Pros and cons in using technology in efl classroom

Pros and Cons in Using Technology in EFL Classroom

Andrés Mauricio Castillo G.

Technology has been a much sounded word in the last times especially in the field of education, the integration ofthis tool has been a great challenge for teachers, even at this point of the history where so many technological applications and strategies have been formulated there are a lot of questions aboutthis matter.
Through time there have existed certain moments where technology has astonished with its advances and methods, but if that is true, how we as teachers have not applied it to oureducational context. Probably is because the Colombian educative model has not emphasized in the usage of technology in the education of pre-service teachers.
But this is not the only reason why teachers donot use technology in the classroom, other considerations are: the economical context and the resources of the institutions, teachers have not been trained to use it, lack of interest or experience,even the salaries play a role in this issue; nevertheless we cannot think that this phenomena happens only in our country, there are researches that have evidenced similar findings in Europe and USA.But not everything is so dark; there are scenarios where teachers take advantage of these elements to enhance the skills of students, there are certain characteristics that allow teachers to practiceand apply technological resources with students but everything depends on support, training and motivation.
Dealing with the design of these kinds of materials is another difficulty due to the modelthat should be apply to perform the best class for the students, first it is important to know the context and the strong and weak points of your students in order to design the best strategy toovercome any situation, for that reason we as teachers should know what method could benefit our students behaviorism, constructionism and cognitive. There is no point in using just one we should be...