THE LANGUAGE TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS TECHNOLOGY

THE LANGUAGE TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS TECHNOLOGY

The strog attitudes are indicated by their conviction that language classroom should have various types of technology and that the teachers themselves should use them to develop students language skills. This is because student, as the teachers believe, will be able to learn second language  better by using technology.

For teachers who have not been skillful in using technological facilities, they need to keep up with the development by attending special courses or development programs focusing on ICT. This is because, in fact, nowadays students are also getting more familiar with the use of technology. They are going to do most of their writing and much of their reading on an electronic screen because they live now in a world of electronic text (Schultz, 2000).

Language Teachers See the Benefits of Technology

Many of the teachers believe that the use of technology will boost students’ language learning.

Some of them said that, The students will be interested to learn if I used technological facility and it has increased their achievement, or Technology can improve the language learning achievement of the students. But not all teachers agree that technology will be effective in improving students’ language learning. This is understandable because advanced instructional technology which is used without great content may be entertaining but not fully leading to learning.

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

This article has shown that technology, as language teachers believe, is inseparable with the success of teaching and learning activities. Regardless of the types of the technology, either non web-based or web-based, they facilitate language learning. This article also shows that the presence of technology in language classrooms is a prerequisite for interesting language instruction and success in language learning. These findings lead to the need for considering

some action plans for language teachers. Language teachers should take the challenge to customize their language teaching activities by taking into account new development in learning theories,current teaching trends, and available types of technology in contemporary settings. Teaching language using technology poses many challenges. For instance, it is not that simple to teach listening and speaking online since teaching both skills asks for stable and excellent quality for clear voice and video image during the interaction between the teacher and the learners. Moreover, teachers must be able to solve some technical problems in the classroom, as in the reality of some schools do not have a ready technician to help in case of connection breakdown or system problems. Generally speaking, teachers should be as skilled as his/her students so that the students do not destroy the lesson or embarrass the teacher. It is expected that this can give insights to second language teachers regarding the use of technology for language learning practices and their effects on language learning achievement. In relation to the finding of research conducted by Hismanoglu (2012), it is also suggested that prospective teachers should be equipped with practical knowledge in using advanced ICT to ensure that they will be able to teach using ICT in the future.