New opportunities and challenges of e-learning in English language training

Irina Malinina
National Research University Higher School of Economics
Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the Internet resources, tools and technologies that can be used in different types of e-learning of the English language. The paper also highlights the problems that are likely to occur when employing the technologies: a low level of information culture, technological hurdles, psychological unreadiness, and lack of motivation. The main purposes of the pilot project on implementing web-related technologies in the educational process are to:

• determine what Internet resourses will suit the standards of educational programmes for training in English as a second language;
• analyse the motivational state of students, their willingness to implement web-related technologies in the educational process and their expectations; and
• research the influence of web-related technologies on students’ motivation, and the results of training.

To gain a deeper insight into the chosen topic, different research methods were used, viz. a questionnaire survey, interviews and observation.

Participants in this pilot project considered the educational programme offered to be efficient, useful and beneficial. The most important advantage of e-learning is that it may be adapted to individual student’s needs and state of mind, and thus become more effective and motivating in all e-learning areas, ranging from simple vocabulary training to entire university programmes. The results indicate that the students in the experimental group gave a higher estimate of their professional foreign language abilities than those in the control group. The research shows the growing interest in using web-related technologies and increasing satisfaction among students with the learning process based on Internet resources.