CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW
C. Strategies to Integrate Technology into Language
1. Teachers' Belief that Technology can Enhance
D. The Influencing Factors in Incorporating Digital Technology into Language Teaching
Aside from considering strategies for incorporating digital technology into language learning, it is important to consider the surrounding influencing factors such as beliefs that technology can enhance language learning, technology acceptance, and integration because incorporating digital technology into language teaching and learning practice is not an easy task.
Therefore, pre-service and in-service teachers should have a thorough understanding of core technological skills, pedagogical aspects, subject matter mastery, as well as a positive attitude and belief that the use of digital devices or applications can enhance their pre-, whilst, and post-teaching and learning activities.
(Voogt, Fisser, Good, Mishra, and Yadav, 2015). In incorporating digital technology into language teaching, several essential aspects need to be considered, including; teachers’ belief, teachers’ acceptance of the digital technology, and their knowledge and ability to intersect the technological aspect into their subject matter without neglecting the pedagogical aspect.
1. Teachers’ Belief that Technology can Enhance Language
approaches, namely CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning), and MALL (Mobile Assisted Language Learning).
Zhou and Wei (2018) defined TELL as any language learning activity which utilizing technological devices by considering the aspects of efficiency, motivation improvement, and language learners’ learning styles flexibility. In line with Zhou and Wei, in a broader sense, Akman Yeşilel (2016) and Kranthi (2017) also referred TELL as the utilization of digital devices as the technological innovation to present the multimodal instruction to support the teaching methods. Patel (2015) defined TELL into three dimensions, namely; “1) A teaching method that requires that technological resources be used to promote the teaching and learning of a second language. 2) A type of learning using technological means and devices. 3) As an alternative to CALL, TELL refers to any applications of technology in language learning –including thus CALL approaches.” Characterized by the utilization of multimodal educational technology along with the internet support, TELL promotes immediate access to support social interaction and collaboration, but also stimulate autonomous and ubiquitous learning through portable devices which can be used to access authentic language use. It provides personalized language learning with the utilization of portable devices and promotes new ways of learning through instant access to the technology continuously that allows them to get broader interaction on various contexts of use (Radhakrishnan, 2017).
Teachers’ beliefs are a crucial factor in determining how they incorporate and utilize technology into their instructions.
Hamid, Kurnia, Waycott, and Chang (2015) suggested that both pre-service and in-service teachers couldn’t incorporate digital technology into their instructions without noticing its worth in doing it. Moreover, how often teachers incorporated digital technology into their language teaching is affected by their beliefs towards their worth and the way they integrate it (Sullivan and Battacharya, 2017). Vongkulluksn, Xie, and Bowman (2018) reported that teachers who believe in the use of technology will spend more time in their classes and more open to adapt and use other teaching strategies and approaches in their instructions.
Teachers’ beliefs are also affected by teachers’ initial experiences regarding the utilization of technology for language teaching and learning during their education program. How they accept and comprehend the technological knowledge introduced on their education program and how they incorporate the utilization of technology to enhance their language learning can be indicated by their beliefs towards it (Ding, Ottenbreit-Leftwich, Lu, and Glazewski, 2019). Teo, Milutinović, Zhou, & Banković (2017), also claimed that the attitude can be affected by the user’s prior experience in using technology. Teachers’ ICT introduction programs are found to be beneficial in reducing the hampering factors they will overcome on their teaching practices (Ihmeideh and Al-Maadadi, 2018), thus it’s influencing their beliefs towards the ICT integration on their teaching practice (Pocinho, Olczak, and Franicka, 2018).
On 1992, Johnson, as mentioned by Ding, Ottenbreit- Leftwich, Lu, and Glazewski (2019), proposed a framework of English language teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and practices into three orientations that also can be adapted into the real practices of language teaching and learning which incorporating technology. The three orientations are;
a) Skill-based that focuses on the language patterns memorization and repetition. It also can be interpreted as when teachers use digital technology to enhance particular language skills.
b) Rule-based that focuses on language learners’ grammatical rules comprehension’. The rule beliefs can be applied when teachers teach the students to use the corpus to improve students’ vocabulary accuracy and grammatical rules on writing skills
c) Function based that focuses on learners’ language use in communication contexts. It is when teacher ask the students to use certain applications, YouTube or zoom, for instance, to practice their conversational practices to develop their target language communicative competences so they have applied the function-based. In doing so, regarding their beliefs and their teaching objectives, they should also be able to select the appropriate model when integrating technology into their instruction.
Gong and Lai (2018) claimed that the teachers’ positive attitude towards digital technology has a significant impact on their technology integration into their classroom instruction, thus,
the effectiveness of the digital technology utilization will improve accordingly when their attitude towards the utilization of technology increase, while their pedagogical beliefs also significantly influence their educational technology acceptance.
Therefore, it can be said that to apply and integrate technology into their instructions, both pre-service and in-service teachers have to admit its worth in enhancing their teaching, they should have a positive attitude and perception toward it, they accept the use of ICT and digital technology into their instructions, and they can incorporate it to improve their professionalism and teaching performance.