New perspectives on teaching and working with languages in the digital era

Abstract

Currently, there is an international change in education that includes the

development of new learning programmes and policies, such as (a)

bilingual education programmes, (b) the Bologna process, with an emphasis

on a more autonomous way of learning, or (c) the systematic evaluation

and assessment of students and educational results. These changes in the

educational situation require changing the way we learn, think and behave.

Thus have emerged several new scenarios and environments for teaching

and learning, such as blended learning, e-learning, ubiquitous learning or

incidental learning. All these new approaches put the focus on learners

and are intended to adapt to their needs and limitations. It seems that the

easiest way to implement these new approaches is to apply Information and

Communication Technologies (ICTs) to teaching and/or learning. This is the

main assumption underlying the research in important language teaching and

learning areas, such as Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and

Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL). This chapter (as well as this

whole volume) tries to show how this goal is currently being achieved.