of school management and improve performance of academic staff and students. This is understandable because the application of ICT in schools will directly contribute to improve management and administration processes, the opportunity to develop teaching materials and independent learning, a motivator for students to develop their capabilities, and as a tool to develop profession and innovation mechanisms in monitoring and evaluating the processes and learning outcomes.

6. Explain the benefits of ICT in School Management? 

Answer: 

Benefits of ICT in School Management include: 

- Benefits for Government: (a) help to prepare accurate databases and efficient information about the profiles and maps of education in Indonesia, (b) accelerate equitable distribution of national standards of educational attainment, (c) help to control educational process.

- Benefits for Schools: (a) help to improve school management and operational systems, (b) assist the school in terms of distributing information about the school profile and student learning outcomes to parents and other stakeholders, (c) assist the school to provide a source of currency and relevance information for teachers and students.

- Benefits for Teachers: (a) open the opportunity for teachers to develop ICT-based teaching materials, interesting, innovative and stimulating the curiosity of students, (b) help teachers to prepare lesson plans including the provision of a comprehensive multimedia learning resources and cutting-edge, (c) allow teachers to monitor students' progress, (d) facilitating teachers to prepare reports and communicate with parents, (e) help teachers to assess learning outcomes based on authentic assessment.

- Benefits for parents: (a) monitor the activities and their children in school, (b) view of school assignments given to children so parents can participate in children's learning activities, (c) look at various school programs which can be followed by students, (d) interactive media among schools, teachers and parents, and (e) help to control educational process directly. 

- The benefits for students: (a) help students to use ICT skillfully in their lives, (b) helping students to see and examine learning materials per meeting, (c) help students to work on assignments and exams given online by the teacher , (d) help students to develop collaborative work, (e) motivate students to develop knowledge and skills related to the developing of science and technology. 

- The benefits for theschool committee: (a) facilitate the committee to monitor and evaluate educational programs in schools, (b) facilitate the committee to communicate with educators about education in schools, (c), facilitate the committee to be involved in drafting and designing school management program and improve the quality of learning.

7. Explain Matters to be considered by teachers in using compiuter / laptop in teaching? 

Answer: 

a. If you had never used computers in teaching, talk with students about it. Try to find out who among them has ever used it and who has not, how their feelings and attitudes. You also have to try to share experiences with them.

b. To familiarize and give students experience with computers, have students to work at computers in pairs. Through this pair work, try to make the less experienced students work with a more experienced.

c. For each new activity at computer, ask them to work in pairs so that they can help each other. 

d. Consider how to obtain materials for your students.

e. Consider how you use these materials for computer activities. In accordance with the level of students' computer skills, you can assign a particular treat with different learning levels in different groups of students.