Introduction | Focus on language and skills | Exploiting technology | Find answers

Introduction

A great bonus of the increasing presence of ICT in the teaching and learning of languages is that pupils are presented with ever more opportunities for improving learning, and for learning in diverse ways. The text book and traditional teaching clearly still have a major place in teaching and learning but ICT adds a new dimension, which enables learning to be more personalised, more flexible and more varied.

ICT can be used to great effect to improve understanding and performance in the target language and to improve both learning and ways of learning. A set of video-based case studies illustrating how teachers integrate ICT into teaching and learning can be seen on this site at ICT in action.

  • Develop language skills:
    • ICT is not solely a text medium. Pupils can develop all four language skills using modern technology. They can work on text manipulation activities which incorporate images or audio. They can identify and use useful images, sound or video clips on the Internet or CDROMs. They can easily make their own audio or video recordings in completion of a task. They can use audio and video in their own presentations.
  • Develop learning skills:
    • Pupils can work with ICT to develop their understanding of language, their analytical and organisational skills and their critical skills. Authoring software can be used to create engaging and challenging activities aimed at developing an understanding of grammar: investigative work on the Internet on aspects of life, geography, or culture in the target language country can be linked to creative activities where pupils interpret and present work imaginatively.
  • Learn in more varied ways:
    • Pupils can work effectively at their own pace and level, using differentiated materials or guided learning pathways created by the teacher. Hyperlinks placed in worksheets direct pupils to support materials or activities at higher or lower levels.
    • Pupils can work independently on research and collaboratively on project work.
    • Pupils can work flexibly away from the classroom.
    • Pupils can receive immediate feedback when completing interactive materials created  with authoring software. Hyperlinks can also be used in worksheets to link to correct versions: work submitted electronically can be returned to a pupil by e-mail or placed in their area on the school network or VLE (Virtual Learning Environment).
  • Communicate with their peers:
    • Pupils can use email, video conferencing, blogs, wikis, social networking sites and text messaging to develop their target language in contact with their peers in other countries.

Teachers use ICT to:

  • Make whole-class teaching and learning more dynamic. See Transforming teaching for comment on the role and value of interactive whiteboards, presentation software and other ICT for whole-class teaching.
  • Create worksheets and presentations which can include text, images, audio and video. Pupils can manipulate text, listen to audio or watch a video clip before completing gap-fill activities, for example. Text, taken and adapted from the Internet, can be suited to the needs of pupils and used  in worksheets, and presentations. Consult  CILT’s VRLB (Vocational Resources Learning Bank) for a wide variety of resources of practical use if you work in vocational education. See also the Teachers Resource Exchange (TRE) for a wide range of resources produced by teachers, many of which involve the use of ICT.
  • Develop interactive materials with authoring software: such materials may  include audio and graphics, and can be used to enable pupils to focus on language, grammar or comprehension skills.
  • Create multi-skill tasks, thereby enabling the development of all four language skills. For example, pupils move from a link in an electronic worksheet to an Internet page to complete research and then move back to the text file which may contain audio clips related to a text-based activity. The final stage might be to produce an animated presentation in completion of a creative task based on the preceding activities. If pupils make their presentation orally to the class they have used a range of applications, more than one language skill, plus creative and ICT skills.
  • Develop critical skills in pupils: presentations to their peers by pupils can be evaluated as a whole-class activity using a range of criteria covering, for example, accuracy, range of expression, visual appeal, and technical expertise. Written work completed electronically by pupils can be brought up on the screen or interactive whiteboard and used for whole-class discussion, the pupils working under the teacher’s guidance to identify areas of excellence or areas for improvement