Computers in Teaching English


Computers have already entered all the spheres of human activity including the process of teaching and studying. Nowadays skills of computer operating are very important for representatives of every profession. There exists a notion "computer literacy" that convincingly illustrates the fact of importance of computer proficiency. However we should not teach skills of work with the computer, its monitor, keyboard, memory devices and other equipment only.

Computers will never take the place of the teacher, they can be helpful assistants. As specialists state, computers will give us progressive results, if used

  • in managing of teaching based on mistakes diagnosing;
  • for solving of problem situations;
  • for automation of non-creative operations.


    • Computers can be successfully applied in organization of individual work of pupils after classes and testing works.

    Being a new technical means of teaching, the computer has only a background, assisting role, as it solves the same methodical tasks that the traditional means of teaching do, such a term as "computer-assisted language learning" completely describes the idea. Corresponding terms are found in different languages: German - "die computergesetzen Materialen", Russian - "поддерживаемое компьютером обучение". The use of the computer is not a method, it is a methodical device applied in the modern approaches of foreign languages teaching. As rather a new idea, the use of computers in foreign languages teaching makes us face the following problems:

  • Under what circumstances is the monitor more convenient than pages of the textbook?
  • What will the substitution of the text in the book with the message on the screen give us?
  • What influence will the use of the computer produce on formation of pupils' speech?
  • What aspects of the language should be taught with the help of the computer?
  • What generally new and progressive will the computer give us comparatively to the other means of teaching?


    • Software products can solve different tasks at the same time. The important task of many programs is to teach grammar, vocabulary and reading together. Written dialogue between the computer and pupils has some features of the oral speech: combined synthesis and reception of speech, urgent feedback, typically human addresses. During the lesson every pupil has only several minutes of talk with the teacher, the teaching programs allow to increase greatly the time of communication by means of the foreign language. Very important is the correspondence of software to the textbook, the teacher's book, the other units of the set. Computer programs are designed mainly for work out-of-class, which makes the time of the lesson free for those aspects of the language that can never be presented in the form of an algorithm.

    Software for teaching foreign languages is just coming into wide us. Many problems are to be solved and many questions are to be answered. Will the expenses of the computers and software be covered? Will the teachers be able to apply the new technology successfully? Now it is definitely known that the use of the computer has sense at the first stage of teaching English, that the computer has many advantages in comparison with other technical means of teaching.

    J.Baytelman
    Vinnitsa State Pedagogical University,
    Foreign Languages Department
    1998

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