Brave New Digital Classroom

I thought the title of this book was very fitting. It seems to me now there is a big divide in terms of teaching with technology: teachers who do, teachers who try to, and teachers who won't.

One quote that resonated with me right away was that, "Technology, then, if used wisely,could play a major role in enhancing L2 learners' contact with the target language, especially in the absence of study abroad" (2).

I completely agree. In school, I took French. Every year, the sophomores (last required year of French) took a trip to Quebec to "immerse themselves" in the language. With the use of technology, such as Skype for speaking skills, or blogger for reading and writing skills, students can experience the L2 language outside of scripted curriculum which takes 600-1320 hours of study in order to reach fluency.

The author also clearly points out that his book is "not a how-to manual" . Everyone knows that when you need to do something, you can figure it out on Google! Here, instead, the author has a laid out the scope of what the book will cover in terms of L2 learning. He also acknowledges where our students are at, citing that 84 percent of them use the internet for communication, and that it is their number one communication tool. We can play into our students interests, and watch their leaning excel as they work where they are comfortable with the important target-language input.

Being that I am not an ELL teacher/major, I found this very interesting and helpful for my current career situation!