Out of the many streams of Computer-Assisted Language Learning, Internet-based teaching has been to some extent underestimated, with more research interest devoted to Computer-based Multimedia, Computer-Mediated Communication, Corpus-Based Teaching or Computer-Adaptive Testing, to name just a few. The context of the use of the Web as a teaching medium for face-to-face in-class teaching still needs description, investigation and reflection, in order to arrive at sound pedagogical solutions properly integrated with the main curriculum. Thus, this problem, together with some others, is central in the current issue of Teaching English with Technology, A Journal for Teachers of English, represented by the majority of publications in the current volume. Quite a strong focus on the applications of the Internet in face-to-face classroom teaching has been one of the concerns of the editorial board of the Journal, and has been exemplified, among others, by the prominence of the Internet Lesson Ideas (formerly Internet Lesson Plans) section.

Thus, starting the discussion of some of the problems of Internet-based teaching, Randall Davis, in the article entitled "Utopia or chaos? The impact of technology on language learning”, reflects on the pedagogical use of the Internet in the classroom, starting with a historical perspective on computers and proceeding to practical ideas on improving successful integration of the Internet and language teaching. The author, renowned multimedia content developer, makes interesting openings into the issues of sifting through online content, installing applications and determining learning outcomes. The other article in this issue, “Guidelines for Internet-based teaching” by Christopher Alexander, further explores the area of Internet-based teaching, presenting a research study with the aim of describing and interpreting the key issues ESOL teachers faced over a five-to-seven-month period using the Internet, analysing how and/or why such issues affected teacher awareness of Web-based teaching and determining how these might be addressed. The practical guidelines stemming from the research will surely be of help in designing and implementing Internet-mediated lessons.

On the level of lesson design, Internet-based teaching can be observed in a lesson plan “April Fool’s Day” by Katarzyna Szewczyk, where students develop reading comprehension skills in the online environment, with the other aim of acquiring intercultural competence necessary in becoming a successful language learner.

The Internet and ESP section features an article “A corpus-based focus on ESP teaching” by Alejandro Curado Fuentes. The study describes the main results derived from one year of teaching ESP with a focus on electronic corpora, pointing to the observation of positive and negative factors in terms of language acquisition, leading to the planning and design of corpus technology priorities. It is especially interesting to follow the procedures of corpus compilation, course preparation and materials development, sufficiently exemplified by the resources found in the Appendix.

In the On the Web section there are two contributions relating to various EFL resources available online: Maria Teresa Ciaffaroni makes an evaluative review of three EFL portal sites (Dave’s ESL Cafe, LearnEnglish and English-Zone), confronting them with some general criteria, based on SLA principles, and some specific ones, to establish whether they may provide any added value compared to currently published materials. On the other hand, Maria Victoria Fernandez, in her article “More on legal English on the Web”, provides a summary of websites potentially useful for non-native speaker students of English for law.

The final section of the current issue of the Journal, A Word from a Techie, covers two important, yet distinct, areas. One is the phenomenon of texting, or abbreviated form of email and mobile phone communication, which is beginning to gain ground in the language classroom. The issue is addressed by Neil McBeath, who details the process of familiarising English for military purposes learners with e-mail writing and texting. In the other contribution, “Feed my RSS: Using RSS feeds in writing classes”,  Stan Bogdanov gives a tutorial into enhancing the writing instruction with Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds, to motivate learners to better quality writing output by enabling a more effective delivery and publishing of online content.

It is hoped that a great diversity of topics and issues covered in the Journal articles will stimulate readers to their personal endeavours with educational technology, resulting in innovative classroom ideas, lesson plans and entire technology-assisted curricula.

I wish you all good reading.