Using Multimedia in the Foreign Language Classroom | Page 12

2. 2 The word processor
This is another ‘generic’ tool at the teacher’s disposal which has a strong
potential for ELT, especially as far as the teaching of writing is concerned. According
to Raimes (1983: 10) the teaching of writing has begun to move away from a
concentration on the writing product to an emphasis on the process of writing. Zamel
(1983: 165) describes composing as a non-linear, exploratory and generative process
during which writers discover and reformulate their ideas as they attempt to
approximate meaning. Students need to realize that in order to become effective
writers they need to go through a process of planning, organizing, composing and
revising (Hedge, 1988: 9) and therefore should not consider what they first put on
paper as their finished product but, as Raimes (1983 10) stresses, “…just a beginning,
a setting out of the first ideas, a draft.”. Finally, as according to Perl (1980a, 1980b)
unskilled writers are prematurely distracted from the exploration of ideas because of
surface-level concerns, Hedge (1988: 23) stresses that students should be primarily
concerned with getting the content right first and leave issues of language for later.
However, such an approach which encourages experimentation and risk-taking
cannot be facilitated with the use of pen and paper as, according to Motteram and
Slaouti (2000, Unit 7: 16), ‘… the idea of re-writing text by hand either to correct
error or to improve coherence or to add essential detail is onerous’. The word
processor comes to cater for such problems as , according to Kern and Warschauer
(2000), it facilitates the invention, revision, and editing processes of writing, allowing
quick, easy (and reversible) reshaping of text. Such a facility gives students the
chance to see errors as ephemeral rather than something budrensome. In addition,
Motteram and Slaouti (2000, Unit 7: 18) emphasise that an important feature of
working on screen is the ability to demonstrate text improvements while, according to
Piper (1987: 124), the public nature of the computer screen provides the potential for
an immediate audience for the writing and promotes co-operation.
Finally, there is a claim (‘Computer Assisted Language Learning: Increase of
Freedom or Submission to Machines?, undated) that doing exercise