SHS Web of Conferences 88, 02005 (2020) https://doi.org/10.

1051/shsconf/20208802005
LLT Forum 2020

Technology-assisted foreign language learning

(TALL) in the digital age

Anna Melkonyan1, and Armine Matevosyan 2

1
Moscow State Pedagogical University, Malaya Pirogovskaya Str., Moscow, 119991,
Russia Federation
2
Yerevan State University, Alex Manoogian st.,1 Yerevan 375049, Armenia

Abstract.The article goes along the lines of language learning in the digital
age. Technology and the advancement of digital media not only have the
potential to change the way we learn languages, but also the way foreign
language teachers learn to teach. Managing learning platforms, using
learning software and educational apps effectively, designing complex web
–based tasks are just a few examples of digital media use in the foreign
language instruction of today’s schools. The article aims at showing of what
types of skills and knowledge language teachers need to become digitally
literate. Also we will focus on some challenges that an educator faces while
teaching foreign language in the digital age.

1. Introduction

The rapid development of new technology and its worldwide application in education calls
for innovative methods and approaches in teaching and learning language in the digital
age. The role of technology in the learning process offers wide opportunities to satisfy
needs of students. Technology is changing the way language is taught and learned as
well as our perceptions and conceptual understandings.
Increased usage of technology provides opportunities for multiple learning styles,
and multiple modes of communication, interaction, and understanding. Research reveals that
students exposed to multimedia materials are more apt to stop, reflect and edit their
materials (Nutta, 2002). Innovative digital devices and platforms are enhancing foreign
language teaching and learning in classrooms as well as creating new spaces inside and outside
of the classroom.
Thus, for the foreign language teacher it is of paramount importance to implement digital
tools which will enhance students’ learning experience, expand their technology
infrastructure. To become more competent and digitally literate educators need to develop
special knowledge , a set of skills and a positive attitude toward digital media use. Provided
that teachers have skills and knowledge regarding technology use they still face the
challenges of selecting appropriate content and tools for their teaching. The key for
successful technology use lies in teacher education.

 Corresponding author: [email protected]

© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
SHS Web of Conferences 88, 02005 (2020) https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20208802005
LLT Forum 2020

2 Digital tools in the academic environment

There are various technological opportunities which can be implemented by teachers.
They should be carefully chosen in learning. .
The Smartboard, an interactive whiteboard, motivates students’ learning through interaction
and promotes willingness to engage in classrooms. Its interactive projection display creates
scenarios for language learning (Saine, 2012). Digital markers allow multiple learners to
collaborate during storytelling. Notes on the smartboard can be saved on computer in digital
format.
Content management systems (CMS) such as Moodle, Blackboard, E-learning, Brain
Honey are widely utilized for middle school up to university language courses . These
CMSs extend learning time and allow students to organize their assignments and track
learning goals flexibly outside of class (e.g., taking online quizzes, using discussion boards,
journals, and audio-visual-text materials). Moreover, these CMSs allow students to use laptop
and smart phone to access course syllabi, calendars, discussion board, and their grade book
anywhere and anytime (Wang, 2012).
Mobile devices make language learning portable. Online dictionaries (e.g., Pleco, Power
Word) allow students to hear how the word is pronounced, see animation of how it is
written, read examples of how it is used in sentences, as well as watch videos of how it is
used in real life situations.
Language cellphone games (e.g., Chinese Skill) enable students to learn vocabulary,
pronunciation and sentences, and entertain the learning experience. Through smart phone
text message polls and mobile voting , instructors can engage students in sharing their
opinions about topics, quickly assess students’ learning, and display percentage results on
the screen for immediate feedback. With mobile voting, students can find out whether they
answered the question correctly and the teacher can also review global classroom student
performance results.
Social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), blogs, video-sharing websites and
website builders enable students to absorb vast audio-visual information as well as display
their creative work. The video chat and text chat function allows foreign language learners
to partner with native speakers outside the country and practice speaking online.
Wireless internet and smart phone camera also allows learners to stream video images.
Website content builders such as Weebly, Worldpress allow instructors and students to
easily develop websites without programming skills. These types of digital software devices
and apps also permit individualized and differentiated language instruction at the student’s
pace as well as in cooperative and collaborative formats, especially in mixed-level FL
classrooms.
In the digital age, geographic distances, which were once barriers for face-to-face foreign
language classes, can be bridged through online and distance learning. Teachers,
students, and technology support staff can attend the same class without being at the
same geographic location.
Video conferencing software (Adobe Connect, Zoom, Skype, Microsoft teams) have
revolutionized foreign language teaching and learning. Video conferencing provides virtual
platforms that can be utilized to practice and reinforce what is learned collaboratively in the
classroom. It permits authentic tandem language learning with peers and overcomes the
limitation of the traditional foreign language classroom—the ability to invite learners
unable to attend face-to-face learning class (Hubbard, 2009; Zarotsky & Jaresko, 2000). As
we see, videoconferencing expands the scope of cross-language communication and
human interaction as well as increases the speed of language transfer (e.g. novel word and
expression development, language borrowing, and gesture cognizance). These immediate

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technological connections promote classroom diversity and offer new approaches for
working with diverse global learners.
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been developed for network learning
associated with self-regulated study, peer sharing, and collaboration (McAuley, Stewart,
Siemens & Cormier, 2010). MOOCs allow unlimited users to get free access to the course
online to support study specific topics as well as “offer extensive diversity, connectivity
and opportunities for sharing knowledge” (Mackness, Mak, & Williams, 2010, p. 266).
From the above mentioned we apparently see that in order to facilitate all students’ foreign
language learning in the digital age, the trend of new technology development in the 21st
century requires educators to be fluent in the use of technology. However they should also
be aware of the knowledge and background of their learners (Wang, 2012; Wang, 2015).
Technology should be a tool to enhance not a means to enforce how students learn.
When language classes become global through Internet technologies, course designers
and instructors need to take accessibility factors in curricular design. Online technology has
the potential to provide equitable access to language,heritage language,and dual language
for remote and disadvantaged learners; access to learners in remote places via wireless
network or Internet narrows the divide between those in privileged circumstances and
others from disadvantaged situations. The mobile phone is the tool that is providing more
access to people and information than other sources, such as computers (Blinn-Pike,
2009). Thus, a goal for educators would be to utilize this approach in formal face-to-face and
online learning situations since the phone is generally the most accessible and affordable
device for language learners. Informally, the cell phone connects learners with one
another to maintain heritage language or learn others through free apps such as Skype.
Congruently, educators need to consider students’ prior linguistic and cultural knowledge as
potential and free resources for language maintenance and authentic interaction, which can
supplement formal foreign language learning in and outside of the classroom (Young &
Helot, 2003; Winstead, 2013).
High demand for not only linguistic but cultural knowledge is being recognized in
corporate industry (Grosse, 2004, 2010; Kramsch, 2005). Foreign language educators,
correspondingly, need to recognize diverse students’ prior language and cultural
background knowledge as potential resources for language opportunities (Derderian-
Aghajanian & Wang, 2012). Technology enhanced environments have expanded the way
language learners background can be utilized as potential resources in technology-enhanced
learning environments. Educators can create online liaisons, utilizing mobile devices,
between these individuals to enhance language exchange. Providing native language
speakers with online communicative practice leads to more accessible and more
equitable opportunities for learners who are socioeconomically disadvantaged but want to
learn a foreign language with a native speaker. Online technology provides tandem formats
for dual and plurilingual language exchange and provides opportunities for authentic
interaction among native speakers.
After celebrating the surprises that technologies have brought to human society in the
st
21 century, educators and researchers should look back at the glory of the less digital
side of human society. When humans are too busy learning new things, there is little time to
think about the human aspects that may disappear in the digital age. Without reflection upon
how digital technologies reshape human society it is difficult to understand how aspects of
language and culture might be lost or replaced
Thus New digital culture and language can influence face-to-face as well as online social
interaction. Although children who have broad accessibility to technology (e.g., Warcraft,
Facebook, YouTube, Youku) may spend most time socializing online instead of in real life
(Gee & Hayes, 2011). From teenagers to adult couples, mobile devices allow users to enjoy
digital intimacy near or far. Through the Internet, people may make friends globally with

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or without knowing the other party’s identity. Technology allows shy learners to interact
anonymously with humans. Social media may distance these users from family and friends.
People from all cultural backgrounds may be fascinated by what innovative technology has
brought to life yet may become bogged down in the ways digital culture overrides and
sometimes replaces aspects of their traditional culture and socialization modes. How does
technology impact language evolution?
There is one more negative aspect - The shaping power of technology on interrelation in
human society deconstructs our traditional cultural behaviors and interactions. Technology
provides innovative means for communication and opportunities to mirror the cultural
background of particular languages being learned. Translanguaging and code-switching
languages have been utilized as a term to describe how speakers of two languages and
bilinguals may insert words from two or more languages (Garcia & Wei, 2014).
Currently, technologies are utilized as facilitators in various language learning classroom
contexts . In the future, will technologies replace the human language instructor? Where does
technology drive humans’ role in a technology-dominant society? With more human labor
being replaced by machines to manufacture products, to help customers check out in stores,
robots to monitor phone calls, software conducting translations, and virtual guides touring
visitors at museums, concerns arise about how and where technology will drive the role of the
human. This is a thing that worries us and we should always remember about a human factor
in all these aspects.

3 Digital Colonization: Replacement of Human Learning

While technology has not replaced humans in language education, the next generation
of technology is under research and has the potential to replace humaninstructors. With
awareness and self-education in technology, some language educators may feel hesitant
to adopt technology due to fear about being replaced by it. Schools and universities provide
benign opportunities for technological professional development so that professors can
convert their current on-campus courses into online formats. This reveals a new feature of
technology-driven education. Developing an online language course requires a lot of expertise
and effort in not just language but also technological know-how. The course might be
equipped with vivid videos and animations, free resources for self-exploratory education
and other engaging technologies. Once the course is developed, it requires less from the
instructor who may only be needed to facilitate and manage the course when technologies
fall short of human intelligence or aspects of the program become outdated, or where
human technologies.
Since well-developed courses can be shared as well as assigned to those that have
less experience (e.g., teaching assistants), and the university’s ownership of intellectual
property of the course has the potential to cause barriers in the language
instructor or language developer’s job relocation, those who invest huge amounts of time
and knowledge to develop courses may begin to feel used and under paid for their efforts.
Course developers’ intellectual rights are not addressed or protected and they may be
considered obsolete once the course and format is in place, losing their position and the
course they built. Technology course building benefits institutions in a transition from
education to business by reducing the budget of human labor. Since technology can be
duplicated at low cost, time will only tell how positions might be eliminated.
The tech-industry drives education towards an unclear future. Artificial intelligence
advances reveal, for the first time, how an AI machine can compete and even beat a human
at a Go board game (Chappell, 2016; Shang-hun & Mar- koff, 2016) reflective of notions
of more advanced robotic abilities as similarly suggested in the movie Terminator. While
it takes humans many years to learn a language, it may take a robot just seconds

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to be programmed or reprogrammed. The learning speed of humans may fall behind that
of future technologies. Robots are designed with efficiency, fast speed, and duration
and even attractive appearance to overcome human shortcomings (Goodrich & Schultz,
2007; Russell & Norvig, 1995). From a robotic perspective, human time spent on rest, love,
encouragement, and entertainment may be viewed as a waste or flaw in design. The danger of
this machinery mindset is that society may become de-humanized when humans are
expected to function efficiently as robots while robots function as autonomously and
intelligently as humans. Should human and computer robots become rivals, a widening
divide will emerge between TALL and human-facilitated language learning and technology-
dominated instruction. The potential human-AI conflict is just a reflection of human society
conflict. If humans cannot overcome their own shortcomings as a society, humans may carry
the same mistakes . When tension regarding resources and intelligence escalate, humans
may lose more than they wagered.
Standing the intersection of human language history, we should give language
teachers credit for their time, effort, patience, care, love, and other emotional and
intellectual investment in helping those who are disabled, newcomers, or just ordinary
learners become who they did not dream to become. Those educators are the first people
who welcome disadvantaged children such as refugees. Their effort to make those children
feel home in a new community is invaluable, and, most importantly, human. These human
aspects are what advanced technology can hardly surpass. Eye-contact, a smile, face-to-
face interaction, these simple moments bind the two individuals emotionally and
nonverbally. The uniqueness of feeling cared and loved cannot be duplicated. This is the
authenticity of human society as well as the originality of language learning.

4 Conclusion
Thus, technologies can have the potential to promote human gain. The following above
mentioned examples reveal how language teaching and learning supported by technology
can provide authentic and real-time human- to-human scenarios that benefit and support
language practice, development and acquisition. We just need to be mindful and not blind to the
potential of technology to provide benefits to human learning, language preservation and
maintenance. And, most of all, that we are still able to provide a human touch. To gain success
in foreign language teaching through educators we need to implement various technological
tools in the learning process. It will facilitate all students’ foreign language learning in the
digital age.

Acknowledgements
This paper was financially supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, grant
№ 20-012-22046.

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