Surfing the Global Network! How to Incorporate ict and Social Media in Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages

Abstract

The paper explores the use of Internet and social media in practical language teaching and learning. Nowadays there are many ICT applications and tools that can be used for language educational purposes but teachers should be able to select which one really make the learning process more effective.The paper is divided into four sections. The introduction is followed by presentation of new interactive tools for practicing oral production and interaction in foreign language that were created within the framework of the SpeakApps project. The project was funded by the European Commission within the Lifelong Learning Programme with its main purpose being to provide holistic ICT-based services and pedagogies to practice oral competencies online.Next section addresses the practical use of the Internet resources for developing writing and reading skills. As the conclusion the scenario of foreign language lesson with the use of ICT is provided as a sample. The scenario was designed for students who are learning Polish as a foreign language but can be easily adopted to teaching any other language.