Integrating technology in Education

Nowadays technology is being considered as an essential tool in Education. Some years ago students used to carry heavy books to school or they had to go to libraries when they were assigned a homework or a research project, these tasks were so tiring and time consuming. Fortunately, many things have change regarding this, Techonology has created our educaction an easier and interactive process. students can store a lot digital information in flash drivers rather than books and papers, they can also search information in internet rather than libraries, In fact, tecnology has had a great impact in our educational process that promote students interest and motivation to learn in a different environment.

Technology has many different effects on education, Teacher and students can work more practically and interactevely, in the case of teachers, they can be able to present their classes by using multimedia equipments such as computers, internet, and also they can keep in touch with their students by e-mail and other sources, morever, students are the ones who can have more benefits with the integration of technology in class. students can find any can of information in internet, there is a variety of information in which people can have unlimited access. Aslo they can perform expostions, projects simply by using power point rather than bring printed the information. Furthermore, methods of instruction must change in order to keep up with the ever-changing world and we, as teachers must cease the technological movement. When technology and appropriate teaching methods are combined, technology may increase the academic achievement. There are many factors and activities that can help teachers develop an attitude that is intrepid in the use of technology, encourages them to take risks, and inspires them to involve technology in the classroom environment. Without no doubt, technology stimulates and develops many skills in students specially when they arelearning a second language. Nowaday there are many good softwares that help students learn meaningfully and effectively, besides that, there are many students who have different necessities and disabilities when leanring a language, even though, these problems are no longer a limitation thanks to technology.

What is teaching English as a second language like today?

Many people nowadays are in the necessity to learn English effectevely with a good pronuntiation and accent. Even though, most of the methodologies used by teachers do not promote communicative skills, that is because the activities applied in class are not meaninful and effective. this is a very common problem, if we go to a typical English classroom in public high school we realize that students just focus in grammar exercises like fill in blacks, drills, writing short sentences, etc. Based in my experice, I would say that with these kind of activities teachers no not develop many skills....

Teaching Speaking

Speaking is considered as the most important skill of the learner, most of the time the proficiency of this skill is which judges the knowledge of the learner of the second language. People have to many reasons to improve their ability of the skill such as expressing ideas, creating relationships, exchanging information etc. Even though, the development of this skill is not an easy task for anybody, there are many aspects that have to be taken into account in the learning process, the learner must be active and dynamic practicing and exchanging patterns that are important in the development of the skill, during the process the learner must be expose to a natural environment and natural speeches of the target langauge that enable them to develop their awarness of conversational features and strategies, so the task for the teacher is to incorporate real communication in the classroom promoting interactive and realistic activities in order to help students gain confidence and feel motivated, even though despite its importance, for many years, teaching speaking has been undervalued and English language teachers have continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or memorization of dialogues. Fortunately, today's world requires that the goal of teaching speaking should improve students' communicative skills, because, only in that way, students can express themselves and learn how to follow the social and cultural rules appropriate in each communicative circumstance.

There is no doubt that students learn to speak in the second language by interacting. Today there are many methodologies that can help efficiency for this aim. One of them can be the communicative approach that is based on real-life situations that require communication. By using this method in ESL classes, students will have the opportunity of communicating with each other in the target language. ESL teachers should create a classroom environment where students have real-life communication, authentic activities, and meaningful tasks that promote oral language. This can occur when students collaborate in groups to achieve a goal or to complete a task

It is essensial for the students to practice as much they can in the class and in daily life as well, simple activites such as share ideas about an event, or find solutions in their discussion groups are effective to improve the skill. Before the discussion, it is important that the purpose of the discussion activity is set by the teacher. In this way, the discussion points are relevant to this purpose, so that students do not spend their time chatting with each other about irrelevant things. For example, students can become involved in agree/disagree discussions. In this type of discussions, the teacher can form groups of students, preferably 4 or 5 in each group, and provide topic of interest for them..

Teaching speaking is a very important part of second language learning. The ability to communicate in a second language clearly and efficiently contributes to the success of the learner in school and success later in every phase of life. Therefore, it is essential that language teachers pay great attention to teaching speaking. Rather than leading students to pure memorization, providing a rich environment where meaningful communication takes place is desired. With this aim, various speaking activities such as those listed above can contribute a great deal to students in developing basic interactive skills necessary for life. These activities make students more active in the learning process and at the same time make their learning more meaningful and fun for them.