ROLES FOR COMPUTERS IN TEACHING
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS
Who is the author of the
article?
Introduction
Computers as Tutors
Computers as Tools
Computers as Ways to
Explore Language
Computer as Media
Computers as Learning
Environments
•Bertram C. Bruce
•The article is a Technical
Report No.522 at University of
Illinois at Urbana Champaign.
•December 1990
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Technologies uses in teaching the English language
arts and its different devices have been spread
around world. So, there is a question that has been
raised ; what role should these technologies play in
teaching and learning? In the article, the writer
mentions five roles for the computers usage; tutors ,
tools , ways to explore language , medium and
learning environments. In each role , the writer
discusses some technical applications that enrich
language arts field. These applications are designed
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Contents
according three issues ; the area of language
arts
,
The intelligent tutors :
1- Performing and discussing the
task articulately.
2- Knowing how the student’s
progress and diagnosing his/ her
misconceptions.
3- Applying strategies for teaching.
Some examples of intelligent
programs :
A- Iliad/ 1- Tutoring deaf children.
2-Generating syntactic variations of any
given sentence.
3- Allowing children to generate their
own transformation rules .
B- VP2/ 1- It is for nonnative speakers
in English.
There are a lot of programs that teach language arts
2has
an explicit
modelenough
of developing
but, It
these
programs
are not intelligent
as
tutors. So, the students should use it as helpers not as
grammar
complete tutors.
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Word processing programs are the most
famous tools that have been used by
students in the classrooms . These
programs help students in creating, revising
and sharing texts. Word processing serve
only as a tool in writing and reading skills.
Some example of word processing
programs:
A- Bank Street Writer/ Providing menus
of functions.
E-Viewing the
Writing
Process
A-Assistance
in Reading
Computers as
tools in :
D- Viewing at
Text
C-Finding
Information
B-Generating
Ideas and
Planning
There are some programs that
help the students who face
unfamiliar words. These
programs have speech
synthesizers or stored speech.
A- CAC/ help students by giving advice on how to
compose persuasive text.
B- Seen/ a literature- oriented program.
C- Writer’s Helper/ displays the trees of ideas.
D- Writing Workshop/ includes three prewriting
programs.
E- Writing a Narrative/ tutorial on narrative structure
and point of view
F- Mone/ allow a writer to build hierarchical
structures for ideas. “idea processors”
“invisible writing” :- It is an optional technique in some of
word processing programs. This technique helps the
student in “free writing”
Enrich students’ reading and writing skills.
A- Dictionaries ( Oxford English Dictionary)
B- Encyclopedias ( Grolier’s)
A- Writer’s Workbench( AT&T Bell laboratories) / giving
the author an uncluttered view of transitions.
B- Writer’s Assistant (Interlearn)/ allow the user to see
only the first sentence of each paragraph.
C- The Electronic English Handbook / an on-screen
reference tool for student during the composition process.
D- Compupoem/ help in writing poems
E- Poetry Processor / analyzing and revising a poem.
Viewing a text by using some programs helps students to
discover their problems in capitalization, punctuation,
run-on sentences, sentence fragments, repetitions…..etc
Because the computer helps in
producing and storing text inside it
and because some text editors offer
a “ replay” facility, the student and
teacher can see the process of text
creation.
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There are computer-based
microworlds that have been
developed in science and
mathematics to enable students to
explore new domains ,text hypotheses
, construct models , and discover new
phenomena. The same technology
will be so helpful in language arts. It
supports students to think deeply
about language patterns, conceptual
relationships , and the structure of
ideas. In this time, this technology is
A- Logo/ 1- famous programming language.
2- It help students to create and explore models
of language structure and use .
3- An example of Logo language is Gossip.
4- A gossip is a description of an action that has
been given to a person by the student .
5- The interest thing of such Gossip program is
that the student can ask the computer to print
out any number of gossip statements. The result
of these gossip statements are funny and
sometimes surprising statements.
6- Students while they are creating their own
Gossip programs, they face fundamental Qs
about language that encourage them to explore
and learn the language by themselves.
B- Phrasebooks and Boxes/ 1- Two
extensions of Logo.
2- Allow children to classify words, create
their own dictionaries and phrase books.
C- Crossword Magic/ 1- Allows student to
create crossword puzzles.
2- Encourage students to explore the
meaning of words and its spelling.
D- Missing Links/ 1- Activities that
encourage students to decipher a text in
which various letters or words have been
left out.
2- Develop reading and Problem-Solving
skills.
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1- Computers are not just providing printed texts, but also
electronic mail, online documentation , and electronic
encyclopedias in which the user reads directly from video
screen .
2- Computers have multimedia messaging . For example;
Diamond .
3- The conferencing systems that computers have equipped
with a variety of fonts in different languages and
orientations.
4- Computers are able to connect between related
informational texts . This facilities the process of learning.
5- Computers as a media tool helps to remove the
boundaries between writers and readers.
Students
can
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1- Computers enlarge the social interaction through feedback from other,
peer tutoring , and sharing ideas. These interactions develop reading and
writing skills.
Some Examples : A- Quill Mailbag and Library / A1- Writers can share easily their
products .
A2- Mailbag is a simple electronic mail system in which writers can send messages
to individuals , groups or to the whole class.
A3- Library is a storing system of texts with its authors’ full name. This system
facilities finding the suitable texts for student by selecting the topic.
2- Electronic networks create learning environments and contribute to
language development.
3- The networks make the exchanging of messages faster and easy the
task of sending the same message.
4- Many students find the networks’ environments more effective in
increasing writing skills.
1- Computers aid mostly in the writing
instruction.
2- Word processing programs teach
students the essential aspects of writing
more than the teachers do.
3- Computer networking and communities
of students writers help largely in teaching
ideals of writing across the curriculum.
4- Computers with its different kind of
systems and applications help in enhancing
students’ motivation.
5- There is still a lack of research how the
use of computers can contribute strongly to
language arts.
Thank you
for your
listening