Article Review

Topic: The use of Technology in second or foreign language teaching and learning.

URL: http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Franco-Google/

Title: Teaching Using Google

Journal: The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. XVI, No. 2, February 2010

Author's name: Claudio de Paiva Franco, University Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Journal.

The article talks about using application and resource provided Google can be incorporated into teaching. Basically, many people are not aware of how big the Google thing is, but this article describe all of the significant aspect in Google including Google Custom Search, Google Scholar, Google Docs, Google Groups, Google News, Google Reader, Google Translate, and Google Buzz. For Google Custom Search, we can actually search for our own intended needs in specific for example, if we use custom search to find information only about education, the search engine will only display the high ranked website of education. The Google Scholar(http://scholar.google.com), and Google Docs also have the similar function but it specifically to help students and teachers to find documents which are in PDF and .doc type that can be easily printed. Google Groups functioned as a platform for interaction between people in all over the world and discussed about the issues regarding education and so on. We can customize the news we like in Google News. For Google Reader, teachers and students can actually follow and will be notify any updates of their favorite website. The Google Translate is a nice application which includes almost every language in the world, so we can actually learn anything including information we never knew before because of the language differences.

In my humble opinion, I do think that this article is very interesting, which is the reason for why I chose it at the first place. In addition, I’m a big fan of Google and always wonder how Google can be the number 1 site of the entire site. After reading this article, I finally figured out that Google is not only an ordinary search engine; it has a lot of other critical business on the net. It is like it controls the net (it owns the blogger.com, youtube.com). The article provides the essential information about how we can actually use Google as a tool to incorporate in our language learning or teaching. So does this article is well conducted? Sure it is. It provides me and other reader about other better alternative in using the net to learn language. The writer also included the complete URL link for each Google application. For example in Google Groups, we can actually communicate and do discussion about our intended topic between all people in the world. The link for the actual website also provided. Pictures also included showing viewer the preview of the Google application which I think is nice. One think that can be improved is probably the description of some of the application. Some of the description is quite short. So what is the implication(s) of the research in the teaching and learning of ESL (in the general and Malaysian contexts? I think this article provide a very useful information to ESL department whereby they can incorporate the Google application and resources in their teaching and learning. The application of Google Groups can be used by students and learners to make discussion outside of the class. Teachers can also use one of the Google applications which is the blogger.com as a platform of exchanging information and do discussion. For me, I do think that Google has done a good job not only in promoting other business, but education as well. Imagine that if there are no moderators of the ESL websites, no optimizer, could the ESL learners can still find the best information on the web? In addition, can teacher alone can do all the hard work organized and consistently? I don’t think so. I think this is the right platform for all learners not only in Malaysia, but for the whole world.