Impact of ICT in teaching language

towards a change of paradigm in a COVID-19 context

Abstract

We are indeed living unprecedented times at present. The current state of affairs has forced the school to re-adapt in-class teaching to virtual learning environments. But many teachers feel this is a downturn: the shift from attendance-based schooling to out-of-the classroom education has required teachers to undertake new teaching formats which cannot parallel the teacher-student relationship in the classroom. As teachers and researchers, we know that every crisis brings challenges and we can eventually learn from them. And we can learn from these formats, too. When it comes to teaching language and literature, there is a deep-rooted belief that these subjects bear a conflicting relationship between them. Accordingly, we accept as true that syntactic analysis and verb conjugation exclusive to language, and reading and comprehension are exclusive to literature. But the true fact is that these subjects go hand in hand. This is a direct consequence of the fragmentation of knowledge. Fragmented knowledge affects every level of knowledge, particularly high school level knowledge. But fragmented knowledge can also be found in the relationship which may exist between a mother tongue and a second language if we think of them as two separate, self-contained entities. It is at this point that we see the possibility to use a software tool and the contributions made by researchers who study the automatic processing of texts in order to bridge fragmented knowledge in a new school context.