EDUCATION

Exploiting Technology to improve the Level of Listening and Speaking of English Language in Female Primary School in Saudi Arabia

Exploiting Technology to improve the Level of Listening and Speaking of English Language in Female Primary School in Saudi Arabia

Introduction

To successfully communicate with each other, language plays an imperative role. It is the most powerful and successful means of communication. Without speaking and listening, people cannot communicate with each other and no interaction would take place. Listening and speaking skills lay a great impact on the cognitive development of a person. This is to state that without any language or communication skills, individual would face difficulty to relate the things they observed and would not be able to express his or her feelings in a specific manner. People without language power would not be capable to describe, develop and express their thoughts in a communicative manner. There would be no generation of ideas and ground-breaking thoughts remain unspoken. Every country has its native dialect and national languages or tongues. In Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the native speech of people is Arabic. People speak and interact with each other via Arabic language (Fahad Hamad Aljumah, 2011). In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in learning English language for many reasons: to communicate with others, to access to the internet and work on computers. Moreover, some academics use English language to read articles and books that are written in this language. Other people use this language to develop their skills and achieve assessment tests. It is undoubtedly the case that, English language is the most widely used way of communication over the world. Indeed, technology speeds up the usage of this language acquisition by linking the world together and providing more resources for learning and teaching as well. Therefore, it plays a significant role in each field especially education as it offers opportunities for sharing beneficial sources between learners and teachers of foreign languages. Furthermore, educational technology highly motivates students to learn independently and interestingly (Jordan 1997). The policy in Saudi Arabia supports the implementation of modern technologies in all aspects of daily life particularly in the sector of education and that led to the improvement of quality of education. Recently, it has been noted that there is widespread use of technology inside Saudi schools and the Ministry of Education has established a special department for Information and Communication Technology which is responsible for monitoring and developing the educational system in each city in Saudi Arabia. However, integrating educational technology requires special training programmes and curriculums which should meet learners` needs and interests.

Rationale of the Research

Learning second languages is a bit difficult. For instance, in Saudi Arabia, English subject has started to be taught at schools in the primary stages for students who are around 12 years old. Unfortunately, students are not very interested in learning this language and they are facing various difficulties. Key observers of this problem are the teachers who teach English language ...