Humanizing Our Teaching Practices through the Use of Technology.

Salta

Congreso; FAAPI Concerence: Humanizing Our Teaching Practice: Minding the Whole Person; 2003

Asociación Salteña de Profesores de Inglés

The controversy over whether the use of computers in education is beneficial or not --whether it is worthwhile or not-- has been going on for quite some time now. The use of technology for educational purposes has been debated extensively and, in many cases, highly questioned. Since the heyday of drill-and-practice software, through the times when tutorial and interactive software packages swept schools in the U.S., up to the present day when trends involving the use of the Internet for virtual classes and information resources have become commonplace, there have been supporters and detractors. In general, those people who advocate the integration of technology and education believe that we can improve our teaching practices, while those who are against it do not find much value in the use of technology. The latter are against this integration for various reasons --the two most common reasons being their fear of the unknown and their reluctance to get involved in yet another activity, when their daily schedule is already tight. Although we do not claim to have the definitive answers that will tilt the balance to one side or the other, we believe we can offer some suggestions as to how we can implement computer-based activities successfully in our EFL classes. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is not to engage the audience in that long drawn-out debate, but to show that, as technology is here to stay, we might as well explore the best ways in which we can use it with our students in our language, grammar and composition classes. It is our contention that networked computers, specific software and web-based environments can be wisely used to humanize our teaching practices, especially when these teaching practices have become too mechanical or too teacher-centered.