ADAPTIVE E-LEARNING IN THE PROCESS OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING

As far as contemporary pedagogy is concerned, ICT integration into education is no novelty. Results of a large number of researches conducted in this field prove that the appropriate use of information and communication technologies in education can lead to the improvement of the learning process, learning habits, and teaching processes. Apart from ICT integration into classic education, great attention is paid to the commonly realized form of education - so-called eLearning. This form of education is suitable and is becoming increasingly used in the following phases: instruction, practice, testing. The classic form of eLearning used for collective instruction has been developing toward the individualized approach to learning. Essentially, it means the coordination of the pace of education and the time and intellectual capabilities of students. As far as full-time education in classic classrooms is concerned, this approach is impossible to apply as it is not possible to approach each student individually. The teacher can adapt the education process in a way so it suits the majority of students in a classroom. They cannot, however, satisfy the needs of every individual. There are several ways to deal with the issue of individualization of education. As far as the technical viewpoint is concerned, the principles of neutron networks and expert systems can be applied. As far as the categorization of the view of a particular type of individualization is concerned, the learning process can be adapted according to different criteria, e.g. according to learning styles, multiple intelligences, special educational needs, talent, etc. The interconnection of eLearning and the requirement for personalized learning leads us to a new term - automatic adaptive learning. We asked ourselves a question whether the process of automatic adaptive learning (i.e. going through an electronic study course which suits students' preferences and learning styles) can be modeled. The optimal adaptive process will respect students' differences based on determined learning styles and with regard to their knowledge and skills as changed during the course. On the basis of identification of their personal characteristics and qualities (i.e. individual learning style), students will be presented with a study material which suits them the most. In this paper, the issue of adaptive eLearning is applied to the area of foreign language teaching. The paper includes basic solutions of the theory, its application to the area of foreign language teaching, and an introduction of the research that is being conducted at the Pedagogical Faculty of the University of Ostrava.