A RESEARCH OF THE APPLICATION OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TO ENGLISH EDUCATION

劉可欣

The Function of Information Technology in English Teaching

1. Information Technology is Applied to Motivate the Interests and Confidence of Students.

According to the study of cognitive psychology on memorizing rate, learning something with hearing alone, 70% of its memory remains after 3 hours, while this percentage will decrease to 10% after 3 days. And when the same thing is learned with vision alone, 72% of its memory remains after 3 hours, while this percentage will decrease to 20% after 3 days. But if the same thing is learned by hearing and vision together, 85% of its memory remains after 3 hours, and this percentage will just decrease slightly to 65%. Therefore, its very important for information technology to create audio-visual environment for students, by integrating audio and images and showing them in front of students. It can also make the knowledge points vivid, visual and concrete, to activate students motivation for learning. When students are in the state of excitement, they will acquire knowledge rapidly. And strengthened consciously by teacher, the knowledge will stay in students minds for long, and will be transformed into long-term memory.

2. Information Can Be Applied to Create Teaching Situation, and Increase the Authenticity of Language Practice.

Learning language efficiently requires the language environment, and information technology is the best way to create it, because it can activate the sense organs of students, to gain the best cognitive effect.

The key of creating language environment is the courseware, so the process of designing courseware requires a lot of efforts from teachers. Teachers shouldnt use or imitate other courseware directly, but they need to combine their teaching style with courseware designing, trying to reflect their own teaching philosophy. Prior to the class, teachers need to have an elaborate design on topics, situations, and question types, to help students receive the knowledge more easily.

3. Information Technology Can Raise the Efficiency of English Teaching.

Traditional teaching may cause a waste of time. For example, wiring on the blackboard need time to erase it, or playing tape recorder needs time to rewind. Using computer courseware or playing CD-ROMS will work more conveniently for teachers, because they are easy and fast to operate. In class, teachers can choose different useful computer-aided tools according to their needs and students requests, and use them to achieve the teaching goal. Therefore, the process of class teaching is simplified with the increasing efficiency, so English teachers can save time in this teaching process and put more efforts on the more important things.

4. Information Technology Can Expand Students Scope of Knowledge, Developing Their Ability of Cross-culture Communication.

Textbooks shouldnt be the only focus of students; their curiosities for the world of knowledge also need to be satisfied. By using internet, Teachers can introduce students about the information in many aspects, such as politics, history, science, and entertainment, etc. In English class, teachers need to make sure that the knowledge they introduce is related to English. If the teacher wants to introduce Chinese traditional food in Chinese, all his hard work for preparing this lecture will be wasted, because it has little influence on students English skills.

Furthermore, since English functions as a bridge between Chinese and Western culture, introducing knowledge related to English also helps students comprehend the difference s and similarities between China and Western culture. From example, the teacher can play a clip of a Chinese film, called Gua Sha Treatment, to show students the cultural conflicts between China and U.S. Therefore, students will be able to communicate better in the cross-culture environment, and their study in foreign countries or connection with foreign people in the likely future will benefit from this.

The Problems of Information Technology on English Education

The modern information technology, such as Internet, computer and so on, brings to English learning a deep revolution. In many cases, information technology can work as an important tool to benefit the English teaching. But if it has been overused and depended excessively, negative results will happen.

In the class aided by information technology, teachers put great emphasize on how to use information technology to display teaching contents effectively, sometimes ignoring the communication with students, especially those students sitting in the back row, who are almost out of teachers sights. Additionally, the application of information technology requires cooperation of many IT devices, such as computer, projector, screen, etc. If one of these devices doesnt work well, it will become the dominant problem in class, putting teachers in passive situations he hasnt prepared for. No matter if this device will be fixed, lots of attentions of teacher and students have been shifted from the teaching contents for a long time.

On the other hand, students may just focus on the ppt., trying to read and comprehend the displayed contents while hearing the explanations from teachers passively. When one page of ppt. is finished, that means the learning process of this page is over, and students have to catch up with the contents in the new page. Therefore, the time for students free thinking is reduced greatly. Students have little time to reflect and integrate what they have learned in class. In this way, the activeness of students thinking has been reduced, and the learning process becomes less efficient.

In a word, information technology cannot shoulder all the responsibilities of education. Its always an important job for teachers to help students cultivate the correct opinion about their life, studies, etc.