3. Interactive IWB Technology in Enhancing Reading Skill in English Language Learning

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.

Although English is not a native 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.

Reasons for poor reading skills –

After interviewing many students teacher who came from different university under the same roof of an institute I found several reasons why the students of Gujarat 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 and teachers training colleges 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

IWb is not very new to the world but to Gujarat (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 Gujarat (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 massive 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.

IWb is useful in English language teaching as it has some salient features which make it Interactive, Flexible to topic presentation and versatile, Revolutionary, Fascinated and efficient, Multitasking and multi sensory presenter, Motivator, Time saver and so on. Due to this 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, and 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 LSRW (the four language skills - listening, speaking, reading, writing) 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

Certain grammar point can also be highlighted.

In later stage mike can also be supplied

Sample

This research has been carried out in Amity B.Ed. College, Bharuch, Gujarat, India. The Experimental school of the College has set up smart classes in each class room to give student the experience of future generation teaching learning environment. Firstly trainee teachers were introduced for a short training period and then class were open to every teacher. Researcher has selected this college as sample because of Most of the trainee teacher have one common thing in them i.e. difficulty in reading English.

Methodology

The reading practice has been done in a reputed Experimental School of Bharuch - Amty School, where interactive technology has been already set up in all classroom. The students were from different background qualified their upper primary schools. 85 students were targeted to fill questionnaire after giving them reading practice in IWb classrooms. A direct question has also been given to them. “How did you find IWb the most helpful/the most unhelpful in enhancing reading in language class?” After written data an open discussion has been done in the class to discuss the points that why did they felt so.

Analysis of the Data and Interpretation

The collected data has been segregated according to the comments written by the students. Somewhat similar answers were put in categories. The whole data has been put in to seven categories then presented in the form of table as given below (table-1)

Discussion:

The summary of the collected data is presented in table-1. By putting a glance on the table we come to know that majority of the students favour this technology while we also got some remarks which are not strictly against but also not in favour. The percentage of those comments is very low but we are not ignoring them so we’ll discuss those comments too and given a place in the table for the same purpose.

• 1. Students enjoyed the combination of various features of IWb as a result of combination of various audio-visual equipments to make IWb a unique tool to enhance interest of students so reading. About 29% students love the combo of display and the listening of difficult word through audio player.

  2. 20% students appreciated the group activity which makes them really confident and helpful in removing hesitation to which they were a victim since childhood (as they told in an open discussion.) they love to be reviewed by their peers rather than their teachers.

  3. Near about 16% students love the picturesque use of IWb in reading comprehension. Students felt that it is easy to relate story with the given picture. Picture grabbed their attention to read more lines to find out what will happen next.

  4. Approximate 13% Students very much appreciated the feature of highlighting and annotating the difficult words and repeating the same to make other sentences in discussion time.

  5. 11% students were very happy as they were tension free to bring the targeted text for the reading class. Before that either this or that student were out of text and felt him self in embarrassing situation in front of teacher. IWb solved this problem the text presented on the board is universal for class students.

  6. Near about 7% students love to share that they love review from peers than teacher. They love to learn more from their friends in the group and IWb is helpful as teacher in IWb class love to see their students talking and sharing so teacher prefer group activity even in reading too.

  7. Nearly 4% students wrote that they were afraid of the new technology. They hesitate to discuss even within group because they think that if their friend come to know that they don’t know about the latest they will laugh on them.

Conclusion

Written feedback to question and statements of students after in group discussion showed their fascination towards new technology. They haven’t seen such type of language classroom before this college and novelty in education is a rare thing. They appreciated the combination of audio- visual presentation with text which helps them to restore the word in their memory for a longer time. As it is a well known fact that Motivation, attention, and behavior represent an overall student attitude in the classroom, and IWb motivates students, catch their attention through audio-visual aids and bring a change in their behavior not to see the reading as a boring exercise but do it passionately to enhance their language competence.