ICT and Language Teaching in the Moroccan EFL Classroom: Perceptions, Obstacles and Strategies

The paper at hand presents a research study, carried out in three public high schools in Rabat, Morocco, which aims at exploring the perceptions of students and teachers as to the use of e-learning Learning tools in the language classroom, the challenges they meet and approaches to practically enhance the pedagogical use of e-learning tools in language teaching. The study, adopting qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, interviewed 30 English teachers and administered a five-point Likert scale questionnaire with 40 high school EFL learners. A coding system was used to analyze the qualitative data and the Microsoft Excel program was used for the quantitative data, the main techniques used here were percentages and mean scores. The study has come out with the findings that both the teachers and learners have the perception that ICT integration in EFL learning helps the latter control and determine their learning processes, that it paves the way for a diversification of activities and course content, nurtures intrinsic motivation for learning, empowers students to interact effectively with others, develops crucial study and research skills, and facilitates the task for teachers to have more student-centered and content-based forms of teaching. However, many students and teachers have reported that excessive use of ICT may stand to the detriment of language learning. The paper also investigates three types of challenges that stand in the way of ICT success, technical, administrative and pedagogical. The main obstacles reported are marginally less technologically sophisticated facilities, unreliable and outdated technology, little and poor experience of teachers with technology compared to students, a significant need for time required by instructors to adapt their instructions for electronic transmission of knowledge, and the lack of local e-learning resources to administer real-time classes and electronic assessments. The principal conclusion of the study is that ICT has been proven to open the language teaching classroom onto newer horizons and that it needs to be integrated in the language classroom. However, another conclusion is that teachers and learners confidence in using technology should be raised, training, time and electronic resources could be the best remedies in this respect for better, long-term language learners.