Innovations in learning technologies for - …

1 Innovations in learning technologies for english language teachingedited by Gary MotteramINNovATIoNS SerIeSBRITISH COUNCILE dited by Gary MotteramINNovATIoNS SerIeS: Innovations in learning technologies for english language teachingInnovations in learning technologies for english language teachingEdited by Gary Motteram Contents | 1 ISBN 978-0-86355-713-2 British Council 2013 Brand and Design/C60710 Spring GardensLondon SW1A 2BN, Contents | 1 ContentsForeword Martin Peacock.

2 2 Acknowledgements Gary Motteram ..4 Introduction Gary Motteram ..51 Emerging technologies , emerging minds: digital Innovations within the primary sector Chris Pim ..152 Integrating technology into secondary english language teaching Graham Stanley ..433 Technology and adult language teaching Diane Slaouti, Zeynep Onat-Stelma and Gary Motteram ..674 Technology-integrated english for Specific Purposes lessons: real-life language , tasks, and tools for professionals Nergiz Kern ..875 english for Academic Purposes Jody Gilbert ..11 76 A practice-based exploration of technology enhanced assessment for english language teaching Russell Stannard and Anthony Skip Basiel ..1457 Developing and extending our understanding of language learning and technology Gary Motteram ..175 Contributors ..193 Acronyms ..1962 | ForewordForewordMartin PeacockI remember as a fledgling teacher in the British Council teaching centre in Hong Kong listening to the Director of Studies giving a welcome speech to teachers at the start of the new academic year.

3 The centre had begun investing heavily in computers and had just opened its Classroom of the Future a classroom with specially adapted furniture which gave students relatively painless access to computers built into desks. The Director of Studies was talking about the role of technology in the future of language learning and rather dramatically made his point by closing with the following epithet: The British Council needs teachers who are confident with technology. You are either into technology or you are in the way and had better start looking for a new job. Strong words indeed and at the time quite a wake-up call for a number of teachers in the room who looked nervously around at their colleagues and no doubt made mental notes to get to grips with this new-fangled email malarkey. Times have changed, teachers have evolved, and we now have a new breed of learning technologists. As in Hong Kong, the first changes began in the classroom itself new technologies such as overhead projectors, interactive whiteboards, laptop computers and wireless internet have opened up the classroom to the outside world.

4 Teachers who spent their lives managing with a textbook, a tape recorder and a blackboard are now adept at using PowerPoint to present grammar, playing podcasts to practise listening skills, pulling texts off the world wide web to introduce reading skills and perhaps most ground-breaking of all empowering students by giving them access to a wide range of web-based tools that allow them to publish work and engage with live audiences in real that is just the beginning because just as technologies have begun to change the way that english is learned in the classroom, even bigger changes seem to be taking place outside it. In fact, the digital revolution in learning now threatens to undermine the classroom completely as a place of study. learning english through mobile devices gains credibility every day and the increasing popularity and rapidly diminishing cost of tablet devices reinforce this by providing a format that really is capable of delivering courseware.

5 Factor in the growing interest in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), providing large-scale (and free) learning interventions, and it is clear that technology still has much to offer ELT. Foreword | 3 This is why I am delighted to introduce Innovations in learning technologies for english language teaching , the latest volume in the British Council s Innovations series. The volume provides a systematic and comprehensive overview of the current use of technologies to support english teaching and learning . Systematic in the sense that each chapter looks at a key segment of the ELT market young learners, adults, english for specific purposes, english for academic purposes, assessment and teacher training and provides a view on the current state of technological intervention.

6 Comprehensive because the view is a wide one, supported by numerous case studies which serve to keep the volume grounded in the realities of practising teachers using technologies in innovative and exciting ways. I am sure that this volume will be of practical interest to teachers and researchers in search of teaching ideas and examples of good practice, and provide food for thought for policy makers and school administrators studying the potential of learning technologies in transforming the ELT would like to finish by thanking all the contributors who have written chapters for the volume and the teachers and researchers who have contributed case studies. And a special thanks to Gary Motteram for his tireless work, both as a contributor and volume editor, in making this publication a Peacock Head of english Product Development, British Council 4 | AcknowledgementsAcknowledgementsI would first like to thank the British Council for giving me the opportunity to work on this book and particularly Adrian Odell for his support when it took longer than we had both would also like to thank all the writers for working with me and helping to make what I believe is a novel and exciting contribution to the field of of us would like to thank the teachers who have generously supplied all of the case studies that are the core of what we have written about.

7 All of the case study contributors who wanted to be named are included in a summary of the chapters in the special thanks from me should go to Juup Stelma, my colleague at Manchester University, who has helped enormously to make my own chapters better, and has also given professional advice on Motteram Senior Lecturer in Education (TESOL) University of Manchester Introduction | 5 IntroductionGary MotteramIn this early part of the 21st century the range of technologies available for use in language learning and teaching has become very diverse and the ways that they are being used in classrooms all over the world, as illustrated in this book, have become central to language practice.

8 We are now firmly embedded in a time when digital technologies , the focus of this book, are what Bax has referred to as normalised (2003, 2011) in daily life in many parts of the world, although not amongst all people as there are digital divisions everywhere (Warschauer, 2003), and still not always in the world of education. However, digital tools, or what I will describe in Chapter 7 as technical cultural artefacts have long been a feature of the world of education (Bates, 2005), and particularly language education (Salaberry, 2001). These digital tools are, of course, central in what I would argue is the established and recognised field of computer assisted language learning (CALL), but are also increasingly a core part of english language teaching (ELT) in general. People continue to debate the use of the term CALL itself, asking whether it is still relevant. Levy and Hubbard making the argument for (2005), whilst Dudeney and Hockly (2012) are rather less convinced.

9 In a world where we increasingly see laptops, tablet computers, or mobile phones as the technology of choice, it might be argued that we are at a tipping point when this common term will soon disappear. However, in this chapter at least I will refer to the discipline as CALL, because along with the names of the different special interest groups and the predominant journals in the field, this continues to be the most common referent. A useful definition of CALL comes from Levy: the search for and study of applications of the computer in language teaching and learning . (1997: 1) and this is what this book presents, albeit in a new way of thinking about the field. This fresh approach sees it as one that has significantly diversified, illustrates real practice with a considerable number of authentic case studies and then in the final chapter shows how CALL makes an increasingly significant contribution to the general world of has its origins in the development of the first mainframe computers (Levy, 1997; Beatty, 2010; Davies et al.)

10 , 2013) and articles about the use of computers in language education started appearing in earnest in the 1980s, over 30 years ago, at the same time as early desktop computers started to make an appearance. At the time of going to press there are 11 organisations listed in the entry on CALL on Wikipedia starting with the Asia Pacific Association for CALL (APACALL) and ending with WorldCALL, an umbrella group which runs an overarching conference every five years (in 2013 in Glasgow). There are also a number of dedicated journals that focus on the field of technology and language learning including: CALICO, CALL, International Journal of Computer Assisted language learning and teaching , language learning and Technology and ReCALL. CALL is also written about in journals that take a more general focus on technology in education, for example, Computers in Education, or the British Journal of Educational Technology and arguably more significantly for the general acceptance of the discipline, there 6 | Introduction Introduction | 7are a number of journals in the language teaching field that also regularly feature articles on CALL.