Lecture 1: General problems of Foreign Language teaching

So Why use the Internet with your students? Again, there are many good reasons to use the Internet with your students, a few of which are outlined below.
Authentic Language. The Internet is an excellent source of authentic English which is available at the touch of a button. In your country, it may be difficult or expensive to get hold of English language magazines or newspapers. The Internet can substitute for these.
Reference Materials. The Internet is the fastest growing and most comprehensive encyclopaedia in the world, with information on everything from Andalucia to Zebras. What better research tool for a project or class newspaper?
Communication Tools. With email and chat, the Internet is one of the cheapest and most popular ways to keep in touch, giving a new idea to students.
Digital technologies (DT) and integration in teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) play an important role in modern educational environment. In the content of modern DT teaching, we can identify context, selection and implementation of that process. Digital technologies are changing many aspects of modern education. It is necessary to discuss how to design and implement a DT teaching model, which certainly will provide realization of the objective and achievement of final outcomes. The connecting link between the designed objective and outcomes are the DT teaching method and approach, which will widen the EFL content through usage of DT, computer devices and Internet.
In this lecture we will try to discuss the problem of selection and implementation of methods of DT teaching and learning by using digital technologies in teaching EFL. We grouped and described the digital technologies in teaching EFL in the following way, that:
-They can be used when teaching any disciplines by using digital technologies and Internet in teaching EFL.
-They can be selected according to the aims of teaching and didactical tasks for teaching EFL.
It means that when developing educational technologies in the aspects of teaching EFL you will be able to independently realize the purposeful selection of digital technologies and Internet teaching methods. It will allow you to realize such an activity, which will ensure achievement of the DT learning goal set by you.
In the proposed methodical approach with digital technologies and internet, we suggest:

• 
  traditional and innovative models of teaching are collaborated and cooperated;
  
• 
  the growth and the place of the digital technologies and Internet teaching modern educational paradigm is showed;
  
• 
  the content of the active digital technologies, the models and ways of their implementation might exist together with other traditional methods;
  
• 
  the approaches and the criteria of selection of these teaching approaches , the possibility for their use in study process may obviously happen with consideration of the learning goals.
  

Our approach is developed on the base of analysis of literary sources, materials from seminars, conducted within the framework of international projects, own experience in scientific-pedagogical and practical work of the authors in the system of vocational education.
Before talking about the selection and implementation of DT teaching methods with using computer technologies we should clarify the role and the place of this approach in the educational technology.
As we see from the above given the DT teaching method is key one in the very complicated process of your concerted activity with trainers when achieving DT aims of teaching.
The DT methods ensure achievement of a result. It is formed on the basis of what the trainer when finishing the study period must:

• 
  Know DT
  
• 
  Be able to use DT
  
• 
  Appreciate DT (valuable orientations / directions and purposes, motivation).
  

Talking about digital technologies we need to consider at the beginning of training, objectives that we set are DT teaching ones and DT objectives of trainees, as a rule, are ambiguous . That’s why firs of all it’s necessary to inform trainees about the DT objectives, e.g. the trainee should:
- (P)erceive and understand these objectives.
- (R) ealize and fix them in the memory.
- (F)ollow them.
What we can expect from that approach?
Most descriptions of DT include the definition – “ a network of linked computers” although as a “ Cyberspace”. However, as soon as learners start to use DT it will become clear that DT teaching allows us to teach effectively. Electronic DT can supply the ultimate contextualized EFL practice. DT provides many learners ‘research activities. By DT we can find and use the World Wide Web.
Clearly, innovative and effective activities by using DT have to be done through some specific rules. These rules are the instruction to the learners:

• 
  make yourself familiar with the hardware and software;
  
• 
  try out everything simple to the teacher as to the learners;
  
• 
  determine how DT activity will support the syllabus;
  
• 
  set clear DT goals for the each lesson: language skills and computer skills;
  
• 
  plan a clear set of tasks or assignments for learners, to help them reach the lesson goals;
  
• 
  try out the practicality of every action you plan assign to learners;
  
• 
  decide how you will grade or evaluate the effectiveness of this activity ;
  
• 
  prepare a vocabulary list and present it to your students;
  
• 
  get informal and formal feedback from your students. And there are some forbidden rules;
  
• 
  you shouldn’t overplan your times ;
  
• 
  you shouldn’t plan activities that have no relations to things that the students are doing in their courses;
  
• 
  you shouldn’t do everything for the students;
  
• 
  you shouldn’t do provide handouts for every action;
  
• 
  you shouldn’t worry about students who don’t get in right way; It’s a chance for students to help them and for a lot of language use ;
  
• 
  you shouldn’t teach anything significant during the first ten minutes of a class in the DT classroom
  

General recommendations on DT in a foreign language teaching in the classroom:
1. You can do the following: in any regular lesson, it is possible to hold a computer class with Internet. A teacher may download the necessary material beforehand, and have students work through it, helping when needed. There are many sites that provide learning materials on the Internet.
2. You can do following: using net as a research resource possible by searching the Web for some data . Every student gets an address, or a name, or some words , which they find through a search engine . They take notes while working, so that next day, we can have feedback . We are sure such lessons are extremely motivational, since the students enjoy using the Web, and they have an additional motivation because they know that they have to repeat to their peers during the next lesson
3. You can do the following: web site projects can be effectively implemented in study process. We are engaged in a project, which is related to one of our topics. Students may write their essays in class, then the teacher checks them, then we have a lesson in the computer lab where they type their works and e-mail them to a project site, or post them if possible.
4. You can do the following: there are authentic resources and materials, places where you can find prepared lesson plans, ideas and worksheets and places where you can share your idea and thoughts with other teachers around the world .
5. You can do the following: a search directory is a good for looking at general topic areas and their contents have been sorted by real people. You can search them as you might search in a library by clicking through the different sections and sub-sections . Yahoo is a search directory.
6. You can do the following: search engines list content which has been gathered automatically from the net . There is much more information to choose from and It has not been selected by humans . So It is therefore very important to be careful in your choice of searching terms. Google is a search directory.
7. You can do the following: if you are looking for exercise or information connected with the Present Perfect, for example, you could just type ‘present perfect’ in the search box. This however would give you many thousands, possible millions of hints. Some of these would be what you are looking for, but many would be irrelevant. You need to be able to narrow down or refine your search . You can do this a number of ways.
8.You can do the following: use key words and terms, add a few words to your search using relevant expressoions such as ‘ELT’ ( English Language Teaching ). Putting ‘Present perfect ELT ‘ into the search box will reduce responses from many thousands to only a few thousands abd so an.
In general, digital technology is an educational computer technology based on digits. Hardware – the structural components of an electric computer, teaching machine. Integration is a combination of different teaching technologies. Internet resources are the written programmed language translated into computer language composed of binary language. Software is the program used by a digital technology to perform desired tasks.