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Why Integrate ESOL and Computers?
Why Integrate ESOL and Computers?
Students say that integrating word processing and ESOL helps them progress toward their goals. For example, one goal of many of our students is to improve their job opportunities. Our integrated approach teaches skills that help them with data entry and with such word processing tasks as creating professional-looking resumes and cover letters. They also learn other software commonly used in offices, such as PowerPoint. Others learners use these skills in pursuit of their educational goals. They learn the value of computing when they use instructional software, access educational web sites, and write reports for college courses or work assignments. Many have appreciated their newfound comfort with computing for personal benefit, including e-mailing, finding community information on the Internet, and assisting their children with homework projects.
We also
believe that integrating word processing and ESOL meets many of the objectives
set out by the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS,
1991). The Commission surveyed businesses and education leaders to find the
skills important for adults to possess to succeed in the workplace. Among many
workplace competencies and foundation skills, the basic skills related to
language have a significant place in the combination of ESOL and word
processing. Thinking skills such as thinking creatively, solving problems, and
knowing how to learn new computer functions, such as using the Help menu, are
life skills. These are developed when students work together on integrated
computer and ESOL projects and activities. In the skill area of personal
quality, we have seen how students who came into the lab initially frightened
and nervous around computers, which they saw as mysterious, complicated and
beyond their capabilities, have developed greater self-esteem after they gained
the confidence to use computers independently. Students develop their
interpersonal skills when they work in pairs or small groups, often with people
from different cultural backgrounds. Because pair work encourages interaction,
students teach each other constantly. Students learn to process information
using a computer, to understand the technological system of the computer, and to
apply technology to specific tasks through
such activities as typing lists, writing memos, composing business letters and
structuring resumes.
Reference
Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (1991). What Work Requires of Schools: The Report of the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills. Washington, DC: US Department of Labor.