Towards A Better English Teacher The knowledge of the latest technical developments is essential for the teacher because these developments: offer knowledge and knowledge today is power. provide means to improve quality of teaching. respond to individual differences among students. help in managing an everincreasing knowledge. making education more costeffective. help in achieving educational equality. The new technology offer English teachers the ability to: diversify language teaching methods. eplain abstractive verbal components in more realistic ways. ing English conversations and environment to the classroom. assess language skills in with many technical tools. Teachers are irreplaceable by technology because: technology is not selfeplanatory. educational process cannot be mechanical it#s humanistic. teachers will always remain the instructional message designers. educational process is interactive. etensive technology could result in undesired psychological behavior. However teachers role is modified after introduction of technology in the classroom. They are not the sole source of knowledge. They play the facilitator role. Following research ecerpts prove that instructional media are helpful in teaching English: Video is just one moreadditionaltool for the language teacher. But the numerous video materials that come in varying lengths and ways of application make them an eciting tool which the busy teacher may consider adding to his/her own toolbo. Using visuals such as: drawings posters magazine pictures newspapers illustrated books chalkboard drawings photographs charts graphs audio cassettes real objects CDROMs and internet resources provide clues to meaning. Concrete objects and pictures engage students and help them make connections and remember language that they are hearing and learning. Video provides visual stimuli such as the environment and this can lead to and generate prediction speculation and a chance to activate background schemata when viewing a visual scene reenacted. Language found in videos could help nonnative speakers understand stress patterns. Videos allow the learner to see body rhythm and speech rhythm in second language discourse through the use of authentic language and speed of speech in various situations. Videos allow contetual clues to be offered. Video can stimulate and motivate student interest. The use of visuals overall can help learners to predict information infer ideas and analyze the world that is ought into the classroom via the use of video instruction. In a teaching or testing situation video can help enhance clarity and give meaning to an auditory tet it can create a solid link between the materials being learned and the practical application of it in a testing situation the video can act as a stimulus or catalyst to help integrate materials or aspects of the language videos can help manipulate language and at the same time be open to a variety of interpretations. Because academic listening tasks are often tested rather than taught video offers foreign and second language learners a chance to improve their ability to understand comprehensible input. Videos allow teachers to ask both display and referential questions. Video tasks used in the F/SL classroom can include but are not limited to creating advanced organizers other visual representations and descriptors. . With the increase in educational technology video is no longer imprisoned in the traditional classroom it can easily be epanded into the computer aided learning lab.. Interactive language learning using video CD ROM and computers allow learners the ability to view and actively participate in lessons at their desired pace. It is recommended that institutions and practitioners encourage the use of instructional video in the F.SOL classroom as it enables them to monitor and alternate instruction by fostering greater mental effort for active learning instead of passive retrieval of visual and auditory information. . Visuals allow for greater cognitive mapping and navigating in an environment. The use of visuals can either lead to sensory acuteness or to sensory depravation. In the process perception becomes the ability to process the stimuli as meaningful to the viewer.. Visuals are a good and useful tool for eamination purposes because they lead the learner into drawing out language from their own knowledge and personal eperiences through eposure to immersion to the stimuli presented before them. . Visuals permit strategies to organize knowledge into semantic or associative clusters. In testing and teaching situations pictures items can can be developed to test whether the students understands the synta or structure of the target language. Visuals allow for options responses alternatives patterns and ranges. Students can see immediate meaning in terms of vocabulary reco

Prof Ali Al Musawi