2

CHAPTER TWO

English
for
Information and
Technology Book Title |
15
English Terms in
Information and Technology

Goal: Students will be able to understand the terms used in Information and Technology
(IT) world so that they will be able to operate devices using English.

Computer is a device for storing, accessing, and processing information, for example by sorting it or
doing calculations on it. This is computing.

Information handled by the computers is data.

Information and Technology is the study, design, development, implementation, support or

management of computer-based information systems—particularly software applications and
computer hardware. Information technology (IT) covers the technology of computing and,
increasingly, telecommunications, or telecoms, the electronic transmission of information.
Activity 1: Building Vocabulary
Part I. Word meaning
Direction: Work in pairs and discuss the following terms!
a. Input : _________________________________________________
b. Output :__________________________________________________
c. Peripherals :__________________________________________________
d. Driver :__________________________________________________
e. Internet :__________________________________________________
f. Broadband :__________________________________________________
g. Browser :__________________________________________________
h. Gadget :__________________________________________________
i. Reboot :__________________________________________________
j. Bandwidth :__________________________________________________

Part II. Matching

Direction: Match the devices on the left column with its correct function on the right column!
Screen monitor a 1 to type and input texts and commands
Scanner b 2 to play external discs
Keyboard c 3 to input video data
Mouse d 4 to store data on a computer
to point a certain function, menu or
Speaker e 5
button
Microphone f 6 to emit audio output
Webcam g 7 to display visual output
Remote control h 8 to input audio data
DVD player i 9 to input printed texts into digital form
Hard drive j 10 to input commands wirelessly
Discussion:
Once, computer was the name of a person who does the process of computations, but now the
term is almost universally referred to automated electric machinery. The first computers were used
primarily for numerical calculations, today, computers can do a lot of things, starting from doing
calculation, to the most complicated process of creating robots or even making artificial human body
parts.
Computer processes, mainly divided into three steps, inputs, processes and outputs. Inputs
happen when the user give a certain command or data input to the computer to be processed by the
CPU. After the data reached the CPU, the delicately complicated processes happen. When the
processes are completed, the data then displayed, or emitted to the output devices such as speakers
and screen monitors. Below, you can see a diagram of computer peripherals and they’re
classifications.

Assignment:
Make a group of 4! Find difficult terms you can find in Microsoft Office applications (Word,
Excel, PowerPoint), and discuss the meaning of those terms with your group!
Activity 2: Convergence in Telecoms and IT
Part I: Brainstorming
Direction: Work with a partner and discuss things that can be replaced by the latest mobile devices!
You can look at the picture below for ideas.
Part II. Reading
Direction: Read the magazine article about trends in Telecoms and IT!

A.After reading the article, match the industry leader to their area of expertise!
1. Peter Wilson a. Software
2. Jenny Lane b. Telecoms
3. Sanjay Ravi c. Hardware
B.Read the article again. Say if the following statements are False (F) or True (T)
according to the text!

According to Peter Wilson: T/F

1. Most countries are connected up with undersea cables
2. Many countries have unreliable mobile phone networks
3. Recent bandwidth costs have risen dramatically
According to Jenny Lane:
4. Moore’s predictions have been fairly accurate
5. A typical chip can now hold 3 billion transistors
6. Both data storage capacity and power consumption have gone up
According to Sanjay Ravi:
7. Fewer people are going to computer stores to buy software
8. SaaS will require ordinary users to have more powerful computer
9. Software development needs the support of a big corporation to succeed

C. Match the words on the left with the words on the right to make pairs of words that
often go together. The words on the left must go with all three words in the set. See
the example.
1. access a. chip, valley, wafer
2. downloa b. an application, a network, an account
d
3. go c. device, telephone, broadband
4. mobile d. online, offline, on holiday
5. silicon e. a file, an image, a demo version
Discussion:

Assignment:
Make a group of 4! Check the setting of your mobile phone, find difficult English terms you find on
your device’s setting, and discuss the meaning of those terms with your group!