The Use of the Educational Function of Media in Foreign Language Teaching

Abstract

The use of mass communication in the field of foreign language teaching is not a new phenom-enon, because traditional media have been in use in this area for a few decades. Nowadays, however,several tendencies confirming the scale of this phenomenon can be observed. Mass media, and newmedia in particular, are used both in the process of self-education and as an important tool used byforeign language teachers. Technological progress, the communication revolution, the spread of theInternet, and the development of new media and mobile technologies offer modern and more effec-tive methods of language education. This article reviews the conditions relating to the relationshipbetween mass media and language learning, taking into account the possibility of using one of thekey functions of mass communication, namely its educational function. The authors, using literatureanalysis, defined and analyzed the causes of specific symbiosis between media tools and technolo-gies as well as the methodology used in the field of foreign language teaching.