Week 5

Opening the Doors of Internet to Education

The article CALL Me … Maybe:  A Framework for Integrating the Internet into ELT by George M. Chinnery introduces a whole new level of CALL: the use of the internet in language teaching. I found this article amazingly informative and useful for many reasons. The main reason is that it made me realize what a great tool internet can be in order to support our lessons.

Sometimes, we talk about the internet and we give it for granted because since the last decade (at least in El Salvador) almost all of us have had a certain degree of access to it. However when we think about the internet in the way Chinnery has done, we realize how useful it can be in order to teach, practice, and learn a new language. Regardless of the amount of access we have to it, there will always be a way in which we can take advantage of the benefits of using internet.

Something I learned from this article is that, internet has been used as an information technology, as a communication technology, and as a social and mobile technology. In addition to this, I learned that internet can help to increase learner motivation and reduce learner anxiety, engage learners, promote learner autonomy, and aid in retention. Furthermore, something I believe that every teacher should know is that depending on the level of access, internet can be used as a medium of instruction, or as a source of content.  

In conclusion, this article results very useful because it shows many different scenarios in which internet can become our best friend while teaching a new language, the article also provides many examples of websites that can be useful for teachers and students, and it also introduces Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL), providing a few examples in which mobile devices can be properly used to support a lesson.