Pre-Servıce Englısh Language Teachers' Attıtudes Towards Usıng Computer Technologıes in Foreıgn Language Teachıng

Abstract

Computer technologies have dramatically influenced people’s lives in great extent. Education policies, just like other aspects of lives, have been influenced by technological developments. Researchers; therefore, administered different studies to effectively implement technology into education. The principle intent of the current research is to explore future English language teachers’ attitudes on computer technologies in language teaching. Moreover, the study focuses on effects of gender, grade and academic average on their attitudes. Quantitative research design was used in the study. Data is gathered by using a questionnaire distributed to pre-service ELT teachers studying at Hacettepe University, English language teaching department. 174 students studying at third and fourth grade participated to the study. In order to identify prospective teachers’ attitudes independent sample “t-test”, “one way ANOVA”, and “pearson product moment correlation” was applied. Moreover, descriptive analyses were used to identify candidate teachers’ purposes of using computers. The analysis of the collected data clearly demonstrates that prospective ELT teachers have positive views about computer usage in language teaching. In addition, it was found that there is not any relationship between participants’ attitudes and their gender, grade, and academic average. The results of the study also demonstrate that candidate teacher use computers mostly for simple tasks such as sending e-mail and presenting presentations. The student-teachers are aware of the importance of computer assisted language learning. In teacher education programs, courses related computer integration should be offered so that candidate language teachers can use technology in their future classes.