Dear FLE 324 members,
If you like you can choose the article on Tech-era L2 writing.Please consider the following points:
What do you think of the incorporation of technology in L2 writing? To what extent and how do you think of incorporating the latest developments in improving EFL learners’ writing skills? Where do you think a Turkish EFL teacher stands in the midst of these developments?
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ReplyDeleteIn their article “Tech-era L2 writing: towards a new kind of process” Stapleton and Radia state that L2 writing pedagogy is affected by changing approaches such as native speaker expectancies, process oriented writing or English for specific purposes (ESP); however, the effect of developing technology is ignored. They suggest several online/electronic sources to use in teaching writing and evaluate them.
ReplyDeleteAs it is suggested in the article using electronic tools is a valuable resource for teachers. They can be used to improve students’ spelling, grammar knowledge – even it is in a very limited level – and content of their writings. First of all, to incorporate technology in L2 writing classes requires teacher training because teachers who do not have enough knowledge related to online/electronic tools may direct students inaccurately. This will lead students to think that these tools are not improving their writing. Secondly, training and motivating students using these tools is a very important step in the integration of technology in the L2 writing classes. In order to make students use online sources wisely, they should be trained in the areas of finding relevant and reliable information on the internet; using online tools such as online corpora, thesauruses and dictionaries; and using spell checkers. It is also important to motivate students to use these tools. Since the students are generally unwilling to use too much energy on their assignments, using online tools may be seen as a burden by them. Benefits of these tools, and the reasons behind why we are using them should be clearly communicated to the students so they can understand what we are trying to do and use these tools.
As in all parts of lives, technology becomes an inseparable part of language teaching and learning. It supports language teachers and learners with invaluable tools. In the era of technology, it would be unreasonable not to incorporate these latest developments to language classes. Since the students are growing up with these technologies, they will not react against using these tools besides it will be motivating for students using them. I can be used for developing learners’ vocabulary. Online dictionaries and thesauruses are indispensible tools for language learners in that they help them to find the words they want to use their writings. Moreover online concordances can be used to find relevant collocations by the learners. By using online corpuses learners have a chance to see all the usages of a word and can choose the best collocation among them. As it is stated before, the important in using newly developed technology in language classes is learner training and motivation.
There is no doubt that these technological developments are very helpful for both students and teachers, but in the context of Turkey it may be hard to incorporate these technologies to the language classes. The problem is students and teachers do not have technological devices or they do not know how to use them for educational purposes. As far as I observed, students generally have computers and have internet access but they are not aware the benefits of them in language learning. Moreover teachers are very reluctant to use technology because it means to them more work because they first have to learn to use these tools. As a result these developments do not mean much to both students and teachers in Turkey.
As a result, in the era of technology, using new technologies in improving students’ writing can motivate students and help them to develop their spelling, vocabulary, content of writings. However all these depend on the wise usage of technology in L2 writing classes.
Developments in technology surely affect each and every aspect of our lives. Authors in this article, pointed out its effects on writing in L2. I heavily depend on Google results of a pair of words that I am not sure whether they go together well or not. Likewise,I also do not pay much attention to the spelling because I know that they will be underlined by MS Word. I find fancier words using dictionaries and avoid repetition of the same word by resorting to synonym.com
ReplyDeleteAll seems good so far. However, as I do not pay attention, I always do the same mistakes over and over again and I never feel that I have to keep the synonyms or fancy words in mind because they are easily accessible via Internet. So without technology, with a piece of blank paper and a pen, I would feel very uncomfortable. I also think that many students are just like me. Teachers should build some activities and assignments during which students cannot use this resources so that they pay attention to their mistakes found by the word processor. This will also ease teachers' hard job to check and correct the mistakes latter of the which is a very sensitive issue. Students will not depend only on teachers for correction and feedback anymore and more curious ones can actually develop themselves a lot. With teaching them to pay attention to their mistakes, teachers can facilitate "noticing". The student will notice what is wrong and learn it. However, to be able to depend on the software, students need to know about it very well. I am not hopeful about this because Turkish EFL teacher profile seems highly insufficient about computers and stuff. Even they had the necessary skills and knowledge about how to use technology, they hardly would be able to convey this information because schools lack the necessary equipment.
I think we should use as many novel thins as we can to prompt variety. However, just checking the product and not paying attention to it is only a parasitic thing. Teachers can develop personal quizzes consisted of students' mistakes and check whether they learned about them or just did not care about them. This can make students actually pay attention and benefit from the technological advancements but they should be trained about them in the first place which seems always impossible in Turkey's setting.
As we all know technology has developed a lot and still developing very fast and also it is indispensible. In our daily life we use technology in everywhere, at school, at office, at home… in different types. (I mean we use computers, mobile phones, cameras…) As technology is applicable to all fields in our life we can make use of it in L2 learning. Now as university students we use technology in different fields, we can use it for listening, writing etc. when we were in high school we used technology maybe we didn’t have computers but we had tape recorders and our teachers used them to develop our listening skills. As for writing, we can also easily use technology. When writing, sometimes we need a lot of sources to get some idea on the topic as we can access each book easily we use technology, it is a very quick way of finding information. Writing is a difficult task but with the help of technology it becomes easier.
ReplyDeleteLast semester we learned something about Wiki. With the help of technology we can help our students enjoy while they are writing. Most of the students find writing boring and hard. While using Wiki one of the students may start a topic and the others may go on it at their own homes, so they study collaboratively and fancily.
Turkish Education is also trying to make use of technology but I don’t think we are using it effectively as it should be. Now nearly all the classes in schools have computer or other technological materials but students are not allowed to use them. This problem still couldn’t be solved. Teachers don’t allow their students to use computer in case they damage it. (Teachers don’t allow because if something bad happens to computer teacher is responsible for that, they have to pay to repair it.)
To conclude, writing is a difficult job but with the help of technology we can make it easier and enjoyable.
Ahmet ÖZKAN
PINAR GACAN 1620079
ReplyDeleteREFLECTION #3
TECH-ERA L2 WRITING
This is one of the best and most useful articles I have read so far. I certainly believe in the incorporation of technology in L2 writing. Furthermore, I believe that it is a good way to incorporate technology into Language learning/teaching. However, I have some doubts on whether each type of learners can benefit from these latest developments. It will be really hard for young learners. In addition, I think that just intermediate and advanced level learners can profit these latest developments.
I, as a university student and progressive teacher, learned a lot about the technological developments. I realized that even I don’t some of the techniques which are very beneficial for academic writing. There are also other which I have learned in my 3rd year in this school. For example, in advanced writing and research skills course, we learned to cite information, to use some assuring websites, to explore the databases. In addition, we recognized some further features of Word. It is such a helpful course for us because we have the chance of learning these items in our 3rd year. It may be applicable to teach this new technology to high school students and university students.
I want to mention some of the features which may be very advantageous for the students’ writing. Red and green lines are very good at making the students’ aware of morphology. If the students do this spell-checking before submitting their work to the teachers, they will be aware of their errors and the teacher will have less work to correct. Using thesaurus and some add-ins will surely lessen the work students have to do. I personally believe that people learn by doing, experimenting. The students will learn by writing the correct version of what they want to write and they will search to do this. This will be more permanent than just correcting their mistakes on paper.
Although I believe that these developments are perfect for some learner levels, it is difficult to apply them in Turkish schools like other developments. Firstly, not all of the schools have the technologic equipment. Secondly, even the teachers don’t have the knowledge of these developments. Thirdly, the students don’t have the capacity to write such an academic task and research for it in these unequipped schools.