Note: This paper was originally developed and submitted as part of the Bachelor of Arts in English coursework at the University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC).
With the availability of technology, educators perceive it as a vital tool that can be used to improve the traditional system of educating students. Even educators are amazed and agree that it is necessary to incorporate technology in teaching. In classroom standard practice, bilingual learners learn a second language through reading materials presented by their teachers. With the use of technology, teachers will not only depend on the materials at hand but also on tools that can enhance learning of their students. The main audiences being targeted in the article written by Robert Poulsen, Peter Hastings and David Allbritton are the educators who want to improve the English literacy skills of bilingual learners. The authors compare the current educational practices with the Project LISTEN (Literacy Innovation that Speech Technology Enables) to determine if technology serves as an effective tool for literacy instruction (Poulson, Hastings and Allbritton, 2007, p.194). The article “Tutoring Bilingual Students with an Automated Reading Tutor that Listens” examines the belief that technology is a great catalyst in improving learning abilities of bilingual learners.
Poulsen, Hastings and Allbritton noted that the Project LISTEN enables Reading Tutor to analyze the sounds produced by bilingual learners will enhance reading ability of bilingual learners by motivating them to learn through the use of technology. During the Reading Tutor session, students log on to the system by selecting their name and birth month from talking menus (Poulsen, Hastings and Allbritton 2007). Students take initial tutoring lessons. After the initial tutorial lesson, the Reading Tutor suggests an appropriate level for students. From then, students choose a story that is according to their level. Through this system, bilingual learners are encouraged to read through the assistance of the Reading Tutor. Although the Reading Tutor may enhance reading abilities of learners, they are vulnerable to viewing technology as the only means to learn a language.
Postman argues that because people perceive technology as “God” they “believe technology works that they rely on it, that it makes promises, that they are bereft when denied access to it, that they are delighted when they are in its presence, that for most people it works in mysterious ways” (Postman par.3). Aside from using technology to make things easier, educators see a need to use technology in educating students. They are the ones who are in favor of deviating the traditional way of teaching students into a new educational delivery mechanism, which is educating students with the use of new invented technology tools. It is vital not only to make the teaching process a lot better for the sake of learners, but also to consider the effectiveness of these tools have on learners.
Even though the authors of “Tutoring Bilingual Students with an Automated Reading Tutor that Listens” perceive the use of technology as vital in improving learning abilities of bilingual learners, they also wanted to point out that the role of new technology is to meet the growing demand of educating the increasing number of English bilingual learners. In order to combat this need, using technology has a pivotal part in making the learning process easier for both educators and students. The National Center for Education Statistics found that in the year 2009, 5 % or 2.7 million of children ages 5-17 had difficulty speaking English (NCES). Educating the increasing number of non-English students has been the target of some researches.
Further support for Poulsen, Hastings and Allbritton belief that technology helps improve learning is the fact that a similar method of technologically based education has already been tested in Taiwan. Just like the Reading Tutor that aids and corrects reading of bilingual learners, an online collocation aid was also developed to help EFL (English as a Foreign Language) writers in Taiwan deal with their difficulty in writing correct English. According to Yu-Chia Chang et al. (2008), “The system utilizes natural language processing (NLP) techniques to segment sentences” in order to use correct English collocations in writing (283). Both the Reading Tutor and the NLP techniques are new products of technology that do not only educate learners in a convenient way but also increase motivation and learn English confidently.
Poulson, Hastings and Allbritton believe that aside from using new technology in teaching, language of instruction should also be addressed. In bilingual education programs, language of instruction sometimes confuses learners because educators use both the first language and the target language in teaching. In order to avoid confusion, the educational system has to make changes in the current learning practices. Aside from using learning technologies, schools also have to implement English-only immersion courses for students whose native language is not English. This will definitely improve learning of bilingual learners because they do not have to rely on translation but rather they learn a language in a natural way.
Poulson, Hastings and Allbritton argue that the success of educating bilingual learners through using technology relies on educators. After the study, the students had positive outlook on using the Reading Tutor and even reminded their teachers when it was time to use the lab. The teachers also commented that the Reading Tutor was beneficial for teaching bilingual learners to read (Poulson, Hastings and Allbritton, 2007, p.209). Educators do not only conduct lessons but they are the primary motivators for learners to continue what the technology has to offer.
Technology indeed helps people in various ways. One of these is educating bilingual learners. According to Sascha Zuger (2009), Maria Gonzales a Texan Bilingual Administration argues that “technology is another medium to motivate kids to work at developing language” (1). Although many may agree that technology is a vital tool and serves as a new mechanism in teaching, there should be a balance between using technology and its role in the educational system. For the implementation of using new learning technologies in schools, educators have to have a positive outlook towards it.
References
Chang, Y., Chang, J. S., Chen, H., & Liou, H. (2008). An automatic collocation writing assistant for Taiwanese EFL learners: A case of corpus-based NLP technology. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 21(3), 283-299. doi:10.1080/09588220802090337.
National Center for Education Statistics. Children who spoke a language other than English at home. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_lsm.asp.
Postman, Neil. “Virtual Students, Digital Classroom. ” The Norton Reader.12th ed. Ed. John C. Brereton and Linda H. Peterson. New York: W. W Norton and Company Inc., 2008. 610- 617. Print.
Poulsen, R., Hastings, P., & Allbritton, D. (2007). Tutoring Bilingual Students with an Automated Reading Tutor That Listens. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 36(2), 191-221.
Zuger, S.. (2009, March). English language learners take to tech. Tech & Learning, 29(8), 14. Retrieved July 13, 2012, from ProQuest Computing. (Document ID: 1671011721).