For many second and foreign language learners, experience of the target language has traditionally been limited to opportunities created by the teacher in the classroom, drawing on such resources as textbooks, tapes or CDs, and videos. In recent years alternative modes of delivery in teaching have been developed such as distance learning and self-access learning, seeking on the one hand to economize on teaching resources, and on the other to recognize principles of learner-centeredness in teaching. However, perhaps the most dramatic changes in the mode in which second language teaching and learning is accomplished have come about as a result of developments in computer-based teaching and learning. The Internet in particular has become a new medium of communication that is shaping both the processes and the products of communication. Because computers have opened up new opportunities for communication between both learners and teachers and among second language users themselves, many language teachers see great potential in computer-mediated teaching and learning. The present book offers a comprehensive account of teaching that makes use of computers connected to one another in either local or global networks, network-based language teaching.

Although a number of recent books provide an overview of developments in computer-mediated language teaching, the present book has a wider agenda. It presents not only descriptive accounts of network-based language teaching in a variety of foreign and second language teaching contexts, but also careful empirical investigations of the nature and effects of such innovations.