Introduction: Language learning and technology

As Ray Clifford of the Defense Language Institute put it: ‘Computers will not replace teachers. However, teachers who use computers will replace teachers who don’t’ (quoted in Healey et al. 2008: 2). Technology, in some form or another, has been with the language teaching profession for many years, and teachers have succeeded to various degrees in integrating general or specific tools into their pedagogical practices. Technology-enhanced practices have revolutionised the ways in which we learn and teach languages. In the space of the last thirty years, the field of language learning and technology research and application has branched out to many areas, for example, interactive and collaborative technologies, corpora and data-driven learning, computer gaming and tailor designed tools, to name but some. However, the rate and extent of technological development over the past ten to fifteen years have been making it increasingly difficult for students, teachers and teacher educators to know what technologies to employ and how best to employ them in a global society of ever new and enhanced modes of communication.