2 The role speech recognition software teaching and learning

Using CEF-referenced course books
⁸For many teachers and curriculum planners, one difficulty with any framework (not just the CEF) is deciding how to match the levels to an existing curriculum and classroom goals. By comparing the content of your course to the CEF, you can defi ne what language skills, vocabulary, grammar, and communicative functions will be covered. Course books and supplementary materials that are referenced to the CEF can help the teacher achieve his or her classroom goals. Pearson Longman has helped by aligning course books with the CEF. This helps the teacher decide whether the content of the course book (topics, language covered, etc.) fi ts classroom goals and learners’ needs and whether the level is appropriate. Teachers know their classroom goals better than anyone else. Working with other teachers in your institution as a group, you may want to read through the levels in the CEF Global Scale and self-assessment grids (as a minimum) and decide how you think they fi t the classroom goals, the curriculum, the syllabus, and the course book you have chosen.
Conclusion
Using technology in learning a second language has become a real necessity nowadays. This paper has reviewed briefly how technology can be utilized in developing the speaking skill of the learners. Different methods for using technology in improving speaking skill were discussed thoroughly. As a result, the following concluding remarks and recommendations can be recorded: 1. As technology has developed the incorporation of this medium into the instruction process become necessary. 2. The computer is being viewed more as an integral part of the learning activity, and as a means by which skills are transferred to learners. 3. Theory and practice in second language learning can be matched together by the use of modern technology. 4. Modern technical ways should be followed for effective learning and teaching of the speaking skill. 5. English language teachers should encourage their students to use technology in developing their speaking skill. 6. Educational institutions should modernize their technical instruction capabilities by using new equipments and laboratories for supporting the teaching process. 7. Modern technological tools are much more interesting and provide fun and enjoyable learning, motivating the students, and help them to enhance their language learning in a fruitful way, moreover, these tools help students learn at their own pace and promote autonomy in them. The scenarios above illustrate a variety of ways in which the teacher provided prepared materials, added to these as appropriate during the course of the lesson, and supported the learners in constructing representations of knowledge in front of the whole class. Whilst the standard procedure of initiation- response-feedback was still predominant in the whole class activities, teachers felt that the greater role of dynamic, visual stimuli and the increased momentum of the lesson created a higher level of engagement with the whole class.
This seems to generate potential for ICT to facilitate a shift from surface to deep interactivity in teaching. The availability, clarity, speed, automation, edit ability, transformability and feedback features of ICT afford reflective and strategic thinking, and the greater attention levels allow the teacher a more sustained opportunity to probe children’s ideas. ICT clearly helps teachers to give children a chance to try out their own ideas and discuss them with the whole class, which suggests movement along the Cooper and McIntyre’s scale from ‘interactive’ to ‘reactive’ teaching. There is also evidence to support the idea that IPT helps to develop ‘common knowledge’ within the classroom which can be drawn upon by individual learners in developing their skills and understanding. This seems to occur when the learners interact directly with the IPT. It may thus be possible to resolve the tension between teacher directed, whole-class interactive teaching and ICT’s potential for supporting play and autonomous learning by opening up the scope of ‘interactive teaching’ to include approaches in which the features of the setting are orchestrated by the learner as well as the teacher.
The studies reported in this paper were not designed to compare an ICT with a non-ICT approach, but a team based on Swansea School of Education and the University of Wales Aberystwyth have recently begun an ESRC-funded project concerning ICT and Interactive Teaching which will attempt to analyse interactive teaching of the same content with and without ICT. The research team will work with pairs of good teachers in primary and secondary schools to design teaching experiments and gather data which will allow qualitative comparison of the process of learning and quantitative comparison of outcomes. This project aims to answer many of the questions raised in considering the link between ICT and interactive teaching:
• Can technology make existing good, direct teaching approaches even better by raising the level of teacher engagement with the wide variety of learners in each class?
• Can it support new approaches which improve on the currently most effective methods for whole-class teaching?
• Does it encourage the development of new forms of interactivity in teaching?
• Does it contribute to developing ‘common knowledge’ in the classroom as a resource for individual learners to draw on in their subsequent activities?
• Is there a cognitive residue from interaction involving ICT which can be used in non-ICT activity?
• Is it easier for teachers to withdraw the ‘scaffolding’ that they provide during interactive teaching when ICT is used, so that learners develop the ability to act independently?
Attempting to answer these question will provide important evidence concerning and how ICT can extend the nature, range and quality of interactive teaching