Self Reflection on my teaching log as semester finishes...
For this semester, I took a course called "Technology Enhanced Language Teaching" at Sookmyung Woman's University. As a digital native, I was able to grow and use technology as a daily tool for life. I would say my technology proficiency is too high that for me, it is difficult to live a life without technological tools. However, when it comes to teaching language with technology, I felt diffident. Then, I realized that being able to use technology well doesn't make you a technologically proficient language teacher. During the course, I was able to develop one step further towards a tech-competent teacher from a tech-competent person.
During the course, I have learned a great assessment theory analyzed by Hampel and Stickler called "Skills Pyramid".
These are the seven sequential steps teachers need to have in order to competently use technology as their educational tool. Before I took this course, I would be at the "Basic ICT Competence" level. Although I am very familiar with technological devices, I rate myself to be at the first step because I wasn't qualified to be at the second step. According to Hampel and Stickler, teachers who are at the second step of the pyramid are able to use specific software for teaching. Prior to taking this class, I had no knowledge of educational software I could use in a language teaching class. This is the reason why I would rate myself to be at the first step before taking this course.
During the 13 weeks of classes, I learn various educational programmes, websites, and software I would practically use at a language teaching class. All the posts I had written on this website are the reflections and reviews on diverse tools I learned in the course. Throughout the course, I was able to obtain a lot of knowledge on language teaching-related software, understood the possibilities and limitations of the medium I use while earning the ability to analyze the medium (whether it is suitable for different types of students). Moreover, I was able to create diverse class designs by using different tools. The abilities I have attained in this course would definitely bring me up to the third step of the pyramid which is "Dealing with constraints and possibilities". Even though I have mastered the tools learned during the course, and used it to create my own style (step 7) of teaching, I rate myself to be at the third step because I still never had a chance to actually use those tools in a real language teaching class. Other steps require teachers to develop communicative competence through active online interaction among students. Thus, I thought I am still not qualified to be at steps four, five, and six. However, with such technological competence I possess right now, I feel much more confident in applying technology into language teaching class. I am looking forward to my real-life experience after graduation.
Also, in this course, I learned another four steps teachers go through when teachers are being trained to use technology. It is defined by Wang and the four steps are: "Wow-this is exciting", "Uh-oh", "Anxiety" and "Internalizing".
The theory under each step is exactly how the name refers. Before I took this course, I was at the "WOW-this is exciting" stage. When I saw different online language teaching tools in other TESL classes such as zoom, google meets, google slides, snowboard (and more), I always thought those were interesting, but never tried to use them.
As I was dealing with different teaching tools like story bird, Voki, google form, Testmoz (and more) in this course, I definitely went through the "Uh-oh" and "Anxiety" stages. For example, when I had to create a digital storybook, the website did not have any tutorials, so I had the "Uh-oh" moment when I had to click and research on how to use the website. I went through the "Anxiety" stage when I figured out the images story bird provided weren't enough to create a story. I couldn't add the images according to the plot I have written, but I had to make a story to each image I selected in order to develop a full story with the characters in the book. Just like this, with all of the tools I dealt with during this course, I went through Wow, uh-oh, and anxiety stages until I reached to internalization. At the internalizing stage, I mastered different tools and successfully applied them into my imaginary language teaching class, and felt much more confident in using them. I even used story bird once more at later assignment and when I used it again, it took much less time and energy than before. So now, I can surely say that I am at "internalizing" stage from Wang's criteria.
Last but not least, I want to add that I may go through the sequential steps of Hampel and Stickler, and the learning stages of Wang again when I encounter new medium, but I am sure that it wouldn't be a huge challenge for me due to the diverse activities and assignments I have done in this course. In the future, when I want to learn about new language teaching tool, I will know that in the end, I will be able to reach the internalization. I am glad that I had the chance to experience different stages before graduation. As I have stated above, I am now a better tech-competent language teacher than ever.
