Conclusion

I learned many new skills which greatly increased my level of comfort and confidence with technologyWhile in the past I may have been overly cautious about using technology in teaching, now I am able to view its use in the foreign language classroom with a judicious eye as to benefits vs. constraints. Even though my students are not permitted to use computers at my school because of the school's philosophy, I intend to use my new technology skills to broaden and enrich my teaching technique. For example, I will use technology to locate culturally relevant source material that, frankly, would have been inaccessible had I not learned to research and query online databases and journals. This is a particularly important resource for me because my school has few materials in Spanish, and my local library has none. Moreover, I believe that there is a certain dimension of critical thinking and a logical approach to problem solving that learning about technology helps to reinforce, and this translates extremely well even to non-computerized forms of discourse among students and teachers.

I am developing my own disciplined perspective around technology and applied linguistics in the second language classroom from the lessons (overt instruction) plus doing the lessons (situated practice), referencing the foundational literature of the field and taking part in classroom discussions. I can see the discourse will continue to be reshaped and refined over the course of the next two years. I also see that language really is situated in meaning and social, as the New London group defines it. I would not have grown so much in my thinking without the support of my MATSL community of thinkers.

I approached language teaching from a much narrower perspective at the beginning of the course. The readings and lectures, with their specialized language, at first were difficult for me to understand. Indeed, I began to realize how much there was in common between learning to speak a foreign language and learning a new technical vocabulary. The linguistic principles turn out to be very similar and, consequently, learning the discourse of technology has not only provided me with improved computer and knowledge-base skills, but has helped me conceptualize a foreign language learning-process, as well. The questions and comments I wrote for class about the Pessoa article are artifacts of my first understandings. As I prepared my Project Understanding paper, I went back over notes, handouts, tech. activities and readings. Not only did I feel that I was beginning to internalize the ongoing dialogue of the field, but I began to formulate my own new questions and responses. I am amazed and surprised that this transformation began to emerge in such a short time. I suspect that it will take a much longer period of intensive and consistent study and praxis to become sufficiently fluent in what is for me a new theory and language, but I am both intrigued and enthusiastic about joining the professional discourse.