This week we were assigned to explore a technology we think would be useful in our future classroom. As I have stated previously I am TESOL minor so I am looking for anything that will be able to help me with ELL (English Language Learners) students. I found something called text to speech. It is software you can download for free onto computers. The teacher is able to allow there students to read the text while at the same time listen to the text. This way the students are able to go at their own pace so you are not holding anyone back or losing students because you are going to fast. There are many different setting the learner can choose from, they can only have the words they are struggling with read to them by highlighting the words they need help with, they could have all of the text read to them, or the teacher can have premeditated words read to all of the students. The students can choose from a male, female or even foreign voices which will read the text out loud to them. They also are able to choose how fast the voice will read the words, this way the student is able to hear and comprehend what is being said. It also allows the student to look at a word and hear exactly how it is pronounced. The students are also able to take notes while going through this with the voice reading the text to them.
Teachers are able to download old documents they already have or make new documents for students to access. They can put up a wide range of material for their students to use such as
- worksheets
- tests
- textbooks
- supplementary materials
- books
I think this use of technology could be very useful for ELL's because usually everyone is at a different developmental stage in their learning and this would allow the teachers to help accommodate students with the material they need to develop even further. It will ensure students are not being pushed just because they are ahead of the rest of the class and with this program they will not have to wait for the rest of the class to catch up to them. however the down fall to this program is that every student would need to have a computer available for their use. This could present a problem because most classrooms do not have enough computers to accommodate every student in it.
I love that the world is coming up with more and more technologies that give the students the individual attention they need so that they can go at their own pace, as opposed to one teacher instructing at one pace and expecting everyone to go a that pace. Some kids go faster, some slower, and we are never going to be able to avoid that. Its good that you are able to gain insight into all these options that you have in order to make sure that your students reach their maximum potential, because it would just be too bad if they were stuck left behind because you couldn't give them that time they needed and maybe they can get that attention from this program.
ReplyDelete