Abstract:

Nowadays, English as a second or foreign language is being taught in many countries with the objective of improving educational, labor, social and touristic development and the relationship between nations. In consequence, several methods, approaches, techniques and didactic material had been created to make the language learning process more efficient, enjoyable and less stressful for students. Moreover, the Information and Communication Technologies were seen as powerful tools for educative purposes regarding to their characteristics of access, production, processing and spread of information and, the fact that the amount of schools with a technological infrastructure is constantly increasing.

By the other hand, for several young learners studying English makes no sense as they do not have an instrumental motivation and, being asked to produce English can be awful when making mistakes. Then, in order to avoid a negative attitude towards the language it is needed to create a peaceful atmosphere that makes them feel comfortable and that promotes interaction as in their first language. Doing activities using smart boards is a good option as children are used and attracted to technology. Unfortunately, not all public schools in Mexico have those boards or they do not work properly. Also many teachers do not feel confident about their computer competences and avoid their use. As an alternative to the use of interactive boards and complex programs for teaching English, this qualitative research looked for the effects that using PowerPoint could have with a group of twenty-four second grader students in an elementary public school in Colima.

Action research was chosen after seen that students presented difficulties during first classes in activities like reading, matching, and answering questions and following instructions of worksheets because most of them were still learning to read and write in their first language.

Vocabulary was considered important because:
1) it can activate students schemata,
2) it promoted pronunciation practice,
3) it was needed for different tasks of the class.

The use of PowerPoint for presenting vocabulary, practice structures and for projecting worksheets demonstrated that students lost their inhibitions for pronouncing English, they participated voluntarily and were more focused in different tasks along to other positive effects.

Keywords:

PowerPoint, Didactic Material, Vocabulary, Second Language, Young Learners.