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2.3 Introduction to the Interactive whiteboard 
The IWB is one of the devices included in the CALL field. It is a large touch-sensitive 
interactive screen, which is connected to a digital projector and a computer, which makes it 
possible to display the computer’s desktop onto the IWB’s screen (Becta, op cit). The IWB 
was primarily developed for office use, but was later introduced as a teaching tool in the 

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classroom and it has now become a common device in the education (Greiffenhagen, 2002). 
The IWB is the first electronic tool designed primarily for teaching, which distinguishes it 
from other technological tools used in the classrooms, such as computers and tablets, which 
are mainly intended for learning purposes (Betcher and Lee, op cit).
There are many pedagogical affordances with the IWB. The teacher can overwrite, underline, 
highlight or circle text written on the IWB. The written texts can also be saved and used again 
and they are easy to read, because of the IWB’s capacity to magnify and zoom in and out. 
Written text on the board can also be changed into typed text (
Al-Saleem, 2012:131
). 
Furthermore, according to Betcher and Lee (op cit) the IWB makes it possible for teachers to 
bring the wide range of resources from the web into the classroom in a convenient way. It 
makes it possible to show anything displayed on the computer to the whole class at the same 
time. Betcher and Lee (ibid) also argue that the IWB favours all sort of teaching such as 
whole-class-, small group- and personalized-teaching (Betcher, Lee, ibid). Glover et al., (op 
cit) claim that the IWB also supports different learning-styles such as 
kinesthetic, visual, 
audio, active, and verbal-social
(Glover et al., ibid). Ellis (1997) claims that there is not one 
distinct way for a person to learn and develop a second language. Different learners in various 
situations acquire a language in different ways (Ellis, ibid: 4). Therefore, a device, which 
supports all learning-styles and connects all language skills, is assumed to be beneficial for 
language learning. However, there have not been any research studies confirming if the IWB 
has improved students’ achievements or enriched the present methods used in language 
teaching (Dudeney and Hockly, op cit). Furthermore, Betcher and Lee (op cit) argue that the 
revolution is just in its first phase and success will come in pace with the teacher’s patience 
and knowledge in mastering the tool (Betcher and Lee, ibid).