An Investigation Into The Application Of Modern Educational Technology In Junior High School English Teaching

In order to push forward the development of educational informatization and education modernization,the National Ministry of Education has issued a huge number of relevant documents,which emphasize on that modern educational technology is an indispensable instrument for classroom teaching in the twenty-first century.The tools of modern educational technology have provided teachers with extreme convenience,but in the practical teaching,there are still many problems.It is a major research topic for the vast number of front-line teachers to learn how to maximize their benefits and use them rationally in subject teaching.Therefore,in order to stimulate the integrative development of modern educational technology in junior English teaching and improve its utilization,this paper surveys and studies the application status of modern educational technology in junior high school English teaching.This study is mainly centered on the following three aspects:(1)What is the current situation of the application of some common modern educational techniques and means(such as the multimedia courseware,intelligent projector,interactive electronic whiteboard,some APPs for learning and so on)in junior high school English teaching?(2)What are the problems that exist in the application of modern educational technology in junior English teaching?(3)What are the causes of such problems and what are the solutions?Based on the students’ questionnaire,teachers’ interview and classroom observation,this paper takes 396 students and 20 English teachers who are in the first and second grades from a junior high school in Wuhan as the research participants for a three-month study.The final results reveal that the current situation of the application of modern educational technology in junior high school English teaching is good on the whole.The teachers and students all have a positive attitude and cognition towards the application of modern educational technology.And modern educational technology has been widely adopted in junior high school English teaching.But some problems still exist,mainly focusing on three parts: The first is the low quality and single tools for courseware making.The second is the unreasonable usage and operation of some modern teaching techniques.In addition,there are also network connection and aging problems with the equipment in the school.The main reasons behind these existing problems are as follows: The teachers lack enough time for lesson preparation.And there are excessive off-the-rack information resources available for reference online,which causes teachers’ inertia and the difficulties in selecting resources.Moreover,teachers have scarce knowledge and operational capability of modern educational technology.Furthermore,the school is also short of information technology professionals for the timely maintenance of the equipment.In view of these problems and their causes,four suggestions are proposed: Firstly,the school should support teachers to return to the real classroom without additional burdens.Secondly,teachers ought to select reasonably modern teaching resources and keep a balance between “borrowing” and “innovation”.Thirdly,the school and administrative departments need to enhance some effective teacher training to improve their knowledge and competence of modern educational technology.Fourthly,the school should be equipped with relevant professionals to regularly check the equipment in the school.It is hoped that this study could give some insights into the application of modern educational technology in junior high school English teaching,so that teachers could get the utmost out of the advantages of modern educational technology.And they could avoid the negative impact of modern educational technology in the actual teaching of English to greatly maximize the teaching effectiveness of English classroom.