THE PURPOSE OF ICT IN TEACHING ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

The world keeps changing with every rotation it makes round the sun. Just a decade ago, students were taught with pens, pencils, black boards and chalks. But today, all that have become history which no one wishes to remember. Light pens and boards, pdf notes, CD roms have replaced all those. And even as you are reading this, the world is advancing rapidly with respect to ICT technology as even computers and laptops are gradually leaving the scene for I pads and magic handsets.
In consideration of these developments, it becomes imperative for the astute teacher to instill knowledge in students of this dispensation, utilizing fully, the facilities and opportunities availed by ICT Technology to pedagogy and lucubration. This is because if teachers don not, not only will the students continue to find it difficult to assimilate (having been acclimatized to the easy-ICT world), but they would also begin to find the discipline boring, unproductive, and archaic.
Hence, it is unequivocal to state that every teacher needs to pull in ICT into their curriculum and methodology, or lose the interest of the 21st century student. Putting this into consideration, below are some of the ways by which ICT technology can be used to effectively instruct students in English Language.

Using Projectors and Access Point:

Before now, teachers in English Language used crude diagrams to represent the movement of crucial parts of the vocal system during speech production. This of course, engendered slow understanding and even frustration on the part of the students. These diagrams can never fully illustrate what happens when speech is produced because, the diagrams in question are usually too small, too crude, and except the teacher who drew them is an artist, too distorting of the real picture.
However, with the advent of wonderful ICT technology materials like the access point software, the modern teacher can flawlessly draw her diagrams using the computer, can take pictures, and collate them in access point to produce mind-arresting lecture materials that show even the tiniest details while teaching with the computer. This can be further enhanced by using projectors to teach them. The effect such method is bound to produce is just too good to be true as the students get to have a firsthand view of what happens, where it happens, and how it happens during speech production. Improvement in their study of the English Language becomes surer.
As if this is not enough, the teacher could go further to upload this to the internet, where the students can download them any time they want, for personal study

Using ICT Record Facilities to teach correct Pronunciation

Teaching English as a second language in the 60s could only be described with one noun; hell! No matter how often the teacher repeated a word, the students were bound to want him or her to repeat the sound. And even after the teacher did that, the students still made mistakes in pronouncing the sounds due as they could not learn to make intricate sounds of English Language by just listening to the teacher for minutes. This can be blamed for the great number of English speakers in the world today, who speak the language, observing fully the grammatical ethics, while flouting virtually all the rules governing pronunciation.
ICT can be said to be the only solution to this unfortunate situation. Instead of reciting words in front of a class till the teacher’s voice goes croaky, the teacher could simply record the correct pronunciation of sounds using any of the numerous ICT facilities which include the radio cassette, dvd discs, vcd discs, cd discs, mobile phones, and so many others, and disseminate same to the students.
This will allow them to repeatedly listen to the sounds in the comfort of their homes, and internalize the correct pronunciation of words quite easily.

Using ICT to keep abreast of recent developments in English Language

Its no news that the beauty of a language depends solely on its ability to grow, through the incorporation of words from other languages. Also, the pronunciation, spelling, and usage of words continue to change with time and a teacher who is not acclimatized with such changes would end up bequeathing wrong grammar ethics, as well as faulty pronunciation mannerisms, to the students. Should the students find out the truth, the teacher would come to be seen as a dunce, whose impartations should never be trusted. This on its own comes with a sea of problems that can truncate learning.
The 21st century teacher is expected to avoid this opprobrious situation by tenaciously liaising with colleagues and institutions all over the world, using the internet-the very heart of ICT. Through creation of wigets and signing up for newsletters, teachers can stay informed of every minor development in English Language and other disciplines, even as they occur.

ICT as a catalyst for distant learning

There are people who cannot afford education in the world today. The situation is worse in developing countries where education is seen as a luxury. There is no doubt that the building of classrooms, hostels, and provision of teaching equipment costs money and lots of it, thereby putting education off reach to students living areas where the government does not provide free or subsidized education.
This problem can be addressed to an extent, using the long tentacles of ICT. This is because with ICT, only the charges for internet access are paid. Factors like accommodation, desks, and even teachers’ remunerations become eschewed in such circumstances and the cost of education becomes infinitesimal.
Recorded pronunciation techniques, notes, and even diagrams can be uploaded to the internet for financially incapacitated students. Teachers and institutions can also conduct tests and issue certificates to this class of learners via the internet. There is no doubt about the potency of this method of teaching, as the efficacy of distant learning has long been proven by educationists, far and near.

ICT stimulates interest amongst students:

Young people love new things and ICT is as new as a young chic. No wonder the youths of today are falling over one another in a race to own the best ICT facilities. Even amongst pupils, ICT materials attract a lot of attention. There is no way a pupil will not look at a teacher with brazen interest, if the teacher comes into class with a laptop or projector. And once the attention of a learner is completely arrested, teaching becomes too easy!
Hence, ICT not only sustains the interest of learners, but it also goes a long way to stimulate it in magnificent proportion.

As seen above, ICT can be used in one way too many to instruct students of all classes and dispositions effectively. Its relevance in education in this dispensation cannot be over-emphasized. It is therefore absolutely necessary that the modern teacher incorporates at least, bits and pieces of ICT in his or her teaching methods, as failure to do so would amount to cleaving to anachronism and subsequently, irrelevance.