Technology in Instruction

Abstract

Technology in English language instruction around the world is not isolated from the discussions of instructional technology in other education fields. While the major actors of this topic are teachers, students, and the technology itself, the concepts of digital divide, digital natives, and digital immigrants have always been influential in any attempts to integrate technology in English language instruction. The historical evolution of technologies and their uses in English language instruction show alignment with the evolution of the major language learning and teaching approaches, such as behaviorism, communicative language teaching, and sociocultural theory. While, in the past, the technology used in English language instruction was limited to tape recorders, cassettes, and TVs, many of today's classrooms have access to computer‐assisted technologies. As technologies afforded multimodality, human‐to‐human interaction, content creation on the Web, social networking, international collaboration, and real‐time communication, their use in English language classrooms became normalized.