An evaluation of the use of the internet for the purposes of foreign language learning

Abstract

Linguists involved in language teaching and thereby active in the promotion of communicative skills can not afford to by-pass the opportunities presented by developments in technology. As a result many linguists are keenly interested in using such developments in technology in the language classroom. While it is true that the approaches, interests and goals of language teachers/learners vary considerably from those of specialists from other disciplines, in a sense, any and all information available on the Internet is of interest to language teachers/learners. The difficulty or challenge which language teachers may face, however, is to adapt discrete methodological and pedagogical strategies to the use of new technologies in order to meet the language learners' requirements. In this sense, and in order to guarantee the maintenance of high academic standards while ensuring language acquisition, language teachers strive to integrate new pedagogical approaches in language classes and to introduce the principl...