| dc.description.abstract | At the time of writing this preface, I have just recently returned from a 2.5-week
trip to Turkiye as a visiting scholar and English Language Specialist. During my time
in Turkiye, I had the great fortune to meet and work with students and faculty from
English language teaching programs at ve different universities around the
country. My visit mainly consisted of facilitating various pedagogy workshops to
pre-service teachers. These hours-long workshops ranged in topics from designing
reading activities, to using authentic materials, to conducting peer observations,
just to name a few. Although the locales and workshop topics were wide-ranging,
the method of delivery had one aspect in common: the nearly 400 participants at
these workshops used their smartphones to access the materials and complete the
hands-on activities. As such, students' access to and understanding of digital
technology, as well as my own, was essential for offering an engaging, interactive,
and student-centered workshop experience that re ected best practices in the
eld of English language teaching. Without this access and understanding,
students' learning and my own teaching surely would have suffered. What this
experience has reemphasized for me is the importance and exibility of technology
as a learning and teaching tool in language teaching, and perhaps even more so in
the English as a foreign language context. This experience has made it crystal clear
for me why we need this book.
The editor of this book has brought together English language teaching
educators from six different universities from around Turkiye, resulting in a
colection of nine chapters covering diverse aspects of digital learning. Topics range
from the challenges and affordances of mobile-assisted language learning,
educators' shifting roles in the digital language classroom, creating new classroom
spaces through videoconferencing, capitalizing on text to speech software and
other technologies to teach vocabulary and language competencies, and creating
innovative and immersive English language learning environments in a foreign
language context through virtual reality, social networking, and digital games. These
chapters, of course, do not simply lend themselves to teaching EFL in Turkiye but in any global EFL learning context and beyond. This co lection is a great resource for
any language educator interested in ways to successfully use technology to
motivate and engage students in their learning.
What I appreciate about this book, beyond its breadth of technological topics, is
the way each chapter begins with several questions posed to the reader. The
questions ask educators to re ect on their beliefs and teaching philosophies prior to
reading, encouraging each one of us to consider our own unique contexts as we
contemplate how to implement the suggestions found within this co lection. Even
as a very experienced English language educator myself who teaches within an L1
context in the U.S., I nd this co lection helpful in understanding new ways of using
technology with my linguistica ly diverse students. While initia ly I thought this book
would be a great tool for the professional development of the pre-service educators
I work with, I quickly realized this book was also for me. I believe other experienced
educators, and the ones they are preparing, will nd this resource a useful addition
to their teaching toolkit.
Cristyn L. Elder, Associate Professor
University of New Mexico | tr |
