The 21st Century Skills of The Middle- Aged Tertiary Educators in Language Pedagogies
Authors: Emily Beltran (Technological University of the Philippines, The Philippines)
Speakers: Emily Beltran
Strand: Ethnographical Language Work
Session Type: General Session
Abstract
The present research reports a qualitative case study that investigated the middle- aged educators’ 21st century technological skills in language teaching. The study supports the technology integration in English language classroom for the advancement of student learning. As educational technology has become an indispensable part of teaching-learning process and as the language educators of higher education have embraced the idea of educational technology for classroom use, the recent study was conducted. This is to substantiate if English language classrooms are equipped with essential technology devices; to categorize the frequency of use of the middle-aged language educators of technology/multimedia in the classes; and to identify the strategies applied to catch up with the students’ advancement in technology know-how. Following a multiple case study approach, data were collected from middle-aged educators in Language pedagogy of various universities in the Philippines (a non-native English speaking country) through face-to-face/online interviews, classroom observations, and an adapted questionnaire. The findings showed that only few of the English language classrooms are equipped with essential technology devices. As regard to the frequency of usage, the technology integration was utilized in the process of making lessons such as PowerPoint presentations and as instructional tools but depend most of the time on the students to set up and operate the computers. Data also demonstrated that middle- aged educators in language classes have basic technology skills but they tend to be most of the time unproductive on educational use of technology. They rely most of their class discussions on their “soft skills” like oral communication skill or paper pen activities rather than “technical skills” like the multimedia use. The study concludes that middle- aged educators in English language pedagogy outweigh the 21st century technology skills over their spoken communication skills with suggestions that even for middle- age educators, they also need to embrace technology advancement in the classroom to develop the pedagogical understanding of the 21st century learners.
Keywords: 21st century technological skills, English language classroom, Middle age educators,