Students nowadays feel more comfortable than ever with technology. In Japan, young people never go anywhere without an array of devices in hand. Students never go to school without electronic dictionaries and media players and who knows what else. To step outside without their keitai in hand would cause instant panic. At home, students’ desks are covered with computers, game devices, plastic cases of software study programs, media players and bookmarked access to English study materials, programs, books and reference works of all kinds on the Internet. They are the most wired students ever in the world.
Technology is becoming more powerful and omnipresent than ever. You can find almost anything you need to study now on the Internet. The latest e-dictionaries are bigger than ever, with sample phrases and usage distinctions that help to get away from one-to-one translation. Media players allow one to download podcasts, English lectures and audiobooks to carry around. It used to be that the main place to hear English was inside classrooms, but now, there is more English outside school than inside.
Strangely, though, with all this technology right in their hands, students are not necessarily learning more quickly or more fully than before. What is missing in the techno-flood is ‘technologia,’ an understanding of how to use technology in the most productive way. With this technology in hand, you would think that students know how and why to use it all, but they don’t. Teachers don’t really know either, and are often more “technologically challenged” than students. They need a ‘logos’ (systematic method) to guide their ‘techne’ (art, skill or craft).
Every semester or so, I receive a completely downloaded essay. That’s technology at its most brainless. The temptation to copy directly from Wikipedia must be hard to resist. It’s so easy! I also get essays that have been put through an automatic translation program. The result is gobbledygook. I give these all a zero. I guess the students imagine technology will eventually not only help them pass, but also help them copy and paste an entire life. Besides cheating, these students have no ‘technologia.’ What they need is an ordered, coherent and humanly sensible method to follow when using the latest devices.
Teachers tend to also be resistant to technology. At one university where I taught in the late 1990s, I sat through meetings where teachers tried to ban electronic dictionaries from the classroom. They demanded students bring a paper dictionary every day. Students dutifully carried in their paper version, but secretly used the electronic ones under their desktops. That seems hilarious now, but the problem remains the same. Students need to be taught how to use whatever technology they have in the best way. Some teachers also go to the other extreme, assuming that sitting students down in front of a computer is all they need to do to help them learn English.
Teachers nowadays have to be the source of technologia to help steer students towards a better view of technology and learning. Each one of these technologies has an optimum usage and students often figure a good way out on their own. But just as often, they can’t. I have to laugh when I get an email from a student who uses the keitai email style that they use with their friends. Here are a couple hilarious examples, which are the complete messages:
I go to your office on next Monday. What time will you be available?
(Too demanding and no name!)
Hello! I finished to write the report. Please check it!
(The last phrase sounds rude in English).
Here is the homework. I'm sorry that I forgot to bring it today...
(I’m sorry, too!)
Sorry to be late. This is going to be my final paper. Please have a nice summer vacation!
(Um, thanks, I will!)
Well, of course, students are learning, and I am not a very formal teacher or picky about casual conversation, but these emails use technology well but communicate poorly. Students leave out their names, any form of address, or brief explanation. Sometimes, students leave out any message whatsoever and just send their papers. In a business context, this kind of email might get them fired. Being able to email a paper is a nice step forward in technology, but the problem remains of just what to say in the email itself.
I rarely directly correct students, but give them an example back of better form. Students can learn a lot through email, and though in everyday life, email is really a form of conversation much of the time, and has become a new hybrid genre of writing, email also has serious business uses. Students have the technological power, but not the communicative maturity. That is not a small point, but one that could affect their lives. Few people can find a job these days without exchanging emails, for one thing, and email usage for more important purposes will only increase in the future.
Technology has the potential to help students really move forward in their English studies. Students can ‘meet’ someone in English online anytime, post their ideas on blogs all over the world, and send messages to whomever they want whenever they want. Some parents might worry about abuse of online chat forums for younger students, but there are many safe ones. Most importantly, NONE of this online English is graded by a strict, picky teacher. I think of how long it took for me to exchange letters with my penpal in France when I was a high school student. Those days are gone! Nowadays, you can get an answer immediately.
I use technology for studying Japanese all the time. I own several electronic dictionaries: one for my bag, one in my office, one on my home desk, and one in front of the TV. The new ones have a small stylus to write in kanji, saving me immense amounts of time. I could not survive without them. However, there is still no escape from having to remember the kanji. Putting the kanji in my “vocabulary notebook” and putting it in my brain are two different things. Students often rely on technology instead of themselves.
Language teaching in the classroom has thus far failed to keep pace with the astounding technological possibilities outside the classroom. In the future, schools may simply help students develop a program of individual study that students pursue on their own! What new technologies will develop is impossible to imagine.
Students have virtual libraries on their computers that can call up Shakespeare’s plays in a second. But, understanding Shakespeare’s plays is still the difficult, non-technological work it always was. Students will always have to know how to use technology well but they can never escape doing the mental work. Having a good, solid technologia is more important than the technology itself.
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