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Teaching aids and equipment are absolutely essential parts of the classroom environment and lesson execution. They create an element of entertainment, diversify the teaching, and engage the students in a different way than a sole teacher with a blackboard can. We play audio recordings to practice listening skills, and find online resources for a broader selection of example tasks, sentences, dialogues etc. Using equipment and teaching aids make the lessons less monotonous, and adds an element of newness as well as giving the teacher a break from the strain of traditional teaching by having the students focus on something else. Equipment and teaching aids can be used in any phase of a lesson, although it might be best to refrain from using it in the engage phase, in which class discussion or a simple run through by the teacher would be enough. In the study phase, however, using electronic flash cards or letting the students complete online gap filling activities could be useful. If not, simply projecting a pre made graph or chart via a projector or smart board would if anything cut down the time used by the teacher to otherwise having to write or draw it by hand on a blackboard. Teaching aids, and especially equipment like tablets or smart phones, are very useful in the activity phase of a lesson. Students can participate in online quizzes like Kahoot, play educational online games, or do independent online research for group activities. Projectors, for example, are a wonderful tool to aid students when they hold presentations in the class, by displaying PowerPoints, videos or pictures. So, why is the blackboard not sufficient in a modern classroom? With children spending hours each day in front of a screen from as early as infancy, teaching them anything using a simple blackboard and chalk simply will not suffice. They are used to bright colours, interactive learning, constant sources of entertainment and a high level of independent involvement. As the technological revolution powers on, traditional education struggles to tag along. Just as soon as we got a hang of the overhead, the projectors were introduced. Not long after that, smart boards were installed in classrooms all over the world, confusing teachers everywhere. This course, for example, included a detailed description on how best to use a cassette recorder. That is a good example of how a seemingly well updated and relevant course is obviously outrun by new technology and methods. In conclusion, the good ole blackboard simply is not sufficient in a modern classroom. This is because the world itself, and dare I say especially the classroom environment, has gotten that much more advanced and involved in recent years. No matter how safe and reliable traditional blackboard teaching is, we have to adapt to the learners, and teach them what we can using ways they are familiar with. A child of the internet will not do well with old nursery rhymes, and they have probably never even seen a cassette recorder. This development makes the use of teaching aids and equipment that much more important, because the dynamics of a lesson almost definitely require a non traditional element.
