Anaheim University MA TESOL graduate Elke Damesyn gave a presentation on attitudes to technology in the classroom at a statewide California teachers’ conference in Santa Clara, CA in April.

Elke, 42, who graduated from Anaheim University in 2009, presented on “Teachers’ and Students’ Attitude towards Technology Use in the ESL Classroom.” Her presentation at the California Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (CATESOL) conference was based on research conducted for her Master’s thesis.

Elke’s thesis advisor Anaheim University TESOL professor and world-renowned linguist Dr. Kathleen Bailey, said: "It was delightful to see Elke's poster presentation at the recent statewide CATESOL Conference. She did a very professional job of sharing her ideas with the numerous visitors to her poster. Anaheim University students, professors and staff members can be very proud of the professional way in which Elke represented our TESOL program."

For the presentation, Elke surveyed nine teachers and 164 English as a Second Language students in courses at UC Davis Extension International English Program in California to find out attitudes to technology use in the classroom. Her study revealed that students and teachers were similar in preferring to use technology outside the classroom, but they differed when they used technology inside the classroom. The students are very knowledgeable about technology and prefer those teachers that use technology, but some teachers are insecure and unfamiliar about using it, she observed.

In particular, she found that students preferred using the Internet, MP3 for audio, and UC Davis’s own “Smart Site” website. On the other hand, teachers more frequently turned to the use of the Inte

rnet, DVDs, CDs, and videos.

Her research called for better teacher training in using technology and a better exchange of ideas among teachers about their own technology practices as well as more guidance on how to integrate technology in lesson planning more effectively.

Elke said she selected the topic of technology because, “I wanted to see what is out there in technology, to see where I needed to know more, and it is a very clear cut topic.” She added that her research helped her “to see how important it is to use technology more.”

Elke, who was born in Germany, has had a varied career which has spanned the globe. From 1989 to 1992 in Brazil, she studied plant and seed production on farms and at the Cacao Institute in Bahia. She also conducted soil research in the Amazon region. In 2000, she began teaching German to diplomats at the Foreign Service Institute in Washington, D.C., and later she moved to Southern Africa where she taught English to university students and oil company employees in Angola and taught German in Namibia. Elke now lives with her husband Mark and her two children Clarissa, 4, and Isabel, 1, in Davis, CA.