Virtual Classrooms in the EFL Classrooms

   Last week, we had  a virtual classroom on 24 Febayray 2014 it was about "How Does Arabic Influence the Pronunciation of English?" by Miss. Peggy Tharpe. It was for one hour and with few number of people, only 15 students and 2 teachers were there Dr.Hala and Ms.Amal. Peggy explained why Arab people faced difficulties to reach the native speaker’s accent, English and Arabic language have differences on phonological, consonants and vowels. Also, there are differences in terms of the stress patterns systems. For example, L1 speakers do not differentiate between /p/ and /b/ in L2 such distinction is not available in their L1. However, She believed that an active listening skill very important to differentiate between the almost similar sounds this is the most effective solution for wrong Arab pronunciation.

      There are many advantages of Virtual classrooms. Firstly, it helps the learners to develop their language proficiency of the target language, maximize their knowledge about a particular issue, the teacher of L2 has different opinion from us, as a result the learners will build their own beliefs about the issue and improve their thinking skill. Moreover, Virtual classes can be reached any time of the day by the student, teacher can create his own virtual classroom. In addition,The teacher is availabe when help is needed like the classroom.

    

  However, virtual classrooms have also disadvantages as any other techniques of teaching, which mainly determined by the context where learning will take place. First of all, Not all schools have the technology, cost of the technology, lack of development of appropriate instructional and learning methods, lack of motivation to use such type of learning by the studnts. In addition, some students doesn’t have computer in their home.

  Finally, I think virtual classrooms is useful if internet connection was high, good sound system and appropriate size of screen. But the most important thing if the students were really interested of using this technique and being active with such classes. If I were a teacher I would absolutely use virtual classes whenever I need.