Abstract:

A few years ago, the use of ICT in education was not as widely spread as we thought among University courses. In the language classrooms, students were starting to use power points to improve their oral presentations, to make use of the different resources at the Language Resource Centers, and to familiarize with instructional web sites as part of their course programme. Virtual Learning environments were used, on the one hand, as a support to revise the concepts studied in class and on the other hand, as a way of learning autonomously. Today, Instructional web sites have become a necessary tool for both teachers and students in higher education and virtual classroom environments are taking over traditional classrooms. In this paper, we analyze the advantages and disadvantages of using a virtual learning environment as a support for a university language course and how it changed teacher-students relationships.

Keywords:

Virtual learning environment, ICT, university language course.