DECEMBER NEWSLETTER                                                         VIEW ARCHIVE
John Brezinsky
Conference Report: What's Hot in Technology for English Language Learning?
John Brezinsky, Higher Education Marketing Manager

With the fall ESOL conference season at an end, it's time to summarize some trends. This year, there were far fewer presentations on CD-ROM based tools like PowerPoint and far more sessions on online learning for language learning. What's hot right now? What should you watch out for? 

What's Hot? 

Grammar: Several conference papers described the advantages of online software for mastering grammar. Software that allows students to develop grammatical accuracy in all four skills also allows teachers to focus more on communicative, fluency-based activities in the face-to-face classroom. 

Listening/Speaking: Another favorite this fall was expanding online opportunities to develop listening and speaking skills. Students don’t often speak English outside of class. Software that gives them automatically graded opportunities to listen and speak also makes students more active and successful in the face-to-face classroom.

Writing: There were fewer sessions on the potential of online software as a part of writing courses, but they generated a lot of buzz. The main focus was developing students' revision skills. Unlike early grammar checking software, the best online learning tools direct students toward trouble spots and give them the support to self-edit.

A Word of Warning: Demand New Exercises

The presentations this fall stressed that teachers should check out each piece of software before they make any decisions. Specifically, software should not have the same exercises that students have in their textbooks—or worse, scanned student book pages. New exercises are considered the gold standard. 

Publishers Are Listening 

At Pearson Longman, we're following these trends in modern pedagogy very closely. In fact, we now offer something for each of the hot trends in ESL software. We have the premier 4-skills grammar course, Focus on Grammar Interactive. We also offer a pioneering course for developing listening and speaking skills, Longman English Interactive. Finally, we have partnered with ETS® to bring you the Longman Academic Writing Series with Criterion — watch a short online tour.



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