Technology has made a very interesting language lesson as I have learnt in class at previous meeting of technology of language learning (TLL). We learn about technology to teach listening and technology to teach speaking. Based on what I learnt in this course, at 1970s listening is considered as the main component in language learning. The focus is learner’s listening comprehension. It is support by Krashen’s hypothesis. There are five hypothesis, acquisition learning hypothesis, monitor hypothesis, natural order hypothesis, input hypothesis, and affective filter hypothesis. The approaches of listening skill are natural approach and total physical respond.
There are some examples of technology that use to teach listening at natural approach, Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening lab, British Council- Learn English: Song and Lyrics, etc. I like the site, especially on British Council. I want to introduce the site to my young brother. I am sure that he will like it. Then, TPR has some examples too, there are TPR game, Live Action English Interactive, etc. Natural approach was development by Krashen and Terrel, whereas TPR was development by Asher.
And then, one example for technology that use to teach speaking is schMOOze University, it’s like chatting and the students can communicate with many people from the other country. Beside it, there are some examples for teaching pronunciation skill, one of the examples is English pronunciation/listening exercise (Okagana University College, canada). In that site, the students can learn how to produce some sounds in English like th, ch, etc. I think it can help the learner of second language acquisition, especially for us as candidate of English teacher. In my opinion, the people will be more interested to learn language if use that technology because many people in the world like technology. I hope that there will be more interesting discoveries about the technology to learn a second language.
