Week 3: Using technology in ESL class.

 Based on the article: Blending technologies in ESL courses: A reflexly enquiry  by Paul Gruba, Cameron Clark , kellyn Ng and Marisa wells.

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This article was about a project of  how to integrate technology in ESL courses by using podcasts (which are recorded materials). They are one of useful materials to teach listening skill. 

Something I remember from this article is that podcasts can be create into 2 categories which are purpose built and authentic. They are purpose built when they focus on the development of diverse student competencies; and authentic when they are extracted from media resources or unedited recording of native speakers.

Podcasts are an innovative pedagogy that consists of motivating the learners' interest and that is good because we have to look for different pedagogies, methods and techniques in order to help students to enhance or stimulate the development of  their listening skills. because as we know,  listening to an audio is tedious and we get bored easily. Besides, the purpose of listening is not only to have listening comprehension, but also, to give students the opportunity to talk to each other, that is why an audio is always provided with a question sheet, so that, students can share opinions or interview each other about what they have listened. By using podcasts, we are able to improve our listening and speaking skill; and I think these are the most difficult to learn because you do not have the native pronunciation and understanding, so I think this is the best way to improve those areas we need to focus on.

I believe that if we apply all the content previously explained by the article, students will be able to become competitive learners. As a result of this, students will achieve the goals they have since the beginning, which are getting the best pronunciation and understanding in order to use them correctly in a dialogue, not matter the language we are trying to learn. That is why I think this article is very helpful and we can apply all the technologies we have and use podcasts successfully as well as activities such as repeating dialogues, words, listening to songs and try to get the lyrics correctly, anyway we have many activities we need to know  to take advantage of podcasts.
 
In addition, podcasts have been used to present recorded lectures and  it is very useful to students as they can review their lectures, or for those who do not like to read too much; the recored lectures are an excellent material to be informed, since they can play the audio and start listening to it.