The first case study is one example of how some English language teachers are
opening up their classrooms to the real world and inviting guest speakers to engage
their learners through intercultural telecollaboration. Hoffman identified this ability
to link language learners with other language users as being possibly ‘the most
compelling appeal of computer networks’ because it offers learners ‘the exposure
48 | Integrating technology into secondary English language teaching to authentic communicative language use that is so often missing in the micro-world
of the classroom’ (Hoffman, 1996: 68).