Technology integration in teaching is no longer a question. These days technology for most students and teachers is not just integrated in life, it is their life. Even in the face-to-face classroom, using a paper dictionary or visiting the library in person to do research is becoming less frequent. In other words, learners expect technology in the language classroom.
As there are so many choices available, it can be a difficult task to select which technology to integrate. But as Carley Spence highlights in her blog post, technology use can bring great benefits. However, a question that remains is how to select technology so it can truly strengthen effective practice.
A learning-centred approach to selecting technology
Choices about technology integration should be centred around effective practice and how it helps students move toward their learning goals. For this, teachers need to understand what effective learning is and how it happens. This is not easy because learning is complex and influenced by many factors.
Simply put, every time we learn something new, we make new connections in our brains. This is memory-making (Zull, 2002). Three cognitive processes are essential in language learning, or memory making: encoding the new information, storing it, and retrieving or recalling it. Without these processes, there is no way students can recognise or use new language. So teachers need to know a bit about how the brain works to provide effective learning opportunities.
Using technology to develop effective practice
The goal of language teaching is for learners to learn the language and use it. Over the years cognitive science and cognitive psychology have discovered some universal principles that promote effective practice. Both fields of study refer to the ‘thinking brain’ – the processes our mind goes through in an effort to make sense of the world. These evidence-informed principles can guide teachers in making technology choices so that its use leads to more effective learning.
At the centre of these theories lies the belief that repetition of newly learned information, language in this case, is critical for learning to happen (Carey, 2014). But rereading and underlining the language is not effective. So let’s explore some principles of effective practice and how effective use of technology can provide these.
The testing principle
Instead of remembering learned grammar or vocabulary through rereading and underlining, it is more effective for our brain to take little tests. Make sure your learners know these ‘tests’ are more like quizzes and only used as a learning tool, or they might worry.
- Build regular quizzes into your teaching routine. Various apps can help you create a quick ‘warmer quiz’ for the next day or a revision quiz for the end of the week. Check out Kahoot, Quizzez, or Socrative, though even Google Forms can do the job!
- Simply give learners a sentence starter like ‘we use the present perfect when….’ and get them to complete this using Mentimeter or Wooclap. For lower-level learners, you can use Miro to create matching tasks.
Distributed practice
Ebbinghaus showed in 1885 that forgetting is an important part of learning. When you spread out revision, the brain needs to work harder to recall the language studied a while ago. This is called a desirable difficulty (Björk, 1988). Students might not feel that spaced practice is more effective at first, but it helps strengthen the pathways in their brain so learning becomes easier to recall over time.
- Include some language items in this week’s test that students studied before. Just add these items into your warmer or review quiz using some of the apps above.
- Ask learners to write down anything they remember about what they have learned this unit/ this month. You can create a Jamboard for each learner or check out www.whiteboard.fi where students automatically get their own whiteboard to write on.
Elaboration
Students’ learning improves when they need to communicate what they have learned in their own words. For example, they can explain how they approached a task, how they got to a certain answer or self-question the process. Elaboration is also about making connections between old and new information, for example, between English and their first language or different concepts in CLIL or IELTS.
- Provide students with opportunities to teach each other. They can record short videos explaining the difference between linking words in a text or why model essay A is better. Padlet and Flip are user-friendly tools for learners to create videos and respond.
- Learners read and respond to a text elaborating on what surprises (!) them, is different (<->) or similar (=) to their current knowledge and what they find interesting (*). To share their thoughts, set up a Google Document where they can also respond to each other.
Interleaving
Practising one thing for a long time can be boring and can lead to the illusion of knowing it well. Varying practice in a structured way allows for some forgetting and creates desirable difficulties. But be systematic, don’t vary too often and when teaching pronunciation, interleaving is not a good idea. In language learning this principle needs more research but there are some take-aways.
- Create home learning sessions using Genially. It allows you to mix and structure practising tasks. For example, 15 minutes on the present perfect, then 15 minutes to practise relative clauses, followed by 15 minutes on comparative structures. The next day, stay on these topics but vary the order and activities.
- Upload a mixture of task, or links to tasks, on a Padlet and get learners to follow your instructions on which one to start with and for how long
Final thoughts
One final principle to keep in mind with technology choices is Sweller’s cognitive load theory (CLT). Giving learners various unfamiliar apps to work with can be overwhelming. When our limited working memory gets overloaded, the room for learning reduces. Whatever technology you decide to use in your classroom to boost effective practice, don’t forget to keep it simple. Less is truly more.
If you’d like to read more about how technology can be used in the English classroom, why not read “How VR and emerging edtech will affect future learning“, or “Motivating language learners with technology“.
References
Carey, B. (2014) How we Learn. Throw out the rule book and unlock your brain’s potential. Macmillan.
Bjork, R. A. (1988). Retrieval practice and the maintenance of knowledge. In M. M. Gruneberg, P. E. Morris, & R. N. Sykes (Eds.), Practical aspects of memory II (pp. 396-401). Wiley.Zull, J.E. (2002). The Art of Changing the Brain: Enriching the Practice of Teaching by Exploring the Biology of Learning. Stylus.