languageinindia.pdf

LANGUAGE IN INDIA Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow Volume 7 : 2 February 2007 Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D. Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D. Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D. B. A. Sharada, Ph.D. A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D. Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D. K. Karunakaran, Ph.D. Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D. INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY TOOLS IN LANGUAGE LEARNING K. Meenakshi, M.A., M.Phil. R. Jayachandran, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D. Language in India, 7:2, 2007IT Tools in Lang. Learning Meenakshi and Jayachandran 1 Language in India, 7:2, 2007IT Tools in Lang. LearningMeenakshi and Jayachandran 1 INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY TOOLS IN LANGUAGE LEARNING K. Meenakshi, M.A., M.Phil. R. Jayachandran, Ph.D. INTRODUCTION For a long time, the teacher-centred approach has been more prominent than any other approach in teaching-learning process in Indian contexts. This process basically enhanced the memory power of the learners and did not enrich their knowledge, understanding and practical application of what they have learned. In this age of globalization, Indian institutions, organizations and individuals are forced to compete with the best in the world, and success is possible only if we modify our approach to education. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools offer us a powerful platform for better education. In this paper, we discuss how we could use ICT tools for English language teaching-learning. Language in India, 7:2, 2007IT Tools in Lang. LearningMeenakshi and Jayachandran 2 THE NEED FOR THE USE OF ICT The use of ICT furnishes a new platform in which learners build their knowledge and develop an understanding through the creation of links between the new and updated concepts and those that already exist. They help the learners in acquiring knowledge generated by experts, understand, discuss and further disseminate to others in comprehensible terms. ICT serves as a catalyst for all learners irrespective of their age who are in need of updated information. ICT tools, when used aptly, can also act as an efficient resource to augment language learning. RELEVANCE OF ICT IN LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING Generally speaking, the teaching of English in Indian schools is limited to structure/grammar and/or translation method. This is an inevitable consequence of several factors including teacher competence in English. At the school level, structures and vocabulary are taught through a structural syllabus and grammar translation method because we believe that it will help learners construct correct English sentences. At the tertiary level, these structures are modified and more exposure to English is provided with literary texts. Students who have received nearly twelve years of formal English teaching often remain deficient in the use of language, be it spoken or written. For the present day world, the need is not communicating just by composing of sentences of different kinds but by using sentences to describe, classify, question, request, etc. Indian students from vernacular medium as well as English medium schools fail to communicate properly not because they lack ideas but because they have not been taught to perform communicative tasks. Our scientists and engineers may be technically brilliant and creative but if they cannot communicate effectively to the society for whom they are working, they become ineffective, and their talent goes untapped and unnoticed. Many industries, for instance, have departments like design, production, marketing and management where people from different disciplines and different mother tongue backgrounds, with different skills and different specializations, work together. It becomes a difficult task to participate fully and meaningfully in all activities, and also to coordinate the work and responsibilities, if a person has poor knowledge of the language through which these activities are organized, communicated and reported to one another. Professionals need to talk in a group Language in India, 7:2, 2007IT Tools in Lang. LearningMeenakshi and Jayachandran 3 setting, attend company meetings, undertake external negotiations, participate in conferences and help solve technical problems. In all these, English continues to be used significantly. Language learning has, thus, become a continuum providing opportunities for life long learning and hence cannot be confined to the traditional classroom. The following sections deal with the different information and communication technology tools used in improving the quality of learning and teaching and the above concept is strengthened by a case study that we undertook. ICTs AND THEIR POTENTIAL FOR EDUCATION Language teaching has its own technology to support irrespective of the teaching-learning methodology adopted. As said earlier, the grammar translation method relies on the blackboard – a chalk and talk method, which is still considered to be the best one-way transformation of information。