Use of Technology in Arabic Language Teaching at the University of Dhaka: Observation and Recommendations

Abstract

Technology, comprising of science and engineering, is the basement of modern development in human civilization of this era. In the age of modern science, we are naturally accustomed to extensive use of technology in our daily life. The 21st century is considered as the blessing of ICT. All the sectors of a country such as education, health, agriculture, business, travel, transport, industry etc. cannot work appropriately without the use of technology. Many applications are now being used in all those sectors to automate the process and ease human life. Using technology in a particular task is saving much time that might take many hours or years to complete manually. In consequences, human activities have become very fast and efficient that they can spend their valuable time in other tasks. Educational Technology refers to the appropriate use of scientific or programmed tools which facilitate educators and learners to disseminate knowledge among wide range of people with efficiency and effectiveness, and create much learning stimulus as well. It aims to advance education easing the learning processes and expanding performance of the educational system(s) as it relates to effectiveness and/or efficiency. Modern educational technology tools are being developed embedded with AI, AR, and VR to ensure the best quality of educational tools so that it can engage teachers and learners collaboratively and efficiently to ease the teaching and learning process. As technology is improving continuously, and integrating with education, Educational Technology is emerging as a new field of study. Our attempts in this dissertation are to study and point out educational technology as an emerging field of study for knowledge and to study the status of using technology in Arabic language teaching at the university of Dhaka, as well as how the condition of Bangladesh be adapted to educational technology in education system. This dissertation consists of two main study points. The first point includes the study of educational technology and the condition of its use in Bangladesh and the second point includes quantitative data analysis and recommendations. Discussions have been divided into eight chapters. Each chapter goes with particular topic. Before starting all the chapters, we have mentioned The Holy Verse, Declaration, Certification, Table of Contents, Acknowledgement, Abstract, Introduction, Literature review, and Methodology. The Chapters are as follows: Chapter 1 discuses about the basic study regarding Technology including the definition of Technology, difference among science, engineering, and technology, different types of technologies, relation between language and technology, and about linguistics and language technology. Chapter 2 sheds light on Educational Technology with a broad discussion about the definition of Educational Technology, scope and goals of Educational Technology including the importance, theories, and practices of educational technology as well as comparative study of Educational Technology and Instructional Technology. Chapter 3 talks about two main components of Educational Technology, such as Hardware and Software including their huge discussion. Hardware discussion is equipped with explanation and familiarity of many latest educational technology devices. Software discussion includes why and who need to use educational technology software, trends in ET (Educational Technology), categories and types of ET and a popular list of Educational Technology software. Chapter 4 discusses broadly about the evolution of Web including the evolution of Web from Web 1.0 to Web 5.0 with their definitions, basic elements, characteristics, various gradual technological improvements, and future possible technologies. Chapter 5 discusses about the professional development of Teachers and about various challenges towards professional development of the teachers. Chapter 6 elaborates broadly about the Educational Technology in Bangladesh perspective. It includes the history of educational technology in Bangladesh, Growth of ICT education in various stages such as primary, secondary, diploma, and undergraduate levels. It also discusses about the latest development and changes in education system of Bangladesh with massive IT infrastructures and challenges in ICT of Bangladesh. Chapter 7 discusses the use of educational technology in Arabic language at the University of Dhaka, based on quantitative data analysis of survey questionnaire. It discusses about how investigation was designed and implemented in sample selection and data was collected. Then, it analyzed the survey responses and figured out the result into two sections such as Analysis of Teachers’ responses, and Analysis of Students’ responses based on the various categories of the questions.

In Chapter 8, recommendations of the research based on the data, collected from teachers and students, and descriptive and exploratory discussion of the secondary sources have been presented. Towards the end of the thesis we have presented the conclusion, list of tables, list of figures, appendices, and references. Appendices include the questionnaires used for survey campaigns, abbreviations, and indexes. Keywords: UTALT, Educational Technology, E-learning, Language Technology, Usage of technology, IoT, Semantic Web, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Distance learning, Sensory web, BS-1.