Teachers in the age of technology

Technology has evolved over time and it is highly perceived in our everyday life. In fact, nowadays almost everybody has a modern gadget at hand and relies significantly on it.  There are several aspects of our life that have changed bearing in mind this huge technological development. Actually, this evolution has a great impact on our traditions, culture, and what is our main concern today, our education system.

In the 21st century, the considerable changes lead to new expectations about the role of the teachers. Thus, now, the teachers are not expected to be that source of information who know everything and are “the leader” of education in terms that they take over every emerging situation in the classroom (Ujlakyne szucs, 2009). Despite the fact that there are new roles expected from teachers, several of them keep on relying on a traditional way of teaching considering it essential for students to learn effectively. Therefore, this is a reality that concerns us since, from our points of view, teachers must be flexible, creative and able to recognise the context in which they work and the students’ needs, by paying attention to their preferences, interests and suggestions. Personally, we believe that now, good teachers are the ones that learn from their teaching experience and reflect critically on their lessons in order to find new alternatives and innovate their ways of teaching. For this, teachers should keep in touch with the development of technology as it is part of students’ lives. In this way, modern teaching involves the teachers in different roles, taking into account mainly their students’ needs. Teachers have to bear in mind that a particular group of students has different interests, opinions, levels of the English language as well as learning styles. Furthermore, teachers must pay attention to the context in which they are working, the learners’ first languages and cultures, and their experiences (Ujlakyne szucs, 2009). It is essential for us that teachers are able to bring what is outside the classroom inside (Moon, 2012). Hence, the teachers must contextualize their lessons according to the interaction with their learners, taking into account their particularities when planning lessons. Then, the teachers must select the appropriate methodology, topic, and material resources to work with in order to give the students the opportunity to learn in a better way. The activities and tasks implemented must be in contexts and significant for this particular group of students, and intended to stimulate and motivate them so as to encourage students' participation.

Marc Prensky (2001) states that digital immigrants- those persons who were not born into the digital world- think learning can’t (shouldn’t) be fun. Considering this quotation, we can affirm that it is reflected in the voices of some teachers who do not feel comfortable dealing with the digital world and prefer to keep using the traditional teaching methodology in which technology is not regarded as an essential tool for teaching and learning. On the contrary, we strongly believe that these types of teachers, who are known as “digital immigrants”, should be aware that learning can be fun by implementing different and interactive activities in context and using different material resources.

As regards the wide range of innovations, alternatives, resources, materials and possibilities available for teaching in this century, we consider that it must be taken into account when designing our own material. Teacher-produced materials have really important advantages since they provide an appropriate contextualization for the developing needs of a particular group of students (Howard and Major, 2004). What is more, when teachers are designing their own materials, they must make sure that a task should be neither too easy nor too difficult. This is because if it is easy students might not find any challenge in such a task and, if it is too hard to do, they might feel frustrated and see the task as impossible to do. Therefore, there should be a balance between what is considered easy and difficult, so teachers should select and adapt the task in order to ensure appropriate challenge and level of success.  

All in all, we believe that we, as future teachers, must take advantage of this technological era so as to discover new alternatives, sources, materials and ways of teaching that allow us to make our lessons more accessible as well as fun for our students. By doing this, learners will have the opportunity to learn in a meaningful way.

REFERENCES

Howard, J. and Major, J. (2004). Guidelines for designing effective English language teaching materials.

Moon, P. (2012). Language and literacy as social practice. British Council.  Retrieved from http://englishagenda.britishcouncil.org/continuing-professional-development/teacher-educator-framework/knowing-subject/language-and-literacy-social-practice

Prensky, M (2001). Digital natives, Digital immigrants. University Press, Vol. 9.

Ujlakyne szucs, E (2009). The role of teachers in the 21st century. Retrieved from

https://www.sens-public.org/article667.html?lang=fr