The purpose of this study is to outline students’ attitudes towards ICT in the learning of English. The research was carried out as action research at a vocational high school in Sweden. The study aims at giving answers to the questions what the students’ attitudes towards ICT are, to what extent they think that ICT affects their learning and if ICT use changes their attitudes towards English. The students had little or no previous experience of ICT. For a period of two months, they used ICT in their English studies. This work was organized according to Svensson’s (2008) definitions ICT as a tutor, ICT as a tool and ICT as an arena, which are connected to behavioristic, cognitive/constructive and social constructivist/socio-cultural learning perspectives, respectively. For example, the students read and listened to texts online, wrote their own dialogues for a movie and maintained their own blogs. After each module, they evaluated the method and at the end of the project they were interviewed. The study shows that most of the students were positive towards ICT in learning English. They were most positive towards ICT as a tutor, which was interesting given that behavioristic ways of learning are often criticized by today’s scholars. Furthermore, the students claimed that ICT gives them new opportunities to learn. Not surprisingly, to learn in a way that suits the individual learner was seen as positive. They stated that it was difficult to comment on the impact that ICT might have had on their performance after such a limited period of time, but they indicated that they thought that they had improved at least a little. During the interviews, a few students claimed to have changed their attitudes towards English a little, in a positive way, but it was difficult to confirm this after such short time.

Abstract The aim of this study is to investigate some uses of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as a pedagogical aid for supporting students with difficulties in reaching the curricular goals in the school subject English. Special focus is on students with reading and writing difficulties and on students with a foreign background in the ninth grade of the compulsory school and in upper secondary school. The method of investigation consisted of two parts: (a) interviews with eleven regular English teachers and with four remedial teachers about their experiences of using ICT as a pedagogical aid, and (b) an action study in which ICT-based activities were tested in a group of six students with difficulties in English. The results of the interviews showed that in the remedial classes ICT-based support was rather limited. The exceptions were students with severe reading and writing difficulties and other grave learning disabilities. These students were offered greater access to various technical aids and systematic support. For dyslexic students various ICT tools often proved to be an effective and indispensable support in their learning. In non-remedial English lessons, the use of ICT was somewhat greater. Here teachers used ICT as a pedagogical aid for the benefit of all students. The computer was considered to be a good support for project writing as it provided the students with a huge database, with online dictionaries and with a spell checker. The results of the action research showed that students were positive about communicating in English via ICT and they showed great interest in other activities facilitated by technology, such as training grammar, vocabulary, and reading. In conclusion, these surveys generated results similar to those of other studies, showing that although ICT can be an effective pedagogical aid in supporting students with difficulties learning English, it is not presently being used to its full potential.

<p>The purpose of this study is to outline students’ attitudes towards ICT in the learning of English. The research was carried out as action research at a vocational high school in Sweden. The study aims at giving answers to the questions what the students’ attitudes towards ICT are, to what extent they think that ICT affects their learning and if ICT use changes their attitudes towards English. The students had little or no previous experience of ICT. For a period of two months, they used ICT in their English studies. This work was organized according to Svensson’s (2008) definitions <em>ICT as a tutor</em>,<em> ICT as a tool </em>and<em> ICT as an arena</em>, which are connected to behavioristic, cognitive/constructive and social constructivist/socio-cultural learning perspectives, respectively. For example, the students read and listened to texts online, wrote their own dialogues for a movie and maintained their own blogs. After each module, they evaluated the method and at the end of the project they were interviewed. The study shows that most of the students were positive towards ICT in learning English. They were most positive towards ICT as a tutor, which was interesting given that behavioristic ways of learning are often criticized by today’s scholars. Furthermore, the students claimed that ICT gives them new opportunities to learn. Not surprisingly, to learn in a way that suits the individual learner was seen as positive. They stated that it was difficult to comment on the impact that ICT might have had on their performance after such a limited period of time, but they indicated that they thought that they had improved at least a little. During the interviews, a few students claimed to have changed their attitudes towards English a little, in a positive way, but it was difficult to confirm this after such short time.</p>

<p><strong>Abstract </strong></p><p>The aim of this study is to investigate some uses of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as a pedagogical aid for supporting students with difficulties in reaching the curricular goals in the school subject English. Special focus is on students with reading and writing difficulties and on students with a foreign background in the ninth grade of the compulsory school and in upper secondary school. The method of investigation consisted of two parts: (a) interviews with eleven regular English teachers and with four remedial teachers about their experiences of using ICT as a pedagogical aid, and (b) an action study in which ICT-based activities were tested in a group of six students with difficulties in English. The results of the interviews showed that in the remedial classes ICT-based support was rather limited. The exceptions were students with severe reading and writing difficulties and other grave learning disabilities. These students were offered greater access to various technical aids and systematic support. For dyslexic students various ICT tools often proved to be an effective and indispensable support in their learning. In non-remedial English lessons, the use of ICT was somewhat greater. Here teachers used ICT as a pedagogical aid for the benefit of all students. The computer was considered to be a good support for project writing as it provided the students with a huge database, with online dictionaries and with a spell checker. The results of the action research showed that students were positive about communicating in English via ICT and they showed great interest in other activities facilitated by technology, such as training grammar, vocabulary, and reading. In conclusion, these surveys generated results similar to those of other studies, showing that although ICT can be an effective pedagogical aid in supporting students with difficulties learning English, it is not presently being used to its full potential.</p>