Future Opportunities for Learning English Through New Media and E-Tools

Abstract

This paper seeks to present some of the effects the new media and e-tools usage have on learning styles in the context of foreign language education, with an emphasis on the English language, which is the most widely learned and used 'foreign language' in Europe. In connection with this, the notions of 'international English', along with 'English as a lingua franca', 'British English', 'American English' are explored to verify their functionality within the European space. The hypothesis is that the increased use on a large scale of social media (such as facebook and twitter), as well as the widely spread educational e-tools, affect the way people select and design their educational strategies in general, and in particular their English language learning strategies. In order to verify this hypothesis a small scale survey was conducted within the Bucharest University of Economic Studies among students and staff on how they use the new media and technologies in formal and informal language learning and on the effects of this usage on how they learn English. The results, presented in the paper, were collected by means of a questionnaire and informal discussions. Also this paper presents some of the possible future opportunities, as well as future challenges that the inclusion of the use of new media and technologies in educational policies may pose. The paper puts forward some ideas concerning assessment of English language proficiency and language competence acquired through formal, informal and non-formal learning, and questions the usefulness of the existing systems and mechanisms designed to recognize and certificate language proficiency, while also making suggestions on ways to improve them.