Abstract:

Over the past two decades, “technology-enhanced learning” (TEL) methodologies have become an important part of university teaching and learning. In recent years millions of dollars have been spent by universities on computer infrastructure and “blended learning policies” that have stressed the need to integrate ICT into all aspects of face to face teaching and learning as well as the student’s autonomous learning. In Australia these developments are taking place at a time when huge increases in connection speeds are being proposed by governments and this too has increased expectations for adaption and integration of internet based technologies in the education sector. Within the field of the teaching and learning of additional languages web 2.0 tools and mobile applicationss have enormous potential that has only partly been realised. The development of web 2.0 tools in language teaching and learning has the potential to greatly enhance the opportunities available for students to make meaningful use of their target language in real time contexts and increasingly, students are turning to the web for their own, independent, language learning

This paper will present research base on surveys and post-survey interviews with 50 senior undergraduate students completing courses in German as a foreign language. It will examine the affordances and hindrances to effective use of ICT by the students and the kinds of classroom activities that build their self-efficacy. The paper will also examine the students’ dispositions towards and their understandings of the concept of integration of ICT into their own language learning. Data relating to the factors students take into account when making judgements about particular applications and web sites will also be presented.

The main elements of the theoretical framework for this paper are drawn form Semour Papert’s notion of the ‘mathetic’, Bandura’s development of the concept of self-efficacy and Benson and Little’s work on teacher and learner autonomy in the context of the teaching and learning of an additional language.

Keywords:

Learner autonomy, languages education, mobile technologies.