in the educational process can have positive effects on individualization and differentiation, creative activity, visuality, transition to self-education, and wider use of research and search methods. This might explain the wide use of ICT in education nowadays, but requires also a careful analysis and understanding of these technologies, their potential and especially the ways of applying them in the educational process. If the educational process is seen as a didactic system with elements, such as goals, content, forms and methods, ICT can act as an important part of this system. With this in mind, the didactic integration of ICT as “an ordered set of actions for the use of computer and telecommunication means (search, delivery, transmission, storage, processing and display of information) aimed at formation and using knowledge and skills” (Yakushina 2010: 11) in the educational process in general and in the foreign language teaching in particular has to be considered in detail.
The integration of ICT in the process of teaching foreign languages should have following main didactic tasks (Vyzova 2012: 83):
formation and improvement of language skills and the skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening;
expansion of active and passive vocabulary;
acquisition of cultural knowledge; and
formation of group work skills.
In this context, following didactic-methodological functions should be involved, when integrating ICT in the process of foreign language teaching (Kupriyanova 2001:
32-36):
Information: Information frames, i.e. basic information for the presentation of a new study material, and/or information support frames, i.e. hints and explanations during exercises, should be included. Nevertheless it has to be noted, that the possibilities of such a reference mode are limited by the framework of educational material, i.e. texts and exercises incorporated in the training programs.
Training: The purpose should be building strong skills with following advantages over traditional training: an unlimited amount of time, complete impartiality, objectivity and unlimited patience.
Control: Current and final control of the results of educational activities should be involved. The advantages of this kind of testing can include the implementation of differentiated and individual approaches in the conditions of the frontal control, objectivity of control, as well as reduction of time spent on monitoring and processing the results.
Communication: The opportunity to communicate in foreign chats with native speakers should be provided.
To achieve the above-mentioned didactic tasks, ICT provides different didactic features, which Robert (2008: 9) distinguishes as follows:
immediate feedback between the user and ICT tools, determining the implementation of the interactive dialogue;
visualization of educational information about the studying object; e.g. visual representation on the screen of the object and its constituent parts or their models, the process or its model, and graphical interpretation of the studied patterns;
modeling and interpretation of information about the studied or investigated objects, their relationships, processes, and phenomena both real and virtual;
archiving and storing large amounts of information with the possibility of easy access to it, its transmission, and its replication;
automation of computational processes, information retrieval system activities, as well as processing the results of a learning experiment with the possibility of multiple repetitions of a fragment or the experiment itself; and
automation the processes of information and methodological support, as well as organizational management of educational activities and monitoring the results of learning.
According to Titova (2004: 49), in turn, the didactic features of ICT are based on the two most important didactic-methodological functions, information and communication, and are manifested at all stages of the educational process from the presentation of educational information to its consolidation and control. In this view, Titova (2004: 50) outlines the didactic features of ICT in foreign language teaching according to the ways of (1) presenting information, (2) working with information, (3) organizing the educational process, and (4) controlling and consolidating the material:
(1) Ways of presenting information:
multimedia:
- textual representation of information;
- visual representation of information (color, graphics, image, animation, video);
- sound representation of information (transfer of sound files);
- integrated representation of information (text, sound, graphics, video);
interactivity; and
non-linear text (hyperlinks).
(2) Ways of working with information:
search for information;
receiving and transmitting information;
storage of information;
classification and structuring of information; and
editing information.
(3) Ways of organizing the educational process:
possibility of organizing electronic conferences, including real time audio conferencing and video conferencing;
possibility of dialogue with any partner in real time and asynchronous;
ability to access various sources of information, including remote and distributed databases, numerous conferences around the world via the internet, and work with this information;
possibility of rapid transmission at any distance, any amount and any kind of information (visual and audial, static and dynamic, textual and graphical);
ability to create web courses, publish online individual tasks and exercises for students.
(4) Ways of controlling and consolidating the material:
more efficient memorization of information due to visualization through multimedia;
ability to control the activities of students synchronously and asynchronously through video and audio conferences, using e-mail and other web services (IRC, ICQ, IM, etc.); social services (weblogs, podcasts, social bookmarks);
and
possibility of automated testing and evaluation of test tasks of students.
In the context of the didactic integration of ICT in foreign language teaching the following organizational forms of work finally have to be distinguished and considered (Rychkova 2016: 47-48):
1. ICT as an additional technical tool in the classroom;
2. ICT for autonomous work in an individual mode;
3. ICT for collective creative work;
4. ICT for communication (e.g. e-mail); and 5. ICT for distance learning.