TOPIC 24

TECHNOLOGICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL ASPECTS OF USING AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS (NEWSPAPER, TV,

CASETTE PLAYER, VIDEO, ETC) THE COMPUTER AS AN AUXILIARY RESOURCE FOR LEARNING AND IMPROVING
FOREIGN LANGUAGES
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INTRODUCTION
TECHNOLOGICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL ASPECTS OF USING AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS
THE COMPUTER AS AN AUXILARY RESOURCE FOR LEARNING AND IMPROVING FOREIGN LANGUAGES
CONCLUSION
REFERENCES

1. INTRODUCTION
This topic is of great relevance for the future teacher as it deals with the use of ICT in the EFL Classroom. ICT are
considered one of the global curricular aspects, together with reading, that have to be taught in every single curricular area.
The improvement in the use of ICT in the classroom is mentioned in LOMCE, in RD 126/2014 and in Decree 89/2014.
CLIL methodology is applied in almost all the EFL lessons and, obviously in the Non Linguistic Areas such as Science,
Arts, Music or Physical Education. The use of ICT is relevant in this area as they can create an atmosphere where the
foreign language can be listened to with the correct pronunciation and where students can create their own productions in
order to observe and share their progress by themselves.
The title of this topic includes newspaper, TV, cassette player and video as some of the possible technological resources to
be used in the classroom and considers the computer as an auxiliary tool. We will try to enhance the use of New ICT in the
classroom by giving some clear examples of activities we can do with students during the primary stage.
2. TECHNOLOGICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL ASPECTS OF USING AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS
The real environment in which children learn a foreign language in our country is not a bilingual one, that is, the only input
in the foreign language they receive is the one in the classroom or in any activity related to it such as drama plays, visits to
exhibitions, or projects developed in the classroom.
Hence, the use of technology is a need in our classroom as they can provide students many real situations in which they
can be involved in the future.
According to Mehisto, Marsh and Frigols (2008), ICT are a key component to connect with students nowadays. These
authors talk about a generation when they refer to people who were born between 1982 and 2001. These are students
follow the principle learn as you see, use as you learn. The following generation, what they call ciber-generationit is
even more influenced by ICT such as mobile phones, as they were part of their lives since the beginning. Based on that, it
is fundamental to integrate the use of ICT in the EFL classroom.
When we use ICT in an educative context, students get involved and participate more than if they were only using a
textbook. This can be linked with the idea of constructivism that states that children learn from their own experiences and
knowledge, so they learn by doing.
AS it was said before, we cannot offer real situations in the classroom as they are not living in a bilingual environment and
ICT can provide us through the use of podcast for listening, videos for attitudes and pronunciation, websites from other
schools, the possibility to connect to other schools and maintain relationships with other foreign students.
If we teach under a constructivist approach and we integrate ICT in our teaching/learning process, we will be teaching
using a CLIL methodology. This methodology was studied deeply by Do Coyle who stated that CLIL lesson plans have to
follow the 4 Cs:
Content: Students need a progression in new knowledge, skills and understanding. ICT can provide students a
variety or learning sources so they can learn more vocabulary related to the content they are studying.
Communication: Language is learnt by its use in different situations. Teachers have to provide these situations with
more complex vocabulary and grammar progressively. That is to say: scaffolding knowledge and communication.
Cognition: Engagement in higher-order thinking and understanding, problem solving, and accepting challenges and
reflecting on them
Culture: Students can interact with other foreign students through the internet and share cultural aspects with them.
According to this pedagogic foundation, the use of ICT is highly recommended in the EFL classroom. ICT include
audiovisual materials, among them we can find DVDs, CDs, and they can provide a kind of real experience as they listen
or watch to foreign people talking in their mother tongue.
However, ICT have evolved and nowadays DVDs and CDs, although they are extendedly used, the most common device
is the computer. Having a computer in the classroom, help the foreign language teacher to provide different situations and
a great variety of activities that can motivate students better than a text book.
Obviously we have to combine computer based activities with speaking activities, reading and writing tasks. We will talk
deeply about computers in the next point of this essay.

3. THE COMPUTER AS AN AUXILARY RESOURCE FOR LEARNING AND IMPROVING FOREIGN LANGUAGES
Computers have been a basic tool in the classroom as it facilitates lots of possibilities to students to learn, not only a
foreign language, but anything related to the curriculum or to anything they are interested in.
It is true that there are many schools without a computer in the classroom, and some others with, not only a computer, but
with a projector and a digital board installed. We, as teachers, have to be ready to face any of these possibilities and
design activities based on what we have in each group. It is also true that, even if the classroom does not have a computer
installed in it, there is usually a computers room in the school and, if not, there are some activities students can perform at
home to be assessed by the teacher.
Computer based activities are a good resource for improving oral and written skills and they are very useful for organizing
resources. Here we have the 3 most common ways we can use a computer for the EFL classroom:
a) ORGANIZING RESOURCES: We can use Internet as a source of activities and ideas for our classroom and we can
use it as well to upload our own content and designed activities. This can be done in the following way:
a. Digital repositories: Where we can find useful activities, video and audio recordings that are ready to use in the
classroom, they would only need our personal adaptation to the groups we are working with. Most of the times
this is not necessary as they are organized by levels and different topics. Some examples of they are:
i. Averroes (Junta de Andalucia) where we can find a huge list of CLIL lesson plans that include audio
sometimes.
ii. AICOLE (Comunidad de Madrid) where teachers share their own designed activities and contents.
iii. Isabel Prez: This teacher has designed an interesting and really useful website in which we can take
examples of CLIL and non CLIL activities that can be used in the classroom. There is a great variety of
resources.
iv. Macmillan Publisher: They offer a list of resources ready to use for teachers. Assessment activities are
especially useful, although it is unavoidable to adapt them for your class.
b. Blogs: Create a blog is easy and friendly. You can create a blog and upload some examples of your activities
in the classroom (asking permission to parents in advanced), or you can upload the tasks you want your
students perform, you can also create a digital portfolio or a digital newspaper in which students collaborate
among them. Blogs help in the development of the communicative activities in the students. They can write
their own articles and select the material they want to show. There are some other blogs created especially for
educators such as the INTEF blog, where teachers share experiences and doubts.
c. Wikis: Wikis means collaborative work. Students need to communicate with each other. Students can
contribute to create in a common way: digital books, glossaries or a collection of useful resources.
d. Social Bookmarking Networks: Diigo is a good example of it. An individual can organize by the use of pages
and tags his/her list of useful websites so it is easier to find something when you need it (games, grammar,
vocabulary, Christmas, etc) You can also create a group with some other educators and share links there.
b) DEVELOPMENT OF WRITTEN SKILS
For the development of written skills there are some useful websites in which students can create their own content,
interact with other students and later on publish their work. Collaborative tasks can be developed with these tools:
Glogster: Creation of digital posters including audio and video content, and animations.
Padlet: Collaborate in a common poster in which each student add a contribution with audio and video as well.
Wordle: You can create posters with vocabulary, interesting words, etc as a word cloud.
Mindmaps: By the use of Text2mindmao, for example. Relating content by grouping vocabulary.
Interactive presentations: Power Point or Prezi.
c) DEVELOPMENT OF ORAL SKILLS
For the development of oral skills we also have quite a few WebPages that can help students to improve their oral skills
as they can listen to their productions immediately as well as playing and manipulating images to make their
productions more attractive to others. Some examples are:
Blabberize: Students have to record their own text and adapt it to an image. The image opens and closes the
mouth and they have to fit it to the listening.
Voki: You create your own avatar by composing a character. You can record your message as an introduction of
yourself, a description of your timetable, how is your school, etc and later on sharing it with other schools so they can
interact together.
Voicethread: A complete lesson plan can be proposed. Each user will contribute to this forum, creating a common
work.
Podcasts: taken from TED talks, or from the BBC (kids version), a debate can be proposed. Listening skills.
d) There are some other tools that help to develop the 4 skills in the classroom, we did not mention the video recording,
such un drama plays, role plays or expositions. Here students can see and correct their mistakes.
4. CONCLUSION
As we were explaining in this essay, society has developed recently so there are new ICT that can be used in the
classroom without being a negative aspect. It is true that nowadays, technology has conquered our lives and our students
were born in this society. We cannot forget that we, as teachers, have to contribute, not only to the use of these tools in the
classroom but to help students to use them in a responsible way as they can be used as weapons against themselves.
They are not aware of the danger they entitled that is why we have to focus our effort in both their eager to investigate new
things and the responsibility they have to develop when using them.
5. REFERENCES
For the development of this topic the following references were used: LOMCE; RD126/2014: D89/2014; CLIL (Do Coyle,
2001); article of Mehisto, Marsh and Coyle (1998); different websites of each of the given examples.