L'ordinateur : médiateur ou concurrent de l'enseignant dans l'apprentissage des langues étrangères

Résumé Fr

In this article we investigate users'representations the digital world in the area of foreign language teaching and learning. Although digital technology has been omnipresent in this field for decades, the claim that it represents a competitor to teachers nevertheless persists. Drawing on the concept of mediation, understood as a tool but also as the synthesis of two thoughts and on research in language didactics (with a sociocultural, intercultural and linguistic approach), we analyse the discourse of users in the area of the computer-aided learning and teaching of English and French as a foreign language. Our study will show that, far from being a competitor, the computer can become a real ally, as long as it remains simply a mediational tool and that the embodied nature of all intercultural communication which is aimed at and afforded by foreign language learning is not neglected.