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ABSTRACT
Over the last two decades, the question of whether to use technology has shifted to how best to employ technology in the English language teaching (ELT). In this paper, we draw on theory and twenty-five years of practice to share insights on how to use educational technology in ELT and encourage teachers to integrate educational technology into their teaching. We share successful approaches and outline strategies practitioners in different English teaching contexts can employ as they grapple with effective ways of using technology to support pedagogy. In doing so, we reflect on our experiences teaching face-toface technology classes in high-resource environments as well as teaching face-to-face and online courses for low- to mid-resource environments. We explore useful theory-supported affordances various technologies can provide, suggest ways to engage teachers in the decision-making process, and outline how learners can be included in the process to arrive at a successful experience and sustainable pedagogical innovations.
KEYWORDS: educational technology, ELT, technology integration, CALL
1.INTRODUCTION
In 1991, Nina Garrett published an article in the Modern Language Journal entitled "Technology in the service of language learning: Trends and issues", which provided "an overview, for teachers making little or no use of technology, of the kinds of technological resources currently available to support language learning and of various approaches to making use of them" (p. 74). In the years since, the status of technology in the language learning classroom has been upgraded from an optional, supplemental role to one that is often crucial and ubiquitous. Since the early part of this century, technology-mediated instruction has become one of the most important educational advancements in tertiary institutions (Thorne, 2003). As colleges and universities become filled with "digital natives" (Prensky, 2001, p. 2), some scholars have suggested that technology-mediated learning "may even become so ubiquitous that we will eventually ... just call it learning" (Graham, 2006, p. 7). The function of technology in the language learning classroom has fundamentally changed in the last two decades, and the question is no longer if technology should be used but rather to what degree technology will be incorporated and how it will function in a symbiotic relationship with pedagogical and human resources. Thus, it is imperative that English language programme administrators and instructors become tech-savvy...