The Media Age

Denise Larangeira

Bachelor of Arts

Graduated in Portuguese-English

Post-graduated in English Language and Methodology

Winner of national and international literary contests with works published in Portuguese and in English

Coordinator of the English Language Laboratory of SEAN

English teacher

Abstract: This is a bilingual article. It was written in Portuguese and in English in order to make public, also in the English speaking countries, the relevant work of the Section of Teaching and Learning English by Level (SEAN, in Portuguese) in the Military Schools. The article aims at exemplifying the use of technological resources as allies of the teachers to supplement the traditional text and work books. It mentions the restless effort of the rulers of SEAN to catch up with the irreversible advances of the new medias. The article also highlights the undeniable importance of the computer and the Internet as powerful resources in TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), as well as the relevant role which both resources play as facilitators of the interaction between student and teacher in a globalized world.

Keywords: Technology. Education. Media resources.

INTRODUCTION

Technology has a vital role to play on the stage of TEFL. Besides helping students learn the target language,, the use of technology in TEFL also prepares them for today's information society. Regardless of the changes in methodology, the benefits of applying technology in education must be recognized.

Computer technology has been used in language learning and teaching for the last two decades for testing students and giving them feedback on their writings. However, with the advent of the Internet, the computer, besides being a tool for students to learn and practice, has also become a source of information, communication and interaction. The way teachers and learners work in their teaching and learning of a foreign language, has been changed the moment the worldwide web connections were provided by the Internet.

THE STUDENT OF THE 21ST CENTURY

MP3, iPhone, iPad, notebook, netbook, ultrabook, tablet, smartphone, Internet, e-mail, Orkut, My Space, Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, Instagram and other social networking applications, online games... The list is endless. We are in the Media Age. The various technological resources which students are exposed to and make use of, is an increasing trend. The diversity of entertainment that these resources offer is unlimited. Our students are bombed every day by an avalanche of new technologies which seem to have no end. The way the 21st century student learns is different from past eras in which the teacher was looked up to as being the one and only owner of all knowledge, and the learners were supposed to behave as passive listeners with undivided attention, incapable of doubting the veracity of what was being taught.

WHAT IS A CLASSROOM IN A CONNECTED WORLD?

The nowadays "multi-task" students are no more satisfied with performing tasks one at a time. The "new age" student can simultaneously study and listen to music, watch television and send messages on the cell phone. And speaking of the cell phone, most (if not all) students come to class equipped with their state-of the-art smartphones, and very often teachers have to tell them to put their "toys" away in their backpacks.

So, how can teachers arouse the interest of students in the class which is being taught? How can the student-teacher interaction be motivated without making use of the current technologies? How to motivate students to go beyond the knowledge acquired in the English classroom and apply those same skills in their daily lives? In most of the public schools in Brazil, this proposal would not be feasable due to the lack of financial resources. However, in the Military School, most precisely at SEAN, the teachers have at their disposal a varied range of technological resources to be used in the classroom.

SEAN

The SEAN project was created in 1993. The Section of Teaching and Learning by Level (SEAN in Portuguese) has since then followed the technological advances to improve the quality of the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language.

Let us now make a brief trip from the primordial days of SEAN to nowadays.

In the beginning there were the textbook and the cassette tape, the chalkboard and the overhead projector, which were the features of the time. Then came the 27-inch television and the video cassette recorder devices (VCR) with their respective VHS tapes.

With the advent of the CD and CD player, the cassette tapes were retired, to the delight of the teachers, due to their fragile and short durability. The cassette tapes tangled and crashed frequently, and made it difficult for the teachers to return and find the right point in the track to the corresponding listening exercise. The CD, on the contrary, has enabled the location and return to the tracks chosen with a simple touch on the rewind key of the CD player.

The blackboard (which actually was green) surface, rough and difficult to erase, was covered with the whiteboard, and the chalk, which for years was a major cause of allergies to teachers, was replaced by the coloured whiteboard markers which glide smoothly on the surface of the whiteboard and whose ink is easily removed with the flannel eraser.

Recently, another invaluable resource has been made available to the teachers at SEAN: The Interactive White Board (IWB). A lecturer was hired to give the basic explanations about the functioning of the IWB. The Flash, Power Point, Videos, Word and other resources are all compiled in the IWB. The students, who in previous times were labeled as "passive listeners", have very little or nothing to do with their contemporary peers, whose restless interest is directly related to following the non-stop advances of technology and its useful applications to their routines. Thus, it is needless to say that the use of the IWB in the classroom will arouse the interest of students as well as motivate both teachers and students to interact in the teaching and learning of English in an easy and pleasant way.

The old 27-inch televisions mentioned before were replaced by the most modern 29-inch ones found in the market at the time. Although these last ones had larger screens and both the image and the sound definition were better than their predecessors, they still left much to be desired in quality and design. In addition, there was not sufficient equipment for each classroom, and reservations had to be made well in advance in case the teacher needed to use the television to display a video from a particular lesson of the book or simply play a movie.

The old VHS tape and video cassette recorder gave way to the DVD and DVD player respectively. The latter, in addition to providing a good resolution picture and clearer sound (without the disturbing "hiss" of the VHS), has commands which facilitate the advance or return (fast forward or rewind keys) to the scene with speed options, the immediate location of a particular scene, as well as a list of at least four language choices for both audio and subtitles with a simple touch on a key of the remote control.

Another option available is the Data Show or Projector, which once connected to a notebook, magnifies the image significantly, providing a better visualization, specially to those students who suffer from any kind of visual deficiency.

The CD has gained a new ally, the CD-ROM, which is an integral part of the books adopted by SEAN. The CD-ROM, with its colourful image and digital sound, besides facilitating the learning, makes it well more interesting once it associates the image to the sound, feature nonexistent in the audio CD.

Very recently, the textbooks were replaced by their updated versions. The ancient text and exercise books were compiled into a single volume and acompanied by an e-book. The latter is one more invaluable ally not only to the teachers, but specially to the students, as it displays on its pages the whole text, audio and video of each lesson in the unit. With the e-book, the teacher can show a particular page of the lesson to all students simultaneously, which greatly facilitates the location of the contents being worked. Another advantage is that if a

student, for any reason, cannot attend the class, he can use the e-book to study and keep up with the subject which was taught in the classroom, as well as do the exercises, listen to the dialogues and practice the contents taught with fun activities such as games, word search, quizes, among others.

The 29-inch television mentioned in previous paragraphs, which formerly existed in insufficient numbers, became obsolete with the arrival of the 50-inch plasma televisions which were installed in all the classrooms at SEAN, making the hitherto "compulsory" reservation unnecessary. There are many advantages of using the plasma televisions in the classroom, among them we can mention the ports HDMI, USB and VGA which enable the connection to notebooks, laptops, projectors for slideshow and the Internet.

And speaking of the Internet, the sky is the limit. The endless educational resources provided by the Internet to both teachers and students with its numerous websites for English study and reading materials are an invaluable resource.

Very soon another invaluable resource will be available for the students and teachers: The Language Laboratory of SEAN.

Finally, it is essential to recognize that all these features have been made available and used for nearly two decades of the existence of SEAN, have only been made possible, thanks to the dedication and commitment of all the head masters who have run SEAN hitherto, in particular the Major Rosane Soares.

CONCLUSION

We are in the Media Age. Technology is transforming language learning and teaching, and language courses have to do the necessary changes to meet the needs and interests of the students. Moreover, we are dealing with children and adolescents of the digital age who spend part of their daily lives in a virtual world. Therefore, it is necessary to be constantly up to date with the irreversible technological advances.

Firstly, when planning a lesson, clear goals should be stablished, for instance, what students really need to learn and how technology can promote their learning goals. The teacher should have in mind the specific purpose of the subject to be taught as well as the media to be used. There must be an emphasis on meaningful contextualized learning engaged with technology in a fun, interesting and pleasant way. The various available technological resources may, on the one hand, help teachers to bring students' "real life" into the classrom, and on the other hand, help the students to surpass the acquired knowledge and take it far beyond the classroom walls.

To conclude, the contribution the computer and the Internet have given both learners and teachers in the field of TEFL is invaluable, and the benefits of computer technology as well as the existent medias we have at our disposal cannot be denied. Once technology is gaining more and more space in the educational scenario, one should look into this matter with unbiased eyes, having in mind the improvement and the advantages of using this invaluable tool.

GLOSSARY

CD - Digital Disk

CD-ROM -Compact Disk Read-Only Memory

DVD - Digital Video Disk

E-book - Electronic book

HDMI - High Definition Multimedia Interface

IWB - Interactive White Board

OHP - Over Head Projector

USB - Universal Serial Bus

VCR - Video Cassette Recorder

VGA - Video Graphic Array / Accelerator

VHS - Video Home System

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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