Teach English in Yangcun Jiedao - Tianjin

New technology in the classroomThe particular element of new technology to be found in most classrooms is the Interactive or Smart Board. The Smart Board is quickly becoming a recognised piece of equipment in many schools and classrooms and, due to its many uses, this is no surprise. The Smart Board is an interactive piece of equipment which can engage all members of the class, and as it opens up so many possibilities, and has so many functions, it does not get as quickly over used or boring as with many other pieces of classroom equipment such as Over Head Projectors, Cassettes/CD?s, TVs & DVDs etc. The Smart Boards attraction is that it encompasses all the positive aspects of most previously well recognised classroom tools/equipment, be it visuals, work sheets, or the above mentioned tools. I have created a list of some of the activities that the Smart Board can make possible in the next few paragraphs. The Smart Board gives teachers the opportunity to take work sheets and activities such as matching the pictures to the words, and open them up to a whole class activity which promotes communication and student involvement. The teacher can arrange to have the pictures and matching names appear on the same screen, with the words jumbled, and the students can study the work and, using the touch-sensitive screen, drag the word which matches the activity, and place it next to the picture. This activity allows students to help correct each other, correct their own mistakes, give feedback, and enjoy and get involved in what would usually be a simple activity. In the EFL learning environment, this stimulates conversation, debates, and promoting the use of language, whilst confidence issues can often be overcome by the desire to try and use this entertaining piece of technology. Similarly, when working on vocabulary, the Smart Board allows you to show pictures to the class on the interactive screen, and extra information can be provided at the click of the button. For example, if the teacher has handed out a Gap Fill work sheet, when feeding back, the teacher can have each question on the board, and once the correct answer has been given by a student, the gap can be filled by the correct word by the simple click of a button. This can also be done using pictures, for example sporting activities, where the students must guess the name of the activity, which can then appear on the board next to the relevant picture. Smart Boards can also be used for other activities: it is easy to import videos from Youtube, or other clips such as music, conversations or DVDs onto the interactive screen so the whole class can see clearly. The interactive board is provided with speakers whose volume can be turned up significantly, so they work extremely well in larger classrooms. Again, showing videos from the computer/laptop or playing language CDs has suddenly been made easy when using the Smart Board. The Smart Board can also focus on more serious parts of EFL teaching, such as grammar and sentence structure, where the teacher can make a sentence appear on the interactive screen for the whole class to see, and highlight different parts of speech using the Smart Board pens, which are synched to the interactive screen. This technology also allows students to come up to the front of the class and write on the board using the whiteboard pens, practising their writing of english in a fun and enjoyable setting. The Smart Board, or Interactive Whiteboard is the essence of new technology in the classroom, and its creators have managed to identify all the positive uses of the many pieces of equipment found in classrooms over the years, and tried to incorporate as much as possible into the Smart Boards design. Smart Boards are costly, and are yet to be found in EVERY classroom, but they are quickly growing in popularity, and this growth reflects their many advantages and uses, and this can certainly be applied to EFL classrooms.