Technology has become an indispensable tool in education. Its use transcends those learning platforms that organize the teaching content and is now manifested in many digital resources, such as games, apps, learning channels, etc. All of these and many are often associated with “revolutionized and progressive education”. A quick look at any university platform, the word “technology”, in association with progressive learning, will shine out. Educational reforms also emphasize the word “technology” in relation to advancement in the quality of teaching and learning.

Well, there is no doubt that language learning can be made more accessible with technology. For instance, during such periods like these with COVID, there is no other option but to teach through it. Teaching and learning are supported and facilitated by technology, but the foundation of good courses must be based on the regulatory documents (the curriculum and the syllabus) and, most importantly, it should be based on research findings. In this respect, González-Lloret (2020) contends that teachers should avoid falling into “technological determinism”, which is about incorporating technology into one’s teaching “just for the sake of it” without regard to the steering documents or how it affects the pupils’ learning. By this, she means that using collaborative technology‐mediated tasks should be an option among many others while we plan our teaching. Therefore, teachers should not let technology determine the design and content of their teaching.

Rather, teachers must have a clear purpose for including technology in the classroom. For instance, they should consider which tools are suitable for their pupils, formulate goals for the technology use and ensure that the learners (and themselves) have access to adequate technological knowledge before and during the planning of technology-mediated tasks. In this way, technology will be pedagogically implemented in classrooms, and learners will see its potential and usefulness.

A direct implication of this is that universities are required to do more; they should engage more in training teachers on how to use the technology for pedagogy so that learning can be fostered. New courses that specifically focus on enriching technology use should be implemented. Materials should be harnessed to aid teachers in gaining ideas so that teachers will not just use a movie in the classroom for entertainment purposes but also for pedagogical purposes.

NB: I used “movies” as an example because this resource is extensively used in the English classrooms in Sweden to keep students quiet or fill in the time.

References:

González-Lloret, M. (2020). Collaborative tasks for online language teaching. Foreign Language Annals, 53(2), 260-269.