Principales Procesos

There are many different benefits or reasons that students use ICTs in Kurdistan

regarding learning the English language as their second or foreign language. As the participant students in Table 3, use ICTs for many reasons for improving the English language skills, for example, the four skills of (writing, reading, listening, and speaking) that scored a considerable percentage. The first skill is about writing in the next section.

4.4.1 Writing

In Table 3, for improving writing skills (38.3%) of the participants use ICTs. This is somehow a good result that students in Kurdistan can benefit ICTs for writing. There are many ways of improving writing such as writing texts, posts, and blogs. For that reason Miyazoe and Anderson (2010) talk about using Forums, Blogs, and Wikis in an EFL (English as foreign

language) environment. Their findings were positive and that means the three different online writing tools in an EFL context increase students‟ language learning progress in writing. As a result, students in Kurdistan can take benefit from using such online tools for improving their writing skills. That can be accomplished by writing blogs, short summaries, about any topic that their teacher or their group posts online. The next section will be about reading skills which include pronunciation and comprehension skills as well.

4.4.2 Reading, Pronunciation and Comprehension

Another reason of using ICTs is for improving reading and pronunciation skills in the English language. A considerable amount of the participant students (30%) use ICTs for

improving reading and pronunciation skills in the English language. This benefit of using ICTs is common in other places since there are many various ways of using ICTs. For example, Becker (2000) mentions Talking Books which are recorded readings of books. These Talking Books stimulate learners to enhance reading skills because of the pronunciation, the sound or animation as well. As a result, students in Kurdistan can take benefit from the talking books for improving reading and pronunciation skills. Additionally, Dreyer and Nel (2003) talk about a technology enhanced feature, namely Varsite which is an LCMS (Learning Content Management System). They claim that technology-enhanced environment multiplies the effect of improvement of reading strategies and comprehension through those texts they have access to them. In that manner, schools in Kurdistan can have such technology-enhanced environment to enhance the student‟s reading skills.

Additionally, in Table 3, (18.3%) of the participants benefit ICTs for comprehension which can be connected to the results that are related to reading. This is because reading and comprehension are interrelated. In that perspective, Young (2008) talks about using Talking Books, and he mentions that it is not necessary for a student to read well when they use Talking Books for reading a text. This is because the text is highlighted from left to right while a narrator reads expressively. It is with animations that assist understanding and comprehending the text. As a result, using Talking Books might facilitate reading and comprehension for students in Kurdistan as well. The next section will be about using ICTs for improving listening.

4.4.3 Listening

Improving listening is another benefit of that (23.3%) of the participants use ICTs for. This percentage is lower than reading and writing rates, but still it is important for students to use technology or ICTs for improving listening in learning the English language in Kurdistan of Iraq. For example, Nachoua (2012) indicates that listening is intricate to teach by the teachers, but “using CALL is a motivating method and computers are worthwhile tools to be used in

second/foreign language classes to develop students' listening skill. Since Kurdish students use laptops and computers to a good extent, it might be good for them to use CALL for improving their listening skills. This technique is so common in Kurdistan, teachers play audio files such as stories, poems, or songs then the students are asked for listening to the pronunciation of the words, to the rising or falling tones. In this way teachers can increase their students listening ability which is also fun. The next, section is going to be about using ICTs for speaking.

4.4.4 Speaking

Participants use ICTs for improving speaking skills in the English language with the percentage of (21.7%) as in Table 3. There are many ways of using ICTs for enhancing speaking skills. For instance, Hashemi and Aziznezhad (2011) show the significance of Oovoo and Skype that enable learners to interact or chat to form a virtual class. These tools provide authentic learning experiences to internalize language. Students can speak and practice, and learn their language while they video chat with each other. Kurdish students also can take benefit from such strategy if their teachers encourage that kind of using with them. Another good example of using technology for improving speaking can be the one which Kirkgoz (2011) indicates that the use of video camera as a technological tool had a positive impact on learners‟ viewing and critically evaluating their speaking tasks. This is due to using technology to record student‟s speaking L2, which provided a meaningful way of technology use. It permits students to listen and make correction to improve their pronunciation and oral communication skills where it was needed. In this entertaining way Kurdish teachers can also take benefit from the use of ICTs to improve their students‟ speaking skills. In addition to that, some of the participant students (10%) want to know hoe native speakers speak through using technology or ICTs. This can be accomplished through watching movies, short videos on social media networks such as YouTube.

Finally, it is clear that using ICTs for improving writing scored the highest percentage. That might belong to the reason that students use applications or technological devices such as cellphones for writing tasks such as texting, writing posts on social media networks more than for other tasks such as speaking, reading, listening in English. Another benefit or reason that the participants use ICTs is for improving grammar skills in the English language. This rate of

(21.7%) of the participants is somehow low, but it indicates that students are caring for grammar. However, in the CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) approach grammar is not highly focused, but real world situations.