TASK 2: ARTICLE REVIEW
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Mehmet Hâldun Kaya or also known as Haldun Kaya completed his high school education at the Manisa Teacher Training High School. He graduated from the Middle East Technical University, Faculty of Education in Foreign Language Education Department with high honour degree in the year of 2002. He worked as a simultaneous interpreter for foreign delegations during his military service. On top of that, he also holds the certificate of Teaching Grammar given by IUE. He has been working at IUE since 2002.
Mehmet Hâldun Kaya or also known as Haldun Kaya completed his high school education at the Manisa Teacher Training High School. He graduated from the Middle East Technical University, Faculty of Education in Foreign Language Education Department with high honour degree in the year of 2002. He worked as a simultaneous interpreter for foreign delegations during his military service. On top of that, he also holds the certificate of Teaching Grammar given by IUE. He has been working at IUE since 2002.
The article titled, “Blending Technology with Constructivism: Applications for an ELT Classroom” by Haldun Kaya is retrieved from tewtjournal.org from the first issue in 2015. The article contains 11 pages including references. The article is divided into 5 items which are Introduction, Constructivist Learning Environment, Constructivist Learning and the Use of Technology, Applications and Conclusions.
As mentioned in the title of the article, it is about bringing the technology in a constructivist classroom and make use of it to create a more beneficial and experiential environment to the students in learning language. It is important to create an environment whereby the students are able to experience the language themselves through meaningful and authentic activities, thus allowing a long term result to the students. This article is written to get the readers to read and analyse the benefits of using technology in a constructivist classroom and it provides selections of application that can be used in ELT classroom. Technology allows the students to access, review, modify, evaluate and improve the students’ performance and if it is implemented well, it may increase and improve students’ learning, understanding and their achievement. Motivation is very important in learning especially language learning, and the blend of technology in an ELT class can offer just that and also increase students’ motivation to learn and giving them the opportunity to think critically and encourage problem-solving skills. The author provides the Digital Bloom’s Pyramid to show that web 2.0 technologies can be fit into the traditional Bloom’s Taxonomy. This actually shows that as long as web 2.0 technologies can help to achieve the six levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, then using them can help create students with critical mind. Teaching and learning require both teacher and student. Students rely on feedbacks of the teachers for them to know their mistakes and to improve themselves. However, sometimes, teachers are not able to give feedback personally to the students due to other workloads and most of time because of a large number of students in class. Therefore, using website 2.0 can help in this matter as it provides immediate feedbacks to the students. The author truly believes that blending technology with constructivism brings a positive implications in an ELT classroom.
I will recommend this article to all English teachers and also parents here in Malaysia as it interests me a lot with the new approach in language teaching. This article is well-written and provides assurance that using technology to teach English is possible and effective. Besides that, I believe this could be one of the best ways to help Malaysian students to learn English language more effectively and to boost their confident in learning English. This is because during my practicum, I realised that most of my students are afraid to use English in class as they are afraid of making mistakes and being laughed at. They also uninterested to learn English in class because they are bored with the pen and paper activities in class. Since the students belong to gen Y and are technology literate, using ESL websites, blogs, social network and such are a privilege to them. They will also enjoy the class because it is different from the usual and traditional way of learning in class. I can say this because, during my practicum, my students enjoyed themselves and actively participated with the activity using song to learn phrasal verbs. They even requested me to play the song again for them to sing. This shows how the students are in need of diversity of activities in class to get them to engage in teaching and learning in class. Parents also need to know that technology can be used as a tool for the students to learn language, so that, they will understand and support their children at home by providing and allowing the students to use computer and have connection to the Internet in order to access various ESL websites. With proper guides and unlimited support by the teachers and parents, using the blend of technology in a constructivist English classroom in Malaysia, can actually be the answer to improve and polish the Malaysian’s students’ proficiency in English language.
