Abstract

DIAZ LARENAS, Claudio Heraldo; JANSSON BRUCE, Lilian Estela  and  NEIRA MARTINEZ, Angie Carolina. Perceptions of Chilean secondary education teachers and students concerning the role of technology in English as a foreign language classes. Rev. Lasallista Investig. [online]. 2011, vol.8, n.2, pp.53-60. ISSN 1794-4449.

Introduction. In Chile the competences in a foreign language are highly regarded, because it allows the access to professional and academic opportunities. Therefore, English teaching has become a priority for public policy makers. This fact is complemented by the technological developments boom that demands that such technology is added to the educational processes. Objectives. To discover, analyze and interpret the perceptions and visions subjects have concerning the use and the pedagogic value of the intervention of technology in the classroom. Methodology. This article shows a qualitative research work, in which a semi-structured interview was applied to ten informants, five English teachers and five secondary school students, in order to know their perceptions about how the use of technology is beneficial for the teaching and learning processes, concerning foreign languages. The unit of analysis is the informants speech. Results. These results indicate that technology is a contribution for teaching and learning the language, given the fact that such use of technology stimulates significant learning, but its use, though it is only used inside the classroom. Conclusions. Even though technology allows a redistribution of the roles between teachers and students, increases motivation and improves learning, it is not yet fully used because there are applications and resources that are underused and they could contribute, even more, to improve the students' learning processes.

Keywords : Foreign language; English; teaching; learning; technology.

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