Advantages and Disadvantages of a tutor blog and a facebook group to teach a group of class eight Bengali medium learners

  

With the advancement of technology, human life is becoming dependent on it. Technology offers many facilities to make our life easier. It has reduced distance, made the whole world a global village. It has also taken access in education sector. People are using social networking websites to teach and learn. It has both advantages and disadvantages.

Nowadays, facebook is mostly used social networking website. It is a platform, where people from all around the world can be connected there very easily. On the other hand, though blog is not that much familiar in Bangladeshi context, it can also be used to be connected with the people. Both the websites have different unique features.

Advantages and disadvantages of a facebook group in terms of teaching a group of class eight Bengali medium learners

The main advantage of facebook group is people of our country are very much familiar with facebook and they know the functions of it. The settings of facebook are designed in a very easy way so that all the people even school students also find it easier to use. It is very easy to open a facebook group. People can add a member in the group from their friend lists and even from outside of their lists. It is very easy to find people in facebook. In facebook people can send request to a person to join a group. If that person is not interested he can ignore the request. So privacy is maintained here.

When a member of a group posts anything all the members get notifications. So, they do not need to check again and again whether there is any update or not. One of the most important advantage is when a post is published every one can see it. They can share their opinions in the comment box. People can discuss here on any topic. Any member ca join to the discussion.

All the people of Bangladesh cannot afford internet. Facebook can be used without internet nowadays. Some mobile phone network companies are giving this opportunity. All the students of class eight in our country do not have computers in their homes but every family has a mobile phone at least. So it is easy to stay connected with the group through mobile phone.

Besides all the advantages, there have some disadvantages of facebook group as well. To join a group, everyone needs to have a personal account on facebook even if the person is not interested. To open a facebook profile a lot of personal information is required like email address, phone number etc. An e-mail account is also required to open a facebook account. All the students of class eight may not have a personal e-mail account. Without e-mail account one cannot open a facebook account and without a facebook account one cannot join a group.

Moreover, to learn from or teach in a facebook group is not that much trouble free because it is distracting. For example while a student is working in a group, a notification can appear suddenly where it is mentioned that one of his friends has posted photos or shared some life event, the student may get busy with that post. Students of class eight are not that much matured. In facebook group, they can be connected with the people whom they should not be. It is very easy as it is a matter of one click away. There are shown some ads and friend suggestions which are not suitable for a class eight student. Videos are uploaded on facebook and anyone can access it which may also harm them. Personal chat option is also not necessary for a group but it exists in facebook. There are chances that students can be engaged with other things rather than learning.

Advantages and disadvantages of a tutor blog in terms of teaching a group of class eight Bengali medium learners

 Blog is not that much familiar in Bangladeshi context but it should be. Because it can be a platform of effective teaching and learning. A student of class eight may face difficulty at initial level but after some time they will get familiar with it. I am suggesting it for the school students because it is less distracting than a facebook group. Privacy is also maintained here. There is no option to be connected with unknown people personally as there is no chat option. Concentration will be attached on the discussed topic. If the teacher does not allow anyone cannot comment on others activity as it is a teacher regulated blog. Students can get rid of unexpected comments. If any task is given, the teacher can comment on every individual’s work separately.

Working on a blog can make the students more social at the very early age. Because in comparison to a facebook group, blog is more social while facebook is personal. That much personal information is not shared in a tutor blog.

People cannot see or contact with anyone only by clicking on the profile name which is a criteria of facebook group. So unwanted contact can be avoided with is very much important for the students of class eight. They need to concentrate on learning the topic.

There are some disadvantages of blog as well. Without internet blog cannot be used. It is required to have a computer because to use it by mobile phone is not that much comfortable. Like facebook, an e-mail account is also necessary to open a personal blog. A student of class eight may not have an e-mail account. To comment on a blog, it is needed to sign in to the e-mail account. A person cannot go to another person’s blog from his own account. Rather he needs the address exactly. Only then he can access to some other person’s blog. It is almost impossible finding out someone by searching. It would be helpful if the blog stored the addresses in which the user commented. In that case, it would be better to be connected. But there is no other option like this. Every time it needs to enter the whole address to see someone’s blog. It seems quiet impossible to remember a list of addresses.

In spite of having disadvantages, both the websites are helpful in teaching and learning. If people use those carefully, these websites can benefit the users learning.  

Duolingo.com is a language learning website where people can learn language. It is totally free. It is a helpful app to practice language skills but probably not appropriate as the only or primary source of learning a new language, especially for language that have very different sentence construction pattern.

The objective of this website is giving a chance to the people of all around the world to practice and to lean foreign languages staying at home. It is not needed to go to any institution to practice or to learn. There are many language clubs in this website where people can be a member of any club. It helps them to practice in a group.

This website gives the learners an opportunity to learn a foreign language in a fun and rewarding way. It is a game like application. It is not particularly challenging as many of the questions are effectively multiple choice. The game based design encourages daily use. Users can re-visit any section that they desire how many times that they want. The users interface is flawless. The only downfall is the ads, but that is understandable for a free app that must make money somehow.  Later, I also found a version which is without ads.

The website is less concerned with teaching grammar to the users and more focused on vocabulary. By repetition and recycling of vocabulary, it gives users a chance to memorize without drilling.   

This website is helpful for the people who want to brush up their foreign languages which they are getting to forget and confused. 

The motivation system of the app is too poor in my sense. Only ‘congratulation!’ is not enough and appropriate for all the learners. There may have some more words and phrases for motivation which could be used according to the level of performance of the user.

Though primarily it is a helpful website still there are a number of limitations. It does not start from the basic level. It starts from word level but does not teach alphabets of the language. Another thing is the content within a given language does not go far enough. That is, it will get a user to an intermediate level but cannot get the user to an advanced level in the language. There may have some advance courses for each language. The speech element works intermittently. Going from one level to the next level is not smooth enough. After every level there ae some offers to get bonus points or to make the points double. It is good for some users I think but the people who do not want to waste time by doing those level cannot avoid it easily. After skipping those offers, the app needs to be restated to go to the next level.

It is necessary to choose a language to start a course. After choosing a language course get started. But there is no option no go back and choose another language as far as I explored.

The home page is not containing enough information which may help the users. There is no way to test up to higher level or even submit feedback or help request or these options ae so hidden as to make them unavailable. The website teaches using quizzes. New material is introduced in the quizzes when the user does not know the answer. People ae guessing what is the correct answer. They make it wrong and then it gives the correct answer. The courses are completely example driven. There is no explanation. This website, to me, seems very useful for e-learning and practicing language that has already been studied. But it is not suitable for the beginners. I faced difficulty in learning completely foreign language with this app due to lack of explanation. There is no explanation of grammatical structure. Some words have more than one meaning and those are not explained.

While exploring, I was having a really hard time trying to figure out how each word is pronounced. There is no option of checking my own pronunciation. In my opinion, language learning should be through verbal interaction, which is not possible in this website. It only teaches me the pattern of word but I am not able to pronounce it which is the first and foremost use of a language. My improvement by exploring this website is, I can guess, I can match words but I cannot speak or write. The objective of language is to communicate but this website does not make me able to communicate through the language.

The main goal of learning a foreign language is to speak in that language. there is no speaking activity from the very primary level. So sounds are very difficult to utter and to remember for me. If pronounce the word as it spelt, it becomes awful. Because it is not even near to the exact pronunciation.  

Another thing is, all the instructions are in English. So, this app is only helpful for the people who know English. For the rest, this app is not going to help anymore.  

Once it sent me back after I had gone so far. There are too many levels in one category. It is tedious.

If the courses begin with the very basic level like sounds and alphabets, that would be better. There should have enough explanations for new words, grammars, sentence structures and so on. Levels can be educed in every category. There may have some more motivational phrase to motivate learners effectively. Motivation is really very important in learning a new language. There should have a system of recording the users voice to match it with the exact pronunciation which is given into the website.

Most people like me are not interested to learn how to read or write the language first but how to speak the language. It would be a lot better if the website focused more on how to speak rather than how to write or read it.

Language learning website is really a great idea for the modern people who are too much busy. It can help people a lot if necessary improvements are done.

I want to improve my writing. please give your valuable comment.