Using innovative information technology in the teaching English language

In modern methods of teaching foreign languages, the use of multimedia technologies plays a significant role. What is multimedia?

Multimedia is an interactive (interactive) system that provides simultaneous work with sound, animated computer graphics, video frames, static images and text. This term refers to the simultaneous impact on a user through several information channels. In this case, the user, as a rule, plays an active role. In other words, multimedia is the sum of technologies that allow a computer to enter, process, store, transmit and display (display) data types such as text, graphics, animation, digitized still images, video, sound, speech.

The word multimedia appeared out of touch with computer technology. He was first used by the English singer and performer Bob Goldstein in 1966, when he organized his new-fangled show performance. Later, this term meant any entertainment product with different sound and video effects, but only in the 1990s the word was finally defined: “multimedia is a modern computer information technology that allows you to combine text, sound, video in a computer system, graphic image and animation (animation)".

The development of modern society occurs in the era of informatization, characterized by the use of information technology in many areas of human activity, including in the field of education. A rational combination of traditional educational tools with modern information and computer technologies (ICT) is one of the possible ways to solve the problem of educational modernization. ICT tools contribute to the development of personal personality traits, variability and individualization of school education. Modern ICTs provide an active, creative mastery of the students of the studied subject, allow to present the material at a new qualitatively higher level. Their use opens up fundamentally new opportunities in the organization of the educational process.

A foreign language is an academic subject, which, by its specificity, namely, the creation of an artificial language environment for students due to the lack of a natural one, implies the most flexible and widespread use of various technical means of teaching. Therefore, it is not surprising that in the teaching of a foreign language new opportunities opened up by multimedia have found the most diverse use. In the process of learning foreign languages in modern secondary schools, lighting and sound engineering devices are traditionally used. But now new information technologies have come to school: a computer, a multimedia textbook, the Internet, an electronic educational resource. The use of these new information technologies makes it possible to single out the following main points:

• -    the use of multimedia technologies in teaching foreign languages is designed to significantly improve the effectiveness of teaching, the main purpose of which is to improve the skills of everyday and professional communication (both directly with native speakers and mediated through the Internet, the press, etc.);

• -    means of new information technologies act as an instrument of education and upbringing of students, development of their communication, cognitive, creative abilities and information culture;

• -    the use of multimedia teaching tools allows, in the absence of a natural language environment, to create conditions as close as possible to real-life communication in foreign languages.

Previously, the lesson conducted by the teacher was called multimedia, if it was attended by the teacher’s story, the tape recording, the cinema, the slides, and any technical teaching aids. Today, a “multimedia” lesson means a lesson using a multimedia tutorial, a computer or laptop, a projector, a webcam. In the theory of learning, even several modern areas of research were distinguished, in particular, the theory of multimedia learning.

There was even an unofficial term “edutainment” for new education from the words “education” - “education” and “entertainment” - “entertainment”, used to combine education and entertainment, especially multimedia. Education reflects the link between learning and entertainment, that is, the student focuses on the learning process, while having entertainment goals.

It is multimedia tools that have the greatest impact on students. They enrich the learning process, make it possible to make learning more effective, involving the majority of the student’s sensory components in the process of perceiving educational information. They have become the objective reality of our time, and a foreign language teacher just cannot but take advantage of the opportunities they provide for teaching real communication in a foreign language.

The main groups of tasks solved with the help of multimedia at the lessons of the English language include:

support for students' academic work;

providing real communication with native speakers;

ensuring access of all participants in the educational process to the rapidly growing information funds stored in centralized information systems;

development of cognitive interest and motivation to learn English.

The degree and time of multimedia support for a lesson can vary from a few minutes to a full cycle. The main purpose of the multimedia lesson:

study of new material;

presenting new information and expanding students' horizons;

consolidation of the past;

training of educational skills;

repetition of the material studied;

practical application of acquired knowledge and skills;

generalization and systematization of knowledge. What can be identified the main ways of using the capabilities of modern multimedia technologies in teaching a foreign language? For example:

• -    The use of ready-made software for the study of a foreign language, supplied mainly on CD-ROM;

• -    application of software products created directly by teachers (or teachers together with students) in various instrumental environments or visual design environments);

• -    use of Internet resources.

Multimedia presentations can be held in any place where there is a computer and a projector or other local playback device. The broadcast broadcast of the presentation can be either “live” or pre-recorded. Broadcast broadcast or recording can be based on analog or electronic storage and transmission technologies. It should be noted that multimedia online can either be downloaded to the user's computer and played in any way, or reproduced directly from the Internet using streaming technology. The form and place of use of a multimedia presentation (or even its individual slide) in a lesson depend, of course, on the content of this lesson and on the goal set by the teacher. Nevertheless, the practice allows us to identify some common, the most effective techniques for the use of such benefits:

• 1.    When studying a new material. Allows you to illustrate a variety of visual means. The application is especially beneficial in cases where it is necessary to show the dynamics of the development of a process.

• 2.    When fixing a new topic.

• 3.    To test knowledge. Computer testing is a self-test and self-realization, it is a good stimulus for learning, it is a way of working and expressing yourself.

• 4.    To deepen knowledge, as an additional material to the lessons.

• 5.    When checking frontal independent work. Provides along with oral visual control of the results.

• 6.    When solving educational problems. Helps to perform and monitor intermediate and final results of independent work. The teacher can use the bank of ready-made multimedia presentations created by colleagues and posted on professional websites and forums, which significantly reduces energy costs in preparation for the lesson. Or he creates his own presentation for a particular lesson or topic.

For the teacher, it is a means of quality control of knowledge, a programmed way to accumulate grades.

In addition, the presentation material is clearly timed, from the informative and lexical points of view most closely corresponds to the topic of the lesson. The teachers of our gymnasium created a bank of multimedia presentations on many topics of English grammar, vocabulary, regional geography, which are regularly used by all teachers in the class-lesson system, and there are new models for the use of multimedia presentations in extracurricular activities.