On the one hand, we are going to talk about the development of the strategic competence which fosters the students’ autonomy. The education policy of many English departments continues to be the fostering of the students’ capacity to learn on their own. The main aim is for the students to be more responsible for their own learning so that they make good use of every opportunity to practice English in class and, mainly, out of class, to learn more quickly and to use that learning to communicate in real life. Once teaching stops, further learning has to be autonomous. Autonomous learning can be promoted if ‘learning to learn’ is regarded as an integral part of language learning, so that learners become increasingly aware of the way they learn, the options open to them and the alternatives that best suit them.
On the other hand, we have to talk about the importance of new technologies. The emergence of important new classroom technologies such as electronic blackboards, computers and the Internet have plenty to offer today’s teacher and students. Technology can be used as an effective teaching tool for English language learners. Teachers can help English language learners develop their language skills through the use of technology. Students learning a new language need as much support as possible; any language support is helpful for their language acquisition. English language learner (ELL) students need a variety of experiences; they need to hear language, write language, speak language and read language. Computers can play an integral part in providing ELL students with valuable language experiences as they learn a new language.
One way to foster the students’ autonomy and to promote the use of new technologies is to encourage our students to practice English through the Internet. In this paper, we will show how computer-assisted instruction can be a supplemental teaching tool for teaching English language learners while fostering the students’ autonomy and promoting the use of new technologies, and we will illustrate it with a selection of different websites to exercise the contents in an English as a foreign language syllabus for the Official Language School.