3. Interactive Whiteboard Technology... by Archa Sharma

Introduction

Although English is not an indigenous language, it remains as an ‘Associate Language’ in India, alongside Hindi, the ‘Official Language of the Union of India’ and twenty two 'National Languages'. According to Wikipedia the Government of India has given 22 "languages of the 8th Schedule" the status of official language.

Teaching English language in such a multilingual country is really a challenging task. The demand of English is increasing day by day as it has been titled as ‘International language’; other than this it has a unique place in India. Amidst the 22 regional languages and thousand of dialect it is enjoying the status of most popular and elite class language.

English has not only continued to flourish in the educational and official network of India but has also become one of the official languages of the nation and thus continues to enjoy the patronage of the Indian elite.” (http://www.waseda.jp)

English teaching is based on four major skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. By listening and speaking English can be learnt easily, but one have to sit tight it by reading and writing. There are two ways of learning any language one is oral which include listening and speaking while second is written which includes reading and writing. There is a lot of difference between both the ways. Sometimes grammatical and structural rules are avoided while talking but in writing we respect grammar. In this paper stress will be given on written form of language learning. Reading is one of the input mode skills. Learning to read is essential to success in school and out side the school too. Reading is important to understand a language in a much better way. It’s true ‘We write as we read’.

Reasons for poor reading skills –

After interviewing many students who came from different state board under the same roof of an institute I found several reasons why the students of these boards are weak in English reading. These reasons are, sometime, related to environment, sometime related to the teachers who were teaching them English, and sometime the problems are related to students’ attitude. Following are some most said reasons by the students-

• • Lack of trained English teachers who are not fair in English.

  • English is not practiced at home or in environment.

  • English reading is done only in school in the English period and that to seldom because teacher pays more attention to other exercises.

  • Mostly teachers and Students remain busy in doing other different exercises like question & answer, word & meaning, writing comprehension etc. rather than giving stress on reading and then understanding.

  • English has become a subject rather than taken as language learning programme.

  • The reading is not done on the regular bases.

  • The lacks of practice make the students poor in reading English.

  • Lack of interest of teachers in reading as they think it unnecessary for a subjective course

  • Reading has not been given a proper place in government and state board course curriculum.

  • There are very few exercises based on reading practice in the text books.

  • Hesitation of weak students makes them weaker in reading.

  • There is no proper guidance for reading practice

Various methods have been adopted to improve the reading skill in English but the result is not satisfactory. Technology has also been incorporated in the schools to improve the reading skill of the students. But the main problem is related to their right guidance from teacher side. If teacher can make reading interesting then only students can take interest in reading. IWB is such a tool which makes learning interesting and innovative, in this respect it can enhance the reading skill of students.

Interactive Whiteboard

IWB is not very new to the world but to India it is in infant stage and penetrating education sectors very fast especially in the private educational institutes and schools. This technology, in language learning, is in experimental phase in India. This technology works on touch screen technology. A big whiteboard is connected to a computer and a projector either via wires (USB) or wirelessly (blue tooth). This giant white screen becomes live when projector projected the desktop of computer on it. Now board is read to take command. One can control the computer through touch sensitive board. Commands can be given either by finger or a special pen called stylus. This board in called interactive as it is attached with audio-video equipments as well as multi user sensitivity technique in it. It is really nice to work on IWB with your students as it facilitates both the teacher and student to find new ways of learning. It has been designed for business purpose (Griffon, 2002) but later is has been recommended by the educationist in the education field. Later various subjects have been benefited by this technology and language teaching is not an exception. It is found that it is useful in English language teaching as it has some salient features which make it

• • Interactive (BECTA, 2003), (Higgins, Beauchamp and miller, 2007)

  • Flexible to topic presentation and versatile (Austin 2003; Jamerson 2002)

  • Revolutionary (Arnott, 2004)

  • Fascinated and efficient (Boyle 2002; Thomas 2002)

  • Multitasking and multi sensory presentor (Thomas 2003).

  • Motivator (Levy 2002)

  • Time saver (Latham 2002), & (Beauchamp and Parkinson, 2005) and so on.

Due to above mention and many more other qualities IWB has set its position in language classrooms. Teachers and students both appreciated it for its versatile nature and flexibility in presenting data, text, pictures, PPTs, in addition to audio assistance. It gives novelty to classroom and creates longer effect on students due to video impact in the mind of the receiver. IWB is helpful in practicing all the skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) in learning a language.

IWB in Reading

Improvement in reading can be brought by motivating students to read extensively and for that we need to make them interesting in reading. Iwb can do a fovour for English teacher. They can bring attention of reader in the class to the content on the white giant board. Once the reader is in the class attracted by the colorful screen he starts taking pain of reading in the class.

Iwb can support the reading skill in many ways

• • Can present the text in no time. Reduce the tension to bring text to class.

  • Can annotate the difficult word for the whole class

  • Can highlight the difficult words

  • The difficult words highlighted through out the exercise remain long in the mind of the student.

  • Reading text can be easily relate to any picture to make reading a fun

  • Group exercise can give them confidence

  • Peer discussion before reading will give them support to read in the class

  • Motivation from their group members will improve their morale

  • Teacher can pay more attention to weak group

  • Audio player helps them to pronounce the word correctly and confidently