ALC Newsletter - 03/28/2016 (Plain Text Version)
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TEACHERS: THE MODERN AGE DINOSAURS
Language teachers are becoming one of the most endangered creatures and vanishing professions recently. I can hear you asking, “Why”? “What’s happening?” Well, a lot of changes are happening in the world and, to be more specific, technology is advancing at a very fast pace, and this poses, seemingly, a serious threat to language teachers. Last year, a small wearable electronic device “the size of a USB memory stick” called “ili” sent language teachers a one-way ticket to history books. It can translate real time from any language to another and, above all, it does not require an Internet connection to operate. ili is only the beginning of a more challenging world for language teachers, where their profession will be recorded only in history books. But, is it really a lost battle? Should teachers give up and look for an elephants’ mass grave to die standing quietly? Should language teachers retreat to the shadow and contemplate an alternative profession? Is it really the end of language teachers? Against all odds, the answer is no. Our time to vanish is not here yet. Of course, some lazy “Jacks” or “Jills” will be happy to skip language lessons and use this device, but the answer is still no; language classes will always find their fans. When you think of all innovations that filled the world around us, such as Google Translate and ATM machines, have they ever jeopardized translators’ or bank tellers’ jobs and made them redundant? No, they have not. In fact, they have added credit to these jobs because a machine remains a machine, and cannot in any way have the capacity of a human brain and its cognitive skills. Likewise, language teachers should seize the opportunity and use these technological innovations to their advantage. If a teacher can accommodate these gadgets in the classroom and use them as teaching aids, it would benefit the overall learning process and improve the desired language learning outcome. As a matter of fact, lately, new technologies like smartboards and touchscreen devices have become a reality in the classroom setting and actually teachers (some, not all) have managed to make very good use of them. Although these new devices have enriched the learning–teaching experience and pushed the teaching frontiers forward, they didn’t phase out the usage of whiteboards or paper dictionaries. This alone should give teachers hope that they will survive the technology attack and prove that their profession is mainly based on the teachers’ skills, experiences and abilities to make a difference in their students’ lives and ways of thinking that no other machinery or technology can ever achieve. The fact that these devices can be utilized in the learning process doesn’t necessarily mean all teachers will be able to use them. Only erudite individuals will walk the extra mile to get there, while the others will be cast away from the shores and banished. Having said that, the liability is not only devastating to teachers, but also language schools, publishers, curriculum designers, and many others working in the language field. Thus, anticipating the threat and working toward to employing and accommodating the use of innovative technology in the classroom is the only de facto option right now. Ahmed Al-Adawy is assessment & curriculum developer at Pearson Incorporation, Middle East. |
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