Reflection on Final Project

Teaching and learning is an process that require the interaction between a teacher and students. With the development of the technology, this process will surely be affected in the future. For teachers, teaching with technology can deepen students’ learning by supporting instructional objectives. Whereas, students can already learn from their own even without the assistance of their parents and teachers. They are just going to surf the internet in order to look for the lessons they need to study. They will choose what they want to learn. Quick accessibility and well-equipped with the skills and knowledge in operating a computer would be very helpful for the students. Besides, since there are lots of creative images, videos and other graphics and texts that may be found on the Internet, more students would feel the excitement in studying through the use of the technological gadgets. This is very important in order to arouse students’ interest in studying and to help them promote their autonomy. Technology has played a vital role in English teaching and it has been making teaching and learning more and more social. Teachers can set, collect and grade students’ work online. Students can have instant access to grades, comments and work via a computer, smartphone or tablet. Students also can work online and discuss in the online group or forum, which is really different from the traditional way of teaching and learning. The lesson will be more intriguing when teachers use some techniques to create teaching activities. Besides, I think teachers should continuously change teaching methods, we will use as much as possible online tools to support for each lesson, expand vocabulary and relevant fields to renew lesson on the textbook in order that students will be more engaged in the lessons. 

There are a large number of online tools that will be used for learning and teaching. And I believe that teaching and learning will be changed in positive ways due to the development of technology in the future. Using these online tools has recently made me more active and creative in teaching. I always have to find out new technologies that support me in my teaching process and make my students to be attracted to my lessons. For instance, I use Super Simple - Kids songs, shows, and free resources  (Links to an external site.) for teaching and revising vocabularies at the beginning of my lesson. With the videos from this site, my students feel more excited and they can easily remember the words. Also, I can create interesting games and exercises Tools for Educators (Links to an external site.). Moreover, with another useful tool https://www.easytestmaker.com (Links to an external site.), I can create multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, matching, short answer and true or false questions. It helps me to save a lot of time designing tests. 

To students, these online tools make them more autonomous in their learning. For example, with Dyned (Links to an external site.), teacher is an instructor and supporter and students play a center role in the lessons. They can learn not only at school but also at home. An interesting thing about this software is that students can self-evaluate their learning based on results from Study Record. However, I sometimes have troubles when using these tools. There are some technical problems that make me unable to use online tools. In this case, I have to use printed handouts, exercises and flashcards instead. I strongly believe that the combination between traditional ways and technology in teaching will make our teaching process become more effective. If teachers use these online tools wisely, they will get successes. 

I have read some online tools resources and I have some great ideas for sharing in public. It is undeniable that teachers play an important role in creating and raising learners' autonomy in Computer-Assisted Language Learning. With the development of technology nowadays, it is not difficult for learners who have their own computers improving their learning process. Therefore, they can access to the Internet everywhere and anytime they need to seeking information, exploring knowledge and enhancing skills in terms of aspects of daily life. For example, I have experienced to create my own rubric; it is a very good way to make criteria for evaluating learning results or making evaluation. Learners also can learn many skills when they study online such as presentation, group working, creating private blogs for sharing useful websites and so on. However, everything has both sides. There are risks of using technology in teaching and learning. Learners can face with virus attack, time consuming, unreliable Internet resources. For those who don't have their private hi-tech tools such as smart phones or laptops connecting with Internet, they can have challenges in learning online. So teachers are always the ones who have to figure out which difficulties that their students are facing with and give them suggestions as well as needed help to deal with those problems. It can make a better learning success. 

After taking this course – Internet for Language Teaching, I highly appreciate teaching English with the help of technology with Internet. I realized that technology and Internet are very helpful tools for teaching and learning English. I can make my lessons more interesting and attractive and my student will engage in the lessons more and more. In fact, with technology and internet, both my students and I have received considerable improvement in both learning and teaching. Therefore, making good use of these tools can attract students’ attention to learn and motivate students to learning English in interesting and effective ways.