At september 29th 2011, my TLL lecture asked us to do debate. First group, which is my group acted as school boards who want to build a language lab in school. Besides that, the other group which is my opposite acted as a language teachers who assumed that school doesn’t need a language lab. They propose to install internet access. Debate went on attractive enough for me. Actually during the debate I was still confused what is the superiority of language lab which doesn’t exist in Internet. That’s because I never had language lab in school.
Yes, both of language lab or internet access can make language learning be more meaningful and comprehensible, but still depend on the teacher. Let’s look at the real example :
I wanna add Chomsky’s thought on 1986. He said that learning language is not about constructing a habit formation of language. Thus, based on TLL handbook, language learning more underscore in constructing innate cognitive knowledge which is gotten from comprehensible and meaningful interaction. I really-really agree with Chomsky’s thought, but first I felt upset while reading that thought. Chomsky’s perspective has been existed from 1986 but why nowadays learning language in Indonesia still underscore on habit formation. If I reflect to my friends’ school and my school, I conclude that some/many schools in Indonesia still use grammar translation method or audiolingual method. As we know, both of two method are about habit formation. Whereas, there have been created many technologies (like many programs in internet) to help teacher make comprehensible and meaningful interaction. Yeah, I think that’s because of many Indonesian teachers don’t know or can’t use those kind of technologies.
We have to remember that teacher is the main point in learning, not the technology. Then, because nowadays we are in digital era and will teach digital native students in the future, so ICT skill is important to be had by every teacher. If the teacher can teach well and also can operate the technology appropriately with learning, that can make learning and teaching process better.So, that’s why as a language teacher candidate I learn about language itself, language learning methods, and technology in language learning. All of them is integrated to create me become the next generation of teacher.
