Digital Text-based Teaching in EFL Classrooms

Abstract

Having understandable pronunciation is the first thing to emphasize communicative competence. Regrettably, the mother tongue of the first language (L1) is one of the prominent factors affecting EFL learners, which will interfere with their pronunciation of English words, phrases, and sentences. On the other hand, research studies to date, indeed, have shown that digital technologies have become must-have tools that educators use to engage their students. The question is to what extent digital technology can help reduce interference, which continues to be a contentious issue. In my presentation, I will argue how to implement digital technologies to demote the interference of phonological and orthographic system of Javanese students. Hence, pronunciation will be seen as an eye-opening and amusing course the students will experience. As a result, the interference will be reduced and EFL learners will become more proficient in using digital technologies to optimize the target language.

This article aims at revisiting the implementation of text-based teaching to keep abreast with the use of educational technology in EFL classrooms. Text-based teaching has been extensively used in EFL classrooms. Moreover, it is believed to powerfully help EFL learners enhance their English communicative competence by understanding the social function, generic structure, and language features of a text and utilizing them for actual communicative purposes. The vast use of educational technology in EFL classrooms calls teachers and teacher educators for revisiting the implementation of text-based teaching to make it more meaningful, engaging, and communicative. This article presents online teaching materials that teachers and teacher educators can use to teach a variety of texts in English using various online learning applications.