Dr. Beth Clark-Gareca is a recipient of the Fulbright Specialist in the capital city of the Indonesian province of Southeast Sulawesi at Institut Agama Islam Negeri (IAIN) Kendari in 2023.
From August 26 – September 26, 2023, Fulbright Specialist Dr. Beth Clark-Gareca, associate professor of TESOL at Binghamton University, successfully carried out a collaborative project on the topic of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) at Institut Agama Islam Negeri (IAIN) Kendari, in Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia. They reached the project goals of improving IAIN faculty’s levels of understanding and awareness about the pros, cons, and potential uses of digital tools, apps, and learning management systems, particularly within English language teacher preparation programs.
Using her expertise in TESOL, Dr. Clark-Gareca worked with members of IAIN’s English Education faculty and students to explore the affordances of CALL in the English language classroom at both the university and K-12 levels.
“One of the project’s highlights was the specialist’s outreach to local educational institutions. This involved visits to the South Konawe District’s teacher association and a junior high school in Kendari. These interactions were instrumental in sharing knowledge and inspiring local educators to embrace technology in their teaching practices. The specialist’s engaging presentations and demonstrations left a lasting impact on these educators, resulting in a renewed enthusiasm for adopting technology-enhanced teaching methods,” IAIN Kendari lecturer Anita Rezki said.
The benefits of this timely work were multiple. First, this project provided lecturers with an opportunity to come together to learn about ways that digital tools and technologies are used in a U. S. context and to share their experiences of using technology as a language learning tool in Indonesian university and K-12 contexts. The importance of integrating educational technology into classrooms populated by the newest generations of students, iGen and alpha-generation, was a focal point of these discussions to urge school contexts to stay relevant in today’s rapidly evolving technological world.
“Hosting a Fulbright Specialist has been an immensely enriching experience for our institution, the Teacher Training and Education Faculty at IAIN Kendari. The specialist’s expertise in education technology brought a fresh perspective and innovative teaching methodologies that profoundly impacted our students and faculty,” Anita said.
Participants asserted that a critical component to engage future students is to reduce the technology gap between faculty and students, and positive, productive ways that could be achieved was a common theme of discussion.
“These technology debates are not unique to Indonesia but are hot topics throughout the English learning world. Anecdotally, one difference between the U.S. and Indonesia seems to be that the use of computers, tablets, or mobile devices has not yet been widely embraced in most K-12 environments in Indonesia. Perhaps, as these technologies make their way into classrooms, Indonesia can learn from some of the implementation mistakes we have made in the U.S. and find ways for technology to be integrated and utilized effectively for more directed, educational learning”, Dr. Clark-Gareca said.
Of note was an informal poll of university students who reported frequently and voluntarily using technology for informal language learning, e.g., through TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, as a separate activity from school learning. In future collaboration, Dr. Clark-Gareca and two Kendari colleagues will explore this disparate digital usage by conducting a study with pre-service teachers in IAIN Kendari’s English teacher education program.
“I believe studying this area has the potential to make an important contribution to the literature in Global English and CALL. I am excited to learn more about the perceptions of English pre-service teachers of the affordances, drawbacks, and potentialities of digital technology usage in their future classrooms.” Dr. Clark-Gareca said.
She looks forward to this scholarly collaboration and the opportunity to share the findings in upcoming TESOL conferences.
