TECHNOLOGY AND TEACHING ENGLISH IN GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS AND PRIVATE INSTITUTES IN TABRIZ

This research intended to study the role of technology on teaching English in government schools and private language institutes in Tabriz in East Azerbaijan province in Iran. The major objective was to determine whether the use of technology would enhance learning and teaching English or not. There were interesting results which showed that if it was applied without good knowledge of modern language teaching methods and/or good use of tools, it would lead to students' frustration and discouragement. So there the need for training teachers of tomorrow with good knowledge of both seems to be really crucial. Both learners at guidance school level and students at high school level (teenagers) enjoyed learning through the use of modern technological tools and were highly motivated and willing to continue with learning English.
Two guidance school and two high school English language classes were randomly chosen to be observed in which modern technologies were seldom used by the teachers. At the same time four English classes were also chosen randomly in four private language institutes.
The researchers have had the experience of teaching the English language at different levels, especially at the intermediate levels, at private language institutes to Iranian EFL learners in Tabriz and have noticed that the majority of their students enjoyed practicing English when they made use of modern technologies especially the Internet. So they could refer to the institute to observe other classes and also refer to government schools to observe classes.
When new technological materials and modern methods of teaching languages were used, students proved leaning eagerly and with significant interest.
The researchers hope that such a study will help English Language Teaching, Foreign and Second Language learners and trainers at both government and private sectors improve their way of learning and teaching using both modern methods of teaching and new technologies simultaneously.