Internet-Based Real Time Language Education: Towards a Fourth Generation Distance Education

Through the examination of the development of distance education for foreign languages, this article puts forward a theory on the emergence of a fourth generation of distance language education, challenging the generally accepted three-generation theory. It is argued that with the use of Internet-based real time technology distance language learning becomes synchronous for the first time and that the immersion of distance and campus-based education into a new education system is inevitable.