Internet-assisted College English Teaching in China

The prevalence of well-equipped multi-media classrooms in most Chinese universities has developed a new trend for college English teaching (CET): integrating Internet resources into actual classroom activities. Traditional CET curriculum was designed to teach one or two of the listening, speaking, reading or writing skills at a time. But the Internet-assisted CET has allowed the possibility for English language learners to acquire all 4 skills simultaneously: "integrated skills". To conduct an Internet-assisted CET class is now part of the role of college English teachers. In this paper, the authors intend to explore the extent to which easy access to the Internet, and more exposure to Internet resources will facilitate the development of integrated language skills and enhance the learning capacities of English language learners. Providing typical activities tailored to integrate Internet resources into college English classroom, the authors share their most effective methods with their counterparts all over the world. They also present the challenges college English teachers encountered and problems yet to be solved. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier B.V. Selection and peer review under responsibility of Information Engineering Research Institute