Online Resources and their Effect on the Four Skills in the EFL Classroom

Abstract

The past thirty years have seen increasingly rapid advances in the field of language learning, and the necessity to learn a foreign language with a limited amount of time or specific lifestyle, the appearance of the internet and technology has evoked a rich variety of online sources, for those who want to learn autonomously. Additionally, in the digital era, communication and new literacies, enable people to learn languages with different methods, applications, and materials Luzón & Ruiz-Madrid (2008). However, according to certain linguistics, such as Girón-García (2013), there are different learning styles and strategies that determine the ability of students to learn a second foreign language. moreover, another main factor that can discourage students to use these online resources is the inequality of language abilities; speaking reading listening and writing. Because of these reasons, it has been considered relevant to the aim of the present study. Hence, in this paper, six online platforms have been selected to be analysed with the main aim of organizing a table to reflect the skills that each resource may develop. these resources have been analysed thoroughly, taking into account; the student autonomy, their activities, the content, and the online tools or material offered in the platform. By so doing, it is intended to show which skills students are expected to improve depending on the online resource they use and whether these online resources are designed to develop one particular skill or different skills at the same time. Finally, it can be stated that the analysis of the collected data reveals that the majority of the platforms are designed to teach vocabulary and all of them make a significant contribution to the reading ability.