Advantages and disadvantages of using multimedia in teaching foreign languages

Methods of teaching English Language continues to improve by the usage of internet and information technologies in teaching process. The new era assigns new challenges and duties on the modern teacher. The method and tradition of English teaching has been changed with the remarkable entry of technology as it is a good provider in making teaching process interesting. And also it makes teaching more productive and effective.

With the rapid development of science and technology, developing of multimedia technology comes into important play in English class teaching. It’s proved that multimedia technology plays a positive role in promoting activities of students and teaching effect in English class. Technological innovations have gone hand-in-hand with the growth of English and are changing the way in which we communicate.

Research and methods

Multimedia helps in establishing curriculum that appeals to visual, aural and kinesthetic students, therefore, learners have equal opportunities in their performances. Students are encouraged to develop a versatile approach to learning by presented material in a diversity of modes. Multimedia is considered to consist of computer program which is the combination of a text with at least one of the following elements: audio or sophisticated sound, music, video, photographs, 3-D graphics, animation, or high-resolution graphics. It is stated that multimedia is information that takes the form of audio, video graphics or movies. A multimedia document contains a media element other than plain text. According to Mayer (2010: 1-2) multimedia presents both words (in spoken or written form), and pictures (illustrations, photos, animations, video). Teachers can use multimedia technology to create more colorful and stimulating language classes. There are various reasons why all language teachers and learners must know how to make use of the new technology. Most importantly, the new technologies can help to learn a language more quickly.

Even though there are some kind of advantages, here are some disadvantages in learning language with multimedia technology as well. Now we may count a lot of positive sides of this learning type.

First of all, teaching using multimedia makes English class more lively, vivid, and interesting.

According to Dong and Li (2011) multimedia is the factor influencing areas such as: student’s interest stimulation, efficiency improvement in the class, and satisfactory effects achievement. [1-3] Secondly, it develops students’ communicative competence. Multimedia technology can help to integrate teaching and learning a lot. We know, nowadays Power Point presentations become more common among the learners. Through these presentation topics, there are discussion, some activities and debates. And of course, this situation demands any kind of commmuni cation skill from the learner. Multimedia technology not only improve learners’ communication skills in learning the language but also encourage students’ positive thinking.

Thirdly, it widens students’ knowledge about the culture of English. The use of multimedia technology gives the learners more information than textbooks. Besides that, it helps them to be familiar with cultural backgrounds and real-life language materials, which can attract the students to learning. The learners not only improve their listening ability, but also learn the culture of the target language.

Fourthly, multimedia technology enhances interaction among students and between teachers and students. In fact, multimedia technology in teaching focuses on the active participation of students. One of the main uses of multimedia technology in the classrooms is to improve students’ ability to listen and speak. While teaching English language through it, the sounds and pictures can be set together that improve the active participation of both teachers and students. This technique makes the language class lively and interesting. And also this motivates the students to participate in the classroom activities.

Besides advantages of it in teaching, there are many disadvantages of using multimedia technology in English language teaching as well. In the following were given some of the disadvantages of multimedia technology.

First one is lack of communication between teachers and students. It is important that there should be a lot of communicative activities in the language classrooms. The teachers should teach the students on how to pronounce certain words, to comprehend the sentences, to improve thoughts and to express what they have learned. Though the use of multimedia technology in the language classrooms improves the interest of the students through audio, visual and textual effects upon the students, it lacks interaction among the students and between teachers and students.

Second one is loss of students’ logical thinking. The use of multimedia technology in teaching makes the students understand the content easily, but their abstract thinking would be limited. As the result of this, their logical thinking would be lost away. So if the students only perceive the images and imagination shown on the screen, their logical thinking would lose away.

Third one is lack of real-time teaching. Language teaching requires lots of discussion formed through questions and answers between teachers and students. The teachers ask real-time questions and guide the students to think, and to build up their capacity to give the answers. However, the teachers, with the help of multimedia technology, prepare the pre-arranged courseware for the language teaching that lacks real-time effect in the classrooms and the students become unable to give feedback to their teachers. Thus, the students should be given opportunities for thinking, analyzing and exploring their own world.

There is the danger of multimedia dominance in the classroom. Multimedia should be an assisting instrument to achieve desired teaching effect. However, it appears that sometimes teachers are too much dependent on multimedia devices, making them rather their slaves than playing the leading role in teaching. According to Patel (2013: 120), many teachers are proven to be active in multimedia teaching but lack proficiency to handle it confidently. Teachers become passive, and stand by the computer, while students’ attention is drawn by the screen, therefore, there is no eye contact between students and teachers. To fully understand Creative Education and application of multimedia it is necessary to comprehend that technological applications serve as an assisting instrument to effective teaching and learning rather than a target, and under no circumstance should not dominate the class.

Conclusion

As a conclusion, we can say the main purpose of using multimedia technology in language teaching is to improve students’ motivation and learning interest in the English language. The utilization of multimedia technology can fully improve the students’ thinking and practical language skills. [4-6] This will ensure and fulfill an effective result of English language teaching. The teachers indicate the number of the advantages from using multimedia in the classroom. First of all, they think that computers are a wonderful tool, and together with the Internet enable easier and faster communication, which in turn results in and leads to acquiring target language in easier way. The next advantage seen by teachers is that they observe increased willingness by English learners’ participation in the classroom. The third advantage is that teaching in combination with multimedia is undeniably more effective. The fourth very important benefit is that there are enough good multimedia materials for English teaching, giving opportunities for teachers to provide their students with reliable, various, and interesting sources Multimedia is undoubtedly a good form of learning the language, nevertheless as each method has disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage in the multimedia-enhanced classroom is that the material has to be carefully selected due to students’ needs. Moreover, it requires earlier preparation by the teachers as sometimes inappropriate language may be used, wrong content, or the level of the difficulty.