“Traditional Versus Multimedia for

English Language Teaching”

E L V I (15178012)
Universitas Negeri Padang, Indonesia
elviasrul@gmail.com

Abstract
Media has some important roles in English language teaching. By the
coming of computer era and internet, some teachers leave traditional media
behind and choose multimedia for some purposes. This article is aimed to
compare both media looking from time, situation, and need of using both
media in English language teaching. It is also discussed about how the previous
articles discussion and experts jugment about the traditional and multimedia
and their roles in English language teaching. It is found that both media are
applicable for English language teaching, if they are applied in correct
consideration. So it is suggested to the teachers to explore the possibilty of
using certain type of media used in their class based on the previous points of
view.

Keywords : Traditional and multimedia, English language teaching

1. Introduction

Media as instructional material have some important roles in English

language teaching. One of the role is media as teaching aids which help the

teaching - learning process effective (Patel and Jain : 2008). The effectiveness

can be seen from how media helps teacher visualize their learning material. For

instance, the teachers use short film about how people introduce each other in

English. Here, the media (the short film) form the pictures of real situation from

the topic the students learn. Another example can be taken from using tape player

in introducing new words pronunciation to students. In this case, media transform

something abstract from the lesson into the concrete one.

 Media- in their other role - could also be learning – motivated tool for the

learners. The use of teeenager popular songs to learn new vocabulary will arise

students interest of the language they learn . Teachers abilty in mixing exciting

media could delight the classroom athmosphere. Here , the appropriate media

could possibly increase students motivation in learning the language. And with

the progress of technology, the use of multimedia and internet makes learning

language more sophisticated (Thamarana 2016,Sharma and Pooja 2016, Gilakjani

2012).

The two examples of roles above show that media is very advantageous in

English language learning. For those reasons, selecting acceptable media for

teaching is a crucial things to do for teachers. It can be said that the wiser teacher

choose the media for teaching the better could probably be the result. Dealing

with the developing of technology of computer and internet, teachers prefer

multimedia than traditional ones. Some research findings (Sharma and Pooja

2016, Gilakjani 2012) show that multimedia were effecetive, interactive and

interesting. Some other reseach (eventhough not hard) opposed this idea by

stating that traditional media were still applicable for English language

teaching(Richard:2016).

Although some researches proposed the use multimedia in English

language teaching and less number supported traditional media, to the best of

writer knowledge it is hardly found any research findind that discussed the

comparison of both media. The writer hopes by comparing and looking deep into

both two kinds of media will give opportunity for the teachers to see deeply into
the fucntions and benefits from each media. Writer believes there should be many

sides of both media to be discussed about.

In accordance with the last statement above, the writer try to see traditional

versus multimedia in the rest of this article from three points of view : time,

situation, and need of using both media in English language teaching.

2. Review of related literature

2.1 English language teaching as Foreign language

Many defintions have been proposed to explain about English

language teaching. Although the literature covers a wide variety of such

definitions, this review will focus English language teaching as foreign

language .

Defining English language teaching as foreign language takes us to

the following statements. Brant defined that English language teaching as

a foreign language was a careers to educate people who speaks in other

languages about English (2006:1). While Hammer stated that English

language teaching as foreign language when people learned English in the

purpose to communicate or have transaction with the other English users.

They did not need the language to cotinue their life struggling (2007:19).

In other side, Patel and Jain described it as teaching language which had

many diferrences with the learner languages. It was related to the sound

pattern, the words, the structure and the meaning.

Seeing from the previous definitions, teaching English as a foreign

language in Brantand Hammer’s definitions is quite shallow because it

 only sees the English language teaching like giving a short English course

to the foreigners who will have temporary visit to English speaking

country or the ones who need to provide themselves by having the ability

in speaking foreign language. It cannot covers the need of this article to

relate to the topic where the need to compare two kinds of media used in

English language teaching. The third definition proposed by Patel and

Jain was quite visible to relate to the topic where media were needed in

English language teaching for the varieties of foreign language features

they defined.

2.2 The role of media in English language teaching

2.2.1 The role of media in English language teaching

Beside two roles that has been discussed previoussly,

media still have some others important role in English language

teaching. As proposed by Asemota (2015):

Institutional resources help to enhance the

teaching ability of English Language teachers.
They help to bridge the communication gap
between the teachers and learners by assisting
the teachers to explain concepts better. They
help English Language teachers to reduce the
amount of talking and thus make their teaching
more interesting and successful. They provide
opportunity for learners to see, hear and handle
and thus create a high degree of interest in
English language. They offer a reality
experience which stimulates self-activity on the
part of learners. They make learning more
concrete, crystallized, practical, applicable and
meaningful. They enhance the rate of retention
 of what students are taught. They change the
role of the teacher as sole dispenser of
knowledge to that of coordinator of learning
experiences. They permit students to proceed at
their own pace. They provide the learners with
opportunities for practice. They stimulate
thoughts and discussions of students. They
inspire students to higher levels of achievement.

Some related ideas about the role of media in English

language teaching was also defined by Ruis et al which stated

media could overcome learner lack of experiences about the

language, form environment to learn and give opportunity for

interaction, subtitute the real environment and observational

object and store the concept of the learning (2009). Other comes

from De Porter and Hernacki (2000) in Ruis that stated visual can

be created optimally, physically, and mentally through learning

environment. The important thing is that using media can be

encouraged the learners to speak and to write.

In short, media have some important roles in English

language teaching which help the process of teaching and learning

smooth, effective and interesting, but we still should keep the

point that there are some other factors to make teaching and

learning effective and exiciting.

2.2.2 Traditional media

 It is hardly found a discussion about what a traditional

media is. One defintion is retrieved from Wikipedia, the free

encyclopedia stated that :

The Old Media or Legacy Media are traditional means

of communication and expression that have existed
since before the,advent of the new medium of
the Internet. Industries that are generally considered
part of the old media are broadcast and cable
television, radio, movie and music,studios, newspapers,
magazines, books and most print publications.

It can be seen that people drew the line by the coming of

computer era and internet as a new beginning of modern
media and any previous media as the traditional one.
2.2.3 Multi media

Multi media is one package media for learning which

wraps all separated commponents in traditional media. It was said

that Multimedia was the mixtures of many digital types such as

pieces of writing, pictures, sound and moving pictures in form of

interesting and perceptible program or performance to

communicate idea or facts to group of certain people

(Sharma&Poojaa 2016 ;Onuoha&Daniel 2015:Gilakjani

2012;Zhen 2016).

The completeness made multimedia give benefit

variously to learning material(Gilakjani:2012). Vanghan 2004 in

Gilakjani gave example that we could transform ordinary text into

impressive one to get more attention from the learner (2012). The

use of graphic in multimedia as being explained by Wright 2003

in Gilakjani gave interested and motivated stimulation, rose

 understangding ability of language and provided special reference

object and topic (2012). Vaghan 2004 in Gilakjani also proposed

that the use of animation, sound and video would rise student

motivation, gave varied material and powerful effect to the

teaching learning process.

From the explanation above, it can be seen that most

previous articles proposed that multimedia were better choice for

English language learning. Most of these arguments take the view

from the interactive features owned by multimedia. To the best

writer knowledge, they little bit ignore to the question whether all

of features could possibly work or needed.

3. Discussion

3.1 Time using both media in English language teaching.

Considering the time before apllying media in English language

teaching brings us to two kinds of decisions: time for preparing and time

for presenting the media. We need to consider how long we parepared

3.2 Situation using both media in English language teaching.

3.3 Need of using both media in English language teaching.

4. Summary and Suggestion

4.1 Summary

4.2 Suggestion
 Bibliography

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