Language Learning

Introduction The rapid technological evolution and growth of the Internet in the past few decades have strongly influenced approaches to teaching and learning. As Felix (2005) asserts, “over the past few decades [….], common adjectives attributed to both education and educational institutions are: flexible, inclusive, collaborative, authentic, relevant, global, and effective” (Felix, 2005, p. 86). Second-language teaching and learning methods are no exception. The possibilities offered by the Internet have led to the emergence of myriad websites, programs and online communities which provide synchronous and/or asynchronous language instruction to language learners worldwide. Being the leading language of international discourse and the third most-spoken language in the world [i] , the English language benefits from the rich repertoire of linguistic and interactional features available within the unlimited online language learning communities. There is muc...