Posts for Week 3

Country involved: China
Values given to education and IT in China's education policies

“English teaching has been identified by senior educational policy-makers as one of the areas where the use of IT is mostly likely to make a breakthrough in changing the traditional teaching mode.” There is a wide-spread belief among Chinese politicians and education agencies that the use of IT in classroom teaching caters to the needs of modern education reform, and it also serves as the hallmark of the modernization of China's education. The integration of IT and scientific teaching methodology can contribute not only to the imparting of knowledge to the students and the cultivating of students’ intelligence and capability, but also to students’ access to the enjoyment of art. Such a classroom environment helps to maintain students’ strong interest and active thinking so that they can participate whole-heartedly in classroom activities. Such a teaching mode refreshes students and arouses students’ curiosity towards knowledge through the combination of the multimedia so that students can get highly motivated by involving both their vision and hearing, resulting in high study efficiency.


Sources of information:
http://www.pep.com.cn/200406/ca492759.htm
http://youxicat.bokee.com/4079775.html
http://www.pep.com.cn/200406/ca492798.htm
Towndrow, P& Vallance, M. (2004). Using IT in the language classroom. Singapore:
Pearson.

similarities and differences

There are both similarities and differences in the use of IT in classroom teaching and learning between my university and the picture depicted in Gates’ The Road Ahead.
Similarities:
1. Multimedia classrooms are accessible to teachers and students.
2. Teachers are able to use texts, images, sound and video as part of their curriculum.
3. Students welcome the use of IT in the classroom. Differences:
1. In The Road Ahead, teachers use animation in their presentation.
Whereas in my university, not many teachers are so proficient in
computer use as to develop animation in teaching.
2. In The Road Ahead, students present their report using multimedia.
Whereas in my university, personal computers are not widely available
among students and the campus computer room is mostly crowded. In
addition, students are quite busy attending classes. Therefore, despite
students’ access to broadband in their dorm, not many students are able
to use multimedia to prepare their presentation, which is really time-
consuming.
3. It is presumed that the scene depicted in The Road Ahead is quite
typical of a futuristic classroom environment. In contrast, in my
university, only a minority of lessons are conducted in multimedia
classroom. As mine is a specialized foreign studies university, students
need to firstly focus on the basic skills of English learning, in addition to
their extensive exposure to the language itself, students need a lot of
intensive guidance on the part of the teacher. For example, in the
teaching of writing, teachers need to frequently call students’ attention
to the contrast between English and Chinese in terms of the essay layout
and the language issue so as to avoid or at least reduce the possibility of
negative transfer in their essay writing. Therefore, the application of IT,
at least among the freshmen and sophomores in my university, is not
so productive, which has also been testified by reality.