Task 1: The 4C´s and technology in ELT

In present days our students have a vast access to information, but many students do not take advantage of that. Our mission as teachers lay on teaching for those challenging that they might encounter nowadays. One of the fundamental changes in our 21^st century education are the 4Cs: Communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity identified in 2002 by The National Education Association a teacher’s organization in the United States.

There is a huge importance to include the 4Cs in the language learning classes since English is a lingua franca, an inclusive language for global understanding. language learning seeks for communicative goals, but we should also make our students evaluate their own learning; why am I doing this? That is when we need to practice critical thinking to understand what we are saying and why. In a classroom, we need both teachers and students to understand the importance of group work to facilitate learning, so collaboration too has a significant role, by promoting team project work among others we are promoting values that are important in the real world. We need also to let our students to express their ideas and that is where creativity plays its role addressing every student different learning style. And for that teachers need to be flexible, create a vast range of activities types, and give different choices to present their product.

Previously we talk that English is an inclusive language for global understanding and its huge important to prepare students for a global society. The 4C’s and technology play an essential role in the language learning. Since most of our students are “Digital natives” Technology has been implemented to help and improve language learning. It is a tool that helps teachers to facilitate the interaction with the language and therefore increase their learning skills using technological devices.

In the following lines we are going to give an example of how to foster the 4C´s in group work: Students must select a community problem and come up with possible solutions and how to educate people about it. First, we are going to let our students to choose the topic, by doing this first part we are letting our students to communicate and think critically about the topic they want to work with. Second when they gather information by interviewing people or looking for specific information it leads them to think in a creativity way about solutions and think critically about the project. Finally, we give them different possibilities to present their project such as: a presentation, paper or a visual aid in order to suit their different learning styles.