Teachers Cannot Divide Class Into Small Groups Because

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MY OPINION ON THE CONTRIBUTION OF MULTIMEDIA

TOOLS TO EFL SETTINGS UNFAMILIAR WITH TECHNOLOGY

Author

Vu Thi Phuong Thao

Hanoi University of Foreign Studies, Vietnamhttp://www.asian-efl-journal.com/sept_03_sub3.php

In the era of information technology, there appear more and more teaching

methods. One of these is multimedia tool which has been applied in many

universities in Vietnam as well as in other countries in the world. Regarding the

role of multimedia tool in English teaching and learning, Vu (2003) had an

article titled “The Contribution of Multimedia Tools to EFL settings unfamiliar

with Technology”. I would like to present some view points with Vu as the

following.Firstly, no one can deny that multimedia has laid a rather important role in

English teaching and learning. Hanoi University of Foreign Studies (the new

name now is Hanoi University-HU) is the first university that has employed

multimedia tool. As the results from Vu (2003), all teachers and students in the

survey shared the same opinions which highly appreciated the role of

multimedia in teaching and learning. They are all interested in teaching and

learning with multimedia assistance because their aims and demand were met.

Especially, students’ level of English was improved, and students’ motivation

increased so much. This created enthusiasm for both students and teachers. Infact, Vietnamese learners really like new things in learning because they used to

study a foreign language with teacher and textbooks only. There are often no

modern visual aids such as overhead projector, computer, etc… The main

knowledge students gain is just from the textbooks, so sometimes students lack

interest and motivation in their learning process. As the results, their English

proficiency is not as high as they expect. When students have chances to study

in a modern and technological environment such as learning with computer, TV,

headphones… it is impossible for them not to be curious with these tools.

Now HU is one of the language specialized universities in Vietnam, so the

application of multimedia in teaching is of great important. I totally agree with

Vu’s viewpoints (2003) that multimedia plays a special and significant role in

language teaching and learning. In her article, Vu (2003) raised a problem

facing teachers and learner. That is the problem of “computer skill and

technical problems”. In fact, not all English teachers are familiar with computer

skills because they do not often have to work with computer, or they rarely

receive any computer training. As a result, if multimedia tool is employed in

teaching process, teachers must be trained with computer skill and of course,

this will take time. Not only teachers but also students rarely have an

opportunity to learn a foreign language with computer. The reasons are quite

http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/sept_03_sub3.php

http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/sept_03_sub3.php



simple. Firstly, not all schools can afford to install computer system for teaching

and learning aims. They lack money for this or they are not in the priority list of

receiving money subsidized from the Government in the field of education and

training. Secondly, once the school has condition to install computer system for

the aim of teaching and learning, they lack technical teachers who can beresponsible for operating the computers fluently. And as I mentioned above,

language teachers are those who can teach language only not for maintaining

the machines. Therefore, installing computer system turns out to be useless in

this condition. Moreover, students lack computer skill, they are not professional

computer operators. When they are allowed to learn with computer, some of

them even do not know how to switch it on and it takes time for teacher and

students to fix the problems. Thus a 45-minute lesson becomes a less than 20-

minute lesson, so teacher cannot convey all the content of the lesson to students

as planned.Another factor related to multimedia is the textbooks accompanied with the

programs. As Vu (2003) mentioned in her articles, there are two main sources of

teaching in Hanoi university namely Pre-intermediate Headway Video (Falla,

1994) and The ABC News Intermediate ESL Video Library (Business Watch

(Maurice, 1994), Culture Watch (Tomalin, 1994), Earth Watch (Stemplesk,

1994) and Health Watch (Arcario, 1994). These textbooks are designed for

language specialized universities not for all university in general. Thus,

textbook is also a real problem facing teaching applied multimedia tools

nowadays. In my university, English is not regarded as a major subject. Students

have to learn a given textbook. At the end of the semester, they have to take an

exam focusing on reading and writing without any listening or speaking exams.

For the need of the exam, students only pay attention to doing and learning

grammar points and exercises in class, and they do not care of other skills for

practice. When students have chances to study in language lab, they show no

interest with the lessons. The answer for this situation is that teachers do not

have suitable textbooks for lessons as well as students feel no interest in

learning.

Moreover, it is rather difficult for teacher to carry out lesson with language lab

equipped with multimedia. There are often from 30 to 35 cabins in the labwhereas the number of students in each class is often from 45 to 50 or even

more than that number. Teachers cannot divide class into small groups because

the timetable is fixed at the beginning of the semester. In addition to this,

dividing class into smaller ones will affect to other subjects which seem to be

impossible and unsuitable.

In the trend of educational renovation in the modern society, it is of great

important to apply modern methodology in education and training in general

and in English teaching in particular. Of these methodologies, communicative

language teaching (CLT) proves to be effective. Students will be improvedcomprehensively in four skills in terms of listening, speaking, writing and



reading. One of the applications of CLT in language class is using multimedia.

But as I mentioned above, for non English specialized universities, students do

not like learning listening and speaking and they lack motivation in learning

these skills. As the result, the application of multimedia in these universities is

not truly effective.In conclusion, all the above- mentioned are my viewpoints shared with Vu

(2003) concerning the matter of using multimedia in language learning.

Teachers Cannot Divide Class Into Small Groups Because

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