Task 2b: The Use of Interactive Whiteboards in Language Teaching and Learning

Impact of Technology on the Field of Education

The use of technology has a direct influence on education especially in language teaching and learning and thus is an interesting issue for all teachers and practitioners in the field. According to Connelly and Clanandin (1988) technology helps teachers to become developers of their own curriculum; thus, they can tailor assignments and instructions to sustain a positive interaction to increase learners’ interest and motivation. A number of useful techniques nowadays are used in the classrooms to improve the level of learning.

IWBs: Interactive Whiteboards

According to Higgins, Beauchamp, & Miller (2007), IWBs were first introduced into the United Kingdom for office presentations with most of the presentation elements highlighted in the design but gradually as the technology progressed to the advanced level it becomes a popular and effective teaching tool, then for the higher education sector and, in the late 1990’s, primary schools began using them. The IWBs is the most popular teaching tool used by majority of the institutions in all the developed countries all over the world. The interactive whiteboards are essentially a touch-sensitive electronic presentation device and is made ‘interactive’ by being linked to a computer or laptop using special IWB software and a projector is also attached with this.  The IWBs allows an instant access to a wide range of multi-media resources by just using the special pen or even with a touch of your figure tip and offers a number of useful functions such as drag and drop, highlighting text, hiding and revealing techniques, use of colors and eraser. Huge budget have been allocated for equipping the schools with IWBs especially in UK, but mostly schools of USA and other developed countries also use this technique as in everyday pedagogy. But researchers have asked extensively that to which extent this technology improves learning? For these kinds of inquiries researchers have to answer some significant achievements of the technology rather than highlighting its enthusiastic features. Such type of attractive features allows the teacher to present the lecture in a more beautiful way by the inclusion of the relevant images and audio, video materials. But the question here is that what is the position of IWbs in relation to the literature? And how it could be used to enhance learning outcomes in ESL/EFL class?

Academic Considerations of IWB

Educational researchers particularly and the people in general continuously ask questions about the usefulness of IWBs, whether they improve learning or not? Are the IWBs really effective for education perspectives or is it only teachers’ favorite tool(the ‘wow’ factor)? Degregorio & Sobel-Lojeski(2010, p-257) points out that teacher’s pedagogy and interactivity are all critical in students learning achievements.

But they also agree that IWBs really increase student’s motivation and improvements in learning by allowing students to manipulate contents available on the board. Interactive Whiteboards are the most versatile technique providing countless benefits to educational setting.

Advantages of Using IWBs

As the three major advantages described by Harmer are firstly, it provides an opportunity to teacher and students to write on the board or they can highlight, erase or hide the items on the board by special pens or even by their figure. Secondly IWBs facilitates them to print or save the information displayed on it just like a computer and last but not the least strength of this technology is that they offer extraordinary tricks for example mask a part of the board and then gradually reveal information on that part. In view of students IWB is an inspiring and attractive technique because it is easy to use, immediate and visual. Higgins et al,(2007) claims that teacher who use IWB are more active to ask better and open questions and are also able to  describe and evaluate materials because as said “ that a huge bank of resources is always available at the touch of a pen” Dudeney, G. & Hockly, N.(2007).  Teachers having experience of using IWB in their classes has a positive attitude towards this new, impressive multimedia tool. The class environment is really improved because of several elements for example, the lesson proceed fastly,  enough time available for self-correction and student carries their activities without ambiguities because learner do most of the tasks in the class with teacher’s assistance now rather than taking it as a homework.

Role of IWBs in Language teaching and Learning

Language teachers try to incorporate various techniques, methodologies, electronic devices and audio-visual assistance. But the effect of technology specifically in second language learning and teaching is really questionable. Though the discussion above provide a sound knowledge of the effectiveness of use of IWBs in field of education but our major concern is to evaluate whether IWBs are helpful specifically in the second language learning and acquisition(SLA) or not? The concept of interactivity is deeply rooted with the ESL learning. Coyle et al, (2010) points out that the term has been ambiguously used in the literature of IWB. While using IWBs one can write directly on the board, graphics can be enlarged, animated and moved, so all these kinesthetic responses enhances learning. Special softwares have been developed for ESL teaching using a sophisticated integration of audio-visual contents.

 IWBs: Aids for ESL Teachings

Grammar teaching and learning has always been an unenjoyable subject. Experts have been promoting the ideas that the necessary is to teach language functions according to its meaningful rules rather than to grammatical or structural rules (Brown, 2000).IWBs offered a hot deal to the teachers to teach grammar in a new fun teaching manner by using different video clips on the usage of a particular grammar point in communicative context. A number of vocabulary and grammar teaching material is also available in games teacher can access that material using IWB and then encourage students to come and play so they can learn grammar and vocabulary in an enjoyable manner. IWBs are also proved quite effective in pronunciation teaching as in a pronunciation class teacher can play recordings of the target language to make students familiar with the native accent which results in enabling them to learn how an individual word is uttered by a native speaker. Some critics have raised the negative effects of IWBs on learner but it just in case when the teacher strongly depends on the use of IWB in all the tasks and activities.

The ESL/EFL teachers can teach in a better way by encouraging students to collaborate with their fellow students in class activities. As IWB has an interactive nature so it enables the students to be more creative in presenting their ideas. A successful L2 development should occur if students are stimulated to try the language scaffolded by rich language models and technology.

Opportunities afford by IWBs for Learning and Teaching

IWBs though the technique is new but it is widely accepted  because of the benefits it offers and it is also believed that the effective teaching take place by three progressive stages of pedagogical development as;1) supported didactic_ using the IWB to support an old didactic(old  things in old ways Betcher & Lee, p-50).2) second approach is interactive which means the old things could be improved as a fun activity using iwb.3) interactive approach is used to enhance learning by doing the new activities in the new manner with the new and latest technologies such as-IWBs.it could be describe as by building new resources ,students collaborative activities, real-time videos, creating wikis and blogs, creating podcasts. All these activities could be better assisted by IWBs and allows students to enjoy a vast range of opportunities to interact with teachers or peers using target language.IWB build a social and communicative environment in learning where students can share and improve knowledge by communicating and making mistakes. The real benefit of using IWB lies in the effective not in the cognitive domain.

Challenges for IWBs

Though much has been said about the positive impacts of the IWBs in English teaching, it is also found that some language teachers have identified the negative impact as well. Some teachers discard technology because they feel it difficult to use and some declares that such tools are nothing but costly accessories to decorate the classroom.IWBs are also criticized for being too costly, in fact that is the reality because it includes a number of hardware along with the sophisticated softwares, maintenance expenses along with that the teacher training for using this emerging technology take it out of the range of most of the institutes worldwide. Miller ,Averis and Door , in their research on IWB in 2005 , highlighted different features of IWB, they regard that though teacher find it easy to use but these take longer time to prepare lesson.

Practical Implications for using IWBs in Language Classrooms

Initially there were very few materials available for IWBs in the field of Language teaching so the early adapters of IWBs found it time consuming but now IWBs offer greater reward in terms of student’s interest, motivation and progress. As materials can be re-used and adapted easily ,kinesthetic learning styles are improved.IWB provides a range of digital resources to illustrate core issues of language learning. In addition to that a lot of graphics also included into lecture to support ideas, it also increases students participation in learning a language by engaging students in peer activities, grabs student’s attention by fascinating them also save time for complex and complicated materials to be arranged before lecture and just presenting at the time of class. Critically speaking while using the traditional board a very limited number of activities can be designed to invite students to work on the board but IWB offers various activities for students to use this attractive technique in their classroom. This dynamic technique generates a high degree of interactivity not among the teacher and the students but also among the students and between teachers and teachers (Betcher & Lee, 2009).

Conclusion

Perhaps we should remember that IWB only mediates teaching and learning.’ Good teaching remains good teaching with or without the technology’ (Higgins et al, 2007, p-217).It is the teacher who sets up the important opportunities for group work and language interaction, and these may or may not be stimulated by the IWB resources. The technology can only be truly effective ‘where the teacher stimulates interactivity’ (Glover et al, 2004, p-1).Efficient teacher knows all the novelties in the relevant field and informed by an interactive, constructivist pedagogy that enhances the successful language learning opportunities by using IWBs and the effective teaching must be multi-modal; by including video, audio, graphics, text and images. IWB really takes learning of a language to a higher level.

  

References

1.      Dudeney, G. & Hockly, N. (2007). ‘How to teach English with technology’. Harlow, England: Longman. 

2.      Harmer, J. (2007). ‘The practice of English language Teaching’. Essex, England: Longman.

3.      Higgins, S, Beauchamp, G & Miller, D. 2007. ‘Reviewing the Literature on Interactive Whiteboards’ . Learning. Media and Technology. Vol.32. p213-225, accessed 13-09-2012.

4.      Sharma, A. 2012. ‘Interactive Whiteboard Technology in English Language Teaching Classrooms in India’. Vol.12. p 93-98.India.

5.      Glover, D and Miller, D, Averis, D and Door,V. 2005. ‘The Interactive Whiteboard: a literature survey’. Technology, Pedagogy and Education. Vol.14 (2). P. 155-170. accessed through Google on 13-09-2012.

6.      Digregorio, P & Sobel-Lojeski, K. 2009-2010. ‘The Effects of Interactive Whiteboards(IWBs) on Students’ Performance and Learning: A Literature Review’. Journal of Education Technology Systems. Vol.38(3). P 255-312. Accessed 16-09-2012.

7.      Schroeder, R. 2007. ‘Active Learning With Interactive Whiteboards: A Literature Review And A Case Study For College Freshmen’ .Communications In Information Literacy. Vol:1(2). Portland.