So, what strikes me most about today's discussion is really about the use of language and communication in this Digital aAge. You see, I've always thought that using ICT in the teaching of language is about achieving your lesson objectives in a language classroom. So, I thought we should be using ICT as a tool to engage pupils in their learning of grammar, text type and etc.
Well, I was wrong! ICT is really about using it as a tool to provide opportunities for pupils to communicate with one another and learn more about each other's knowledge. It is about teaching the pupils the skills to communicate with others so that they are able to know who to approach for the information that they need. One point that really stood out is the fact that, we, teachers are no longer the people with the authoritative knowledge. Knowledge in this Digital Age is distributed everywhere. It is not centralised in any location. Instead, pupils should be taught on where the required information is located and how to retrieve that information.
With that in mind, I do agree that ICT tools are able to provide us with the authentic environment in a language classroom. By giving pupils authentic tasks to complete, we are giving them opportunities to engage in various ICT resources available. We are enabling the pupils to 'survive' in the Digital Age by teaching them the skills to 'connect' with the Distributive Knowledge rather than keep on reiterating and believing that teachers are the Authoritative source of knowledge.
Then, that brings me to the next important question - as teachers, are we ready to embrace this new era or are we simply just overteaching at this point in time?
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