Abstract:

The fundamental problem of language instruction is how to enable language learners to make sense of signs in a given target language. Working out that problem is crucial to a theory of how to employ various technologies. The latter range from the PC and its accessories to the information superhighway. Our question is how to conceptualize the use of such technologies in language instruction. In developing our theory, we are guided by past and present experience, and especially by previously attained successes in theory, practice, and research, but our view is toward the future. Our goal is to shape a conception that may help us to anticipate that future, perhaps to shape it, and, hopefully, at least to survive it. This presentation summarizes certain results from theory, research, and practice in technologically assisted language instruction aiming toward an integrated theory of what we are apt to be up to in the 21st century.1

Author: John W. Oller