The Peculiarities of Teaching Foreign Languages by Means of ICT

Abstract

The paper investigates the peculiarities of teaching foreign languages by means of ICT. In the course of a comprehensive study the most effective for the development of students’ linguistic and communication competence, the following types of ICT were singled out and analyzed: Internet-based project work, correspondence by e-mail, chat, blogs, wikis and podcasts and training programs on CD-ROM. The purpose of this article is to prove the effectiveness of teaching a foreign language by means of ICT. The theoretical, empirical and statistical methods have been used to reach the purpose. To check the effectiveness of applying ICT in teaching foreign languages empirical (diagnostic) methods such as testing, observation and discussion were used. The pedagogical experiment with the fourth year students of Simon Kuznets Kharkiv National University of Economics was conducted. The pedagogical experiment showed the effectiveness of developing foreign languages activity by means of innovative interactive teaching methods. The statistical methods helped to evaluate the results of the research. Using ICT is really topical since it helps to increase students’ level of a foreign language communicative competence and, respectively; will provide the improvement of existing pedagogical approaches to the development of foreign language communicative competence of future specialists in high school. Conclusion: ICT can’t replace traditional methods of teaching, but can create new environment and opportunities for the process of a foreign language acquisition; they have become an important educational tool that can be successfully operated in foreign language teaching.