Using Technology to Teach Reading Skill

Reading is classified as the receptive skill in language mastery. It is similar with listening but the activity of reading lies on written text. The development of technology does not only become the source of knowledge even material for the students but also become the facility to deliver the material from the teacher to the students. Talking about the second opportunity that technology provides for the teacher seems to be simple but it requires the creativity and knowledge about the utilization of technology (software and hardware).

Every day the students almost talk about the games that they play, talk about apps that they use, or talk about social media that they explore to communicate with others. This chance should be understood by the teachers to make sure the teachers can use the media to teach the students about reading skills. There are some activities that centered around the most popular uses of technology by students.

Texting
This is a 5-page reading comprehension activity that will work with any reading novel. This activity will have your students send "text" messages to the author, a character in the story, a friend about a favorite part, and a teacher about what he/she liked about the story. I have found this to be a very enjoyable activity that encourages comprehension of the story.

iPods
This fun activity includes directions on how students can make an iPod Touch based on the guided reading book, novel unit, independent book, or literature circle book that they are reading in class. It also includes a template of an iPod Touch that the students could use to make their own. This is a great way to assess reading comprehension at the end of the novel. 

Twitter
Get your students interested in the books that they are reading by having them tweet to the teacher! This fun activity has your students tell you the main details about a book they are reading through short tweets to the teacher. Included is: a teacher direction sheet with requirements, tweeting abbreviations, and a place to design a logo. Also included is two pages where the student will tweet the requirements to the teacher.

Facebook
This is a two page activity in which your students will use a social networking activity to tell more about the book they are reading. This is a fun and engaging way to get your students interested to talk more about literature. Included is a direction sheet and a blank sheet for the student to complete.

Here is the example of text that can be used to teach the students about reading activity. I use genre based approach. A text with particular generic structure has particular purpose in conveying meaning. For example essay with Cause and Effect Type. It combines the argument and analysis about some cases in our surrounding. At the end of the text, the writer will make a conclusion of their own writing. The use of this text is simple. After reading the text, the students has to create response toward the text. They may agree or disagree toward the argument given in the text. This reading activity actually explores writing skills of the students.

Essay- Cause and Effect Type

Gadget for Children

            In this modern era, the improvement of technology is getting higher. One of the technology product is gadget, such as mobile phone and personal computer. We can find the gadget in school, office, hospital and our house. All of the family members include children have used the gadget. Parents have given the gadget to their children as a useful device in their life. There are some reasons and effect when the parents want to give the gadget to their children.

            First of all, the parents always want their children know the improvement of technology. They want their children to become the modern people who understand how to use the gadget well. Some facts show their gadgets always get the better development in their features. We can know that in 2000, the mobile phone just has some functions to call and send short message to other people. However in 2012, the mobile phone cannot only be used to call and send the message, but also search on the internet and take the picture. If the children don't know how to operate these gadgets well, they will be unconfident in front of their friends. Therefore, having the gadget can help the children to adapt themselves with the improvement of technology.

            The gadgets are produced to make our life easier than before. Programs of the gadgets are set to help our daily activity. For instance, the programs of calculating, reading, watching film, social network, etc. All of them can help the children to do everything in comfort. The children's time is to study and the gadgets can help them to learn how to calculate numbers or read alphabets. The children can also communicate with the other people by using their gadgets, so their socialization will develop well.

            The important thing that we can't forget in allowing children to use the gadgets is the parent's assistance. The parents re the only responsible people for raising their children. The parents must make sure that the gadget's contain is appropriate with the children's development. Monitoring the children is effort to know what their children do and get from their gadgets because the gadget is like the door of information. The parents must have the ability to filter the information from the gadget, so the children will not misunderstand the contain of it. The social network of the gadget may also not influence the children to become introvert people, until they prefer to spend their time lonely than communicate with the other people.

            In conclusion, giving the gadget to our children will be more effective if the parents can assist their children well. When the children become the adult people, they can understand how to use the gadget properly and socialize with the other people. The children's self-ability will be much better if they can combine it with their social respond.    

Source : http://wiseguystpt.blogspot.com/2012/03/teaching-reading-skills-through-current.html

AN ARTICLE ABOUT TEACHING SPEAKING WITH TECHNOLOGY

This article is written based on my reading about “Technology and Teaching of Oral Skills” conducted by “Marshan Chan, Mission College and Sunburst Media”. The personal teaching experience of Marshan Chan has led him to incorporate technology into her classroom activity. There are some aspects of English language that he successfully incorporates with technology, for example English grammar, writing, reading vocabulary, listening, speaking, and oral pronunciation. But this article will concern on explaining the use of technology to teach pronunciation skill. Marshan never neglects that the existence some conventional tools is useful for helping the students’ understanding about speaking technique. For example the students still use a mirror in the class to see how their mouths move to produce a voice. It seems simple but it shows that mirror directly helps the students in learning. Besides that explanation, she also conveys that technology also works to upgrade the students’ ability in pronunciation. Here are the technologies that she means.

Audiotape

The use of audiotape is essential in the oral skills class. For receptive skills development, the tape player is the easiest way for students to listen to a variety of speakers on a variety of topics in a variety of genres – dialogs, interviews, lectures, stories, songs, and poems. For productive skills, the audiotape recorder is currently the most accessible piece of voice recording equipment.

Videotape

Videotape is a step up from audiotape. First of all, playing prerecorded tapes provides the audiovisual information that helps students observe, understand, and imitate oral communication, from language expressions and sentence structure to lip shape, facial expressions, gestures and distance between speakers, not to mention other cultural, behavioral, and sociological aspects of language. Videotape provides speakers with a view of themselves that they don't otherwise have, and it gives them a stronger basis for evaluating their performance and setting goals for future learning.

Language Lab

The language lab does many things that benefit oral skills development better than the regular non-tech classroom. For example, in choral repetition drills, students can concentrate on the model (teacher or tape) with far less interference from the voices of classmates. Another function, pairing and grouping students and assigning speaking tasks, greatly increases students' speaking and listening practice.  A third function of the language lab that is superior to a non-tech classroom is tesing.

Voicemail

Students can record a message, review the message, delete and record the message, and finally save it and exit the system. The benefit to students is they get listening and speaking practice and life skills practice.

Software

There are other exciting changes in the digital realm. We – students and teachers – can play CD-ROMs and sound files on web pages. Repetition of sounds, words and sentences has never been easier. With a click of a button, the student can hear the target language again and again and the "speaker" never gets tired of saying the same thing in the same way.

Voiced mail

This is the digital replacement of the audiotape. It's an improvement over audiotape in several ways. The students and the teacher transfer sound file attachments in email, not tapes. It has the advantages of click to play, click to record, and click to stop. As the teacher, she can insert her comments and corrections in between the students' recording, whereas with audiotape, she has to record either simultaneously or at the end of a student's recording.

Sources :

Technology and the Teaching of Oral Skills

Marsha Chan, Mission College and Sunburst Media

marsha@sunburstmedia.com

My Comment about Some Website Containing "Teaching Listening With Technology"

Here is my comment on some websites containing the teaching language in listening. There are four kinds of websites that Mr. Rudi has given to us:

      Real English

http://www.real-english.com/

Real English is created by Michael Marzio and a group of British ESL teacher at the Marzio School in the south of French. The website contains some facilities to learn listening skills. There are original videos and interactive lessons. All of videos are completely free. If the learners wanted to develop the material, this website opens the donation. The content inside of this website are always updated by the developer to make sure there some new materials for the learners.

There are some facilities provided by the developer of this website to make Real English more effective in learning English. One of them is video with lesson. The facility enables the learners to access the some materials of English. The materials are arranged based on the stage of learning language for example Lesson 1 – Where are you from?, Lesson 2 – Hi!, Lesson 3a – Alphabet, etc. Besides the lesson, the video with lesson have been translated by the volunteer teachers and students into 38 languages.  The next facility provided by this website is the learners can compare their pronunciation with the real / native pronunciation. Java Apps will help the learners to compare theirs with native’s own.

English, Baby!

http://www.englishbaby.com/

English Baby seems to be a social media for learning English because the site is arranged with some forums to do chatting with some friends who join it. There are three main parts of English Baby. The first part is English lesson. The learners will find some TOEFL Tips and Tricks. The learners will also find some parts of English lesson such as Vocabularies and English Grammar. They are constructed with popular things around us for example celebrity or recent events. The next part is Find Friends. This parts makes the site to be different from another sites because it allows the learners to connect with another learners or teachers from around the world. Chat rooms will make the learners to be familiarized to talk and to listen the conversation with the native people. After the learners make a community inside of the site, they can upload some photos of their members. The last part of this site is English, baby!  It is about the big outline of English Baby.

            NPR Podcasts

http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_directory.php

NPR Podcasts is a website created under National Public Radio. The main concern of this website is to provide some information in many topics such as politic, law and health. Besides the learner can enjoy the news, they can get visual portrayal in the form of picture. If the learners wanted to improve their listening skills through their website, they can go to NPR podcasts directory. There are some podcasts from many topics. All of them have been arranged based on some arrangement. The first arrangement based on the topic of podcasts and the facility will group the podcasts into Food, Animal, Science, Pop Culture, etc. The next arrangement is based on the title. The podcasts will be presented based on their titles. The last arrangement is based on the provider. This facility will enable the learners to find put some podcasts based on their providers.

This website also facilitates the learners to create their own podcasts. The title of this facility is “Mix Your Podcasts”. There are some steps that the learners can follow to create their own podcasts. This facility also provides some tips and tricks to create a podcasts. The main advantage of this website is not only providing materials for the learners, but also enabling the learners to communicate their products to another people in the world.