IT competency standards for English language educators: confronting new realities

Abstract

The nation's aspiration to produce knowledge workers for the future calls for immediate plans and effort in building one's competency in using the information technology. Educators are the catalyst in shaping the knowledge workers of the future and their competence in using IT is crucial in order to uphold tH1s task. The use of computer technology in education poses new teaching challenges and many educators are expected to be able to use computer for instruction and learning, management and also for action research (Forcier 1999, Warschaeur and Kern 2000).

These new challenges and demand posit by the utilisation of technology calls for this study to identify the IT competency standard for Malaysian language educators. This paper will firstly discuss the need for language educators to be IT competent and describe a research-based IT standard for language teachers that involves not just information literacy that is the ability to find, organise and make use of information but also ability to read and write, to conduct consultation, assessment, and communication online. This paper proposes the standard as a guideline in assisting language educators confront the new realities of the information technology and a contribution in producing the knowledge workers for the nation.